When it comes to pitching an idea, the first impression is everything. You have 30 seconds or less to make a good impression and convince people that your idea should be taken seriously. A pitch deck is a presentation containing visual aids such as charts and graphs which you use to present your business plan in a clear, concise way. It’s no easy task! Pitching ideas can be difficult enough without having to worry about how you look while doing it. Here are ten ways to improve your pitch deck:
- Don’t Put Yourself Down
If you find yourself subconsciously putting yourself or other team members down in your pitch deck, stop! No one wants to hear how bad you feel your company is doing. Why would they consider investing if things are looking so bleak? Instead, spin the situation around. Focus on what you have achieved so far and your plans for the future.
- Keep It Brief
You need to grab people’s attention right away by being concise, clear and direct with your language. Don’t waffle around the subject matter — no one wants to hear all of your woes. Try to keep your pitch presentation short (less than 10 slides) and to the point. This will keep the audience engaged and allows you to explain your ideas in a way your audience can easily understand.
- Know How to Read Your Audience
This is especially important if you’re pitching for investor funding, which we’ll go into later. It’s easy to forget that you’re not speaking to your peer group or industry colleagues. However, it’s important to ask yourself if the people in front of you really understand what you are talking about. If they look bored, confused or otherwise uninterested, chances are they don’t.
- Keep Up Your Body Language
Body language is just as important when speaking to an audience in person or through a teleprompter. Your body language is the only visual you have available to connect with your audience, so make sure it sends out the right message by maintaining eye contact and showing enthusiasm for your subject matter.
- Keep It Concise
No one likes watching a presentation deck that feels like it’s dragging on forever. It will make your audience feel uncomfortable and they won’t want to listen anymore. Maintain a conversational tone in your pitch deck by speaking in simple sentences, not overly formal business jargon.
- Use Formatting To Your Advantage.
It can sometimes be difficult for people to take in large amounts of information at once. Therefore, lay out the format of your pitch deck design with either a small amount of text with lots of white space or thick lines for charts to make it easier on your client’s eyes.
- Highlight Important Information
It’s easy to get caught up in all the details you have available to you. However, you need to choose the most important points and make sure they stand out! You should colour code your text or use different font sizes throughout your deck.
- Find a Good Sound Bite
A sound bite is a witty phrase relevant to your company that sums up what you are trying to say in 30 seconds or less! Try to choose something descriptive that will make an impact with the audience. Avoid using clichés or phrases that could dilute your overall message, for example ‘moving forward’ isn’t exactly creative!
- Use Graphs and Charts to Explain Your Ideas
It can be difficult to describe complex business concepts in a simple way. So, using charts and graphs to visually represent how your business is performing can be a great way of engaging with the audience.
- Don’t Forget the Small Details!
When you have finished decking out all your slides don’t forget to check if there are mistakes or typos in your spelling or grammar. This is especially important when you are taking your pitch deck into a presentation.
- Make It Real!
Include some personal touches in your pitch deck to make yourself and the company relatable to the audience. If you have a personal anecdote about how a product came about, or a team night out that resulted in some amazing ideas then include it on your sales deck!
- Practice Makes Perfect!
There is nothing worse than people reading from their pitch decks, so practice wherever possible. The more you practise the easier it will be to keep your pitch natural and conversational. Just make sure whoever you are practising with doesn’t get bored of hearing the same thing over and over again.
- Use Venngage
If you’re not sure how to make pitch decks, then check out Venngage — an online graphic editing platform that also provides a wide range of pitch deck templates to help presenters in their struggle. To prove our point, here are some great pitch deck examples you can use.
In short, the best pitch decks are an overview of your company’s plan that includes the following: what you do, who benefits from it and how. The content should be concise but detailed enough for investors to understand the full scope of your business. What are you waiting for? Create your very own pitch deck with Venngage and make that client say yes!
Feature photo: Rodnae Productions