The Art of the Pitch

Hi, I'm Guy Kawasaki. I am the chief evangelist of Canva and the creator of the Remarkable People podcast. In this video, I'm going to explain the art of pitching. Step number one, prepare. You need to study the potential investor and his or her firm. Go to LinkedIn, look at the firm's profile. Look at the people's profile. Go their social media. What you're trying to do is find hooks. Hooks where you can express that you went to the same school, you work for the same company, you know the same people. You're trying to rise above the noise. Number two, decide on one person to do the speaking. You probably think that investors invest in teams, therefore you're going to give everybody a speaking role. Not a good idea. The transition between speakers takes too much time and it's very awkward. Figure out one person who should do all the talking. The other people can help that person if there's a question that the person can't handle. But generally speaking, one person does the talking. Three, set the stage with some easy first questions, such as how long do I have? Are there any issues that you want me to be sure to cover? And one more which is, do you mind if we hold all the questions until the end? That way you'll probably have a more uninterrupted presentation. Number four is to catapult off the deck. Think of yourself as a fighter jet and you're flying off the deck of an aircraft carrier. You don't have two miles of Runway. You need to get get into the air very quickly or you will die. So catapult off in the first minute or so. Make sure they understand what the basic business is. Number five, pretend that there's a little person sitting on your shoulder. And every time you say something, that little person asks, so what? You make a statement like, we're cloud based. Little person asks, so what? Don't assume that when you say something like we're cloud based, that everybody understands the ramifications of being cloud based. Number six is to pitch constantly. When I make a keynote speech, I think it takes giving that speech 20 or 25 times before I really have it down to a science. Same thing is true with pitches going to take 20 or 25 times. Do not believe that you're going to rise to the occasion. So pitch to your friends, pitch to your employees, pitch to your spouse, pitch to your dog, do whatever it takes. But this is one case where quantity counts. Number seven is during the meeting when the investors are asking questions, making statements. Basically, you should shut up, take notes. And then regurgitate, I. E. Repeat and see if you understood what they were saying and asking. This has two very good effects. One is when you're taking notes, it makes you appear diligent. Second thing, you, believe it or not, may learn something. You want to write it down and keep it. So shut up, take notes, regurgitate, then follow up. You have about a 12 hour window to look really on top of things if there are questions and issues that you could not handle during the meeting. Follow up if there are things you thought of after follow up. But follow up is a great sign of diligence and competence and a good investment. Number nine is churn, baby, churn, which is take that presentation, take that pitch and constantly fix it based on the questions and the issues. Make it better and better and better. But having said that, after a while you may have such a big presentation because you've tried to address every comment and every question. That's not a good outcome either. So every once in a while you may have to do what I call zero based presentation, which is throw everything away and start all over again. Number 10 is stay in the game. Remember, the purpose of a pitch is to keep you in the game. The next step, the next meeting, due diligence. Whatever it is, do not believe for a second that your pitch is going to be so great that at the end of a 60 minute meeting they're going to ask you for wiring instructions. It just isn't going to happen. The whole purpose of a pitch is to stay in the game and, and not get eliminated. And that's the art of the pitch. I'm Guy Kawasaki, chief evangelist of Canva and creator of the Remarkable People podcast. Thank you.