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- ♞ Don't wing it
Don't wing it
When I first started fundraising, I thought that I could wing it. I was a good public speaker with natural charisma when pitching who didn’t struggle to communicate effectively. I felt that it would be a waste of time for me to prepare my pitches and predict questions I would get because I could provide an answer 90% as good without needing to spend 100+ hours on preparation.
Unfortunately, I was wrong, and the more I pitched without preparation, the more I lost confidence in the skill I once thought I had mastered. It wasn’t until I successfully went through numerous funding rounds with well-prepared pitches that I understood why winging it doesn’t work.
Let’s discuss why…
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Inconsistent Narrative - The biggest downside of winging is that you don’t have a consistent narrative to communicate to investors. When you are answering questions off the cuff, your focus is on doing your best to answer each question. It is not about preserving an underlying narrative. When you practice and prioritize having the narrative at the core of your pitch, you can train yourself always to answer questions through the lens of the narrative.
Finding your perspective - Much of the benefit of practicing your pitch comes from the learning process that takes place while you are practicing. You learn a lot about the company, yourself, your story, etc., and make many discoveries during practice. These can be vital to your long-term success.
Overall, the idea of winging it might sound fantastic, especially with regard to the time savings. Still, the reality is you are skipping a key part of the startup process by failing to dedicate the time to perfecting your pitch and retraining yourself to pitch your company through a specific perspective.
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