Presenting your business idea to anyone requires “time factor” within which you should be able to provide all the information. It is important to have a three-minute pitch in a brief manner.

You don’t know where you might find a potential investor or a client, customer, business partner or vendor. For this reason, it is important for every entrepreneur to prepare certain points so that while meeting you should be able to get across your message. Thus, follow these steps to build clarity of communication: 

The introduction:

Introduce yourself and your brand. Your name and the logo and tagline are the key elements. Keep it short and straight as your logo itself will tell the audience about your brand.

What is the problem you're solving and your solution to it?

All products or services are present in the market because they are a solution to some or the other problem. Introduce to the audience and highlight the problem that you are solving through it. Remember, you are not in the business of convincing. You are in the business of discovering who has the problem. 

Who is it for? What is the target market?

You need to be clear in your thoughts about who is your target customer. Remember, the best way to sell something is not to sell it. However, earn the awareness, respect and trust of those who might buy.

What is your marketing strategy?

Enlighten the audience with your marketing strategies. Be precise and sure about your marketing strategy because “you can’t sell anything if you can't tell anything!”

What makes your product or service unique or different? Can it be copied?

Highlight the features and usability in brief and the unique feature it carries which gives you a competitive edge.

What is your growth potential or projected growth? When talking about your expected growth, never be vague about your hopes on customers buying your product or service. You should supposedly be able to model the likelihood that customers will be into it along with being confident about your analysis and statistics.

What is your finance structure? How are you planning to raise it?

Clearly list in numbers what is the debt-equity ratio you are planning to raise and how. Also, if your setup is not a company but any other form of business setup then, what amount of capital you are raising and how. Be numerical, state the numbers and facts and proceed to the next point.

Why now? As you wrap up your pitch, make an argument as to why is now the right time for investors to invest their money in your business? Why is now the right time to raise funds and grow rapidly?

This is your chance to make a call to action to the audience. Now that you've presented your business idea, summarise your pitch by highlighting three points of your presentation that you think are best!

(The writer is vice- chairman and managing director, Shemrock and Shemford Group of Schools)