This lesson is all about the Q&A or Question and Answer. Don’t sleep on this part of your pitch. It’s your opportunity to:- Address an area your pitch didn’t address
- Clear up an area in your audience’s mind
- Reinforce why you should get the money (or the business)
Contrary to popular belief, Q&A is a part of your pitch that you can absolutely prepare for. Below I’ve addressed 5 questions you should be ready to answer if and when they come up. And if they don’t, all the better!
1. Why is now a good time to launch or grow this concept?
Of course now is always the best time, but make sure you have a real reason based on the opportunities facing the industry you’re in, the market (audience) you are seeking and/or the area (geography) you’re looking to get started in.
2. What threatens your ability to stay afloat and how will you combat it?
Sorry, everyone has something that may hurt their chances. Answering this question shows you know the risks and already have a plan on how to hedge them. Some common threats may be the economy and issues relative to where you are looking to start/grow the venture.
3. Who is your competition? (And yes, you always have competition)
A better question is: what other alternative may people/businesses choose over you? And sometimes, the #1 competition is to do nothing.
4. Who is your market and how large is it?
This should be answered early in the game during your elevator pitch, but if it isn’t, be prepared with at least:
- their age range
- geographical location
- what they do
- What they’re most concerned with or want most to improve
The size of the market is best estimated. Whether your market is other businesses or consumers (i.e., the public) in specific areas of the country, my recommended resource is the new Census Business Builder located here. You can also conduct a Google search in your industry as there are associations that track this type of information for just about every area imaginable.
5. Can you explain your calculations for XXXX?
Where X can be any numbers you introduce. Here’s the thing, if you introduce any numbers in your pitch (and usually you should) you should be prepared to defend how you came up with them. Here are my crib notes for what I call number defense.
1. If you introduce business growth be prepared to discuss:
- An increase in the number of customer
- An increase in the amount of sales per customer ($/customer)
- A decrease in your costs or expenses
2. If you introduce revenue be prepared to discuss:
- Pricing and/or the number of customers or actual transactions
- Profits because revenue ≠ profit (revenue = sales) so talk about profit = the amount of money left over AFTER all costs are taken away
3. If you introduce profits be prepared to discuss:
- Revenues or your sales (see #2, second bullet)
- Expenses or your costs (all of the stuff that must be bought or paid for INCLUDING your salary or some payment to you)
And this is how you can save the day with the Q&A portion of your pitch!
Copyright 2015-2018, VentureWalk Business Partners, LLC
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