Why In VC to Sales Pitches, Stage Presence Is Everything?
It’s odd how pitches permeated the VC world as they began in small-town carnivals and circuses. Mmmmm…
It’s the lack of rules, governance, or even manners that has taken “pitches” and burned out most parts of the business community.
From VCs to enterprise decision-makers, there’s a syndrome called “vendor burnout.”
It comes from witnessing a myriad of sometimes 100’s to 1,000s of vendor sales, funding, and idea pitches.
I think the vendors who do not recognize this are misjudging how their VC raises or inventors will view and judge them. They have burnout as well.
The reasons for this are:
- Formats are so typical they are boring: Powerpoints. And they drain the vendors in building them because of the huge amounts of details distilled down into quick points across typically, into too many slides.
- The emotional investment that tech vendors spend to build, practice, rehearse, and deliver “pitches” is enormous. Besides weeks or months of prep, they have to endure the ups and downs of burnout.
- On the flip side, they fail to walk a mile in the shoes that the audience (make or break their audiences) wears.
Here is where the break in the thought process is:
“Most investors when deciding which start-ups to back, they focus on interesting ideas, talented founders, and substantive business plans.
But across 12 studies, people could predict VC funding decisions based not on the actual content of entrepreneurs’ pitches but on how they were presented, especially body language and facial expression.”
The lessons from winning are:
- Entrepreneurs who pitch and WIN don’t use slides.
- Entrepreneurs with passion, engagement, & energy show their level of prep and commitment.
- Entrepreneurs get selected and win, less on gender, race, and appearance and more with powerful graphics that portray passion and energy.
For the vast majority of my sales, which spans 35 years with a career-high of $265MM in enterprise deals won, I have been known as having very high energy.
Over 90% of my CEO and Founder buyers commented on it noting my high energy and strong passion.
It is a pivotable moment when they decide to buy from me regardless of my content or presentation.
Excerpts were taken from: https://lnkd.in/dKEY4J5b.
This is an important topic because of the sheer magnitude of funding in the global startup ecosystems.
If you would like to see our Use Caes (free) on how to do well with this, happy to share. You can get me at ed@revenueaccelerators.com