It Takes More Than a Business Plan: Investors Expect A Strong Presentation

You've revised your business plan more times than you can count and made dozens of phone calls to interested parties, yet your effort to raise capital and bring your ideas to market could be blown in less time than it takes to read this article.

Recent research has confirmed that VCs and angel investors are not just interested in the content of your business plan, but also how you come across and how you convey your ideas.

The message from investors is clear: Presenting companies need to hone their presentation skills. Deals are killed and funding opportunities lost because of how business ideas and plans are presented.

Investors certainly expect to get a solid business plan, including a discussion of market size and opportunity, the competition, the management team and financials. But investors also expect this information to be presented in a clear, compelling, and succinct manner.

About 50 percent of the angel investors and venture capitalists surveyed report that deals they've been involved in have been killed during a presentation. Surprisingly, a deal is just as likely to be killed by the style of delivery as the content itself. Individuals with good ideas or new technologies lost investors because they didn't come across as credible or didn't convey passion in their idea.

Asked what drives them crazy about presenters, angels and VCs comment on a presenter's style and the clarity of their message. Research collected by 2Connect suggests that investors are driven crazy when the messages are unclear or exaggerated, and when presenters speak too quickly (or too slowly) and are not direct. Angel investors and VCs continue to indicate that presenters use too much jargon in their presentations and fail to simplify their messages and their visuals.

The advice for presenting companies is consistent: Deliver a clear, succinct and simple message. 2Connect's most recent research effort, in conjunction with UCSD CONNECT, focused on collecting data from angel investors and venture capitalists. Some of the questions asked include:

• What do presenters do that drives you crazy?
• Has a presenter ever killed a deal during their presentation?
   If yes, what did he or she do to kill it?

Diane West is president of 2Connect, a San-Diego based company specializing in presentation training and coaching. She can be reached at dwest@twoconnect.net or 858-638-7544.

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