You only have one chance to get this pitch right. Anything can go wrong on Pitch Day – faulty equipment, a corrupted presentation, a dead clicker battery, etc and then your chance vanishes; you blew it. A great entrepreneur always has a plan B and, just in case, a plan C. Listen to episode 18 of The Successful Pitch to find out if your backup plans are up to scratch. Listen Now

Technical gremlins have an uncanny way of sneaking into presentations uninvited. Faulty or glitchy equipment is frustrating for you and your audience. Join Allon for episode 17 of The Successful Pitch for a few tidbits of advice to mitigate potential technical problems. Listen More ->

Using your keyboard to click to the next slide is distracting for both you and your audience. Walking across the room to do this breaks your pitch rhythm. You lose your audience and it gives you an air of being unprepared and unprofessional. Join Allon for episode 16 of The Successful Pitch where he explains why learning how to use a clicker in your presentation is a game changer. www.raizcorp.com

There are two funding rules of thumb that too few startup entrepreneurs are aware of. One: The timeframe you predict you’ll break even is normally double in reality. Two: The funding you predict you need will turn out to be four times more than what you thought. These rules have massive implications for any business’s ability to survive the initial months and years of its existence. Common forms of startup funding are personal savings and credit card facilities. This is followed by the three Fs – friends, fools and family – and finally, you try the banks and investors. We present a magnificent j-curve of our three-year forecast while trying to convince them to part with their money. Because it’s embarrassing to approach family and friends for funding, we feel compelled to present the lowest possible amount we need to borrow with the quickest possible payback period. And so, when our “sure thing” doesn’t pan out in the way our Excel spreadsheet said it would, we find it difficult to go back to our “financiers” to either delay repayment or ask for more money. A vicious cycle has begun that few small businesses will live through. Join Allon Raiz for episode 3 of his 20 lessons over 20 years podcast series where he talks about the correct way to finance a business. www.raizcorp.com · www.raizcorp.com

If an investor simply wanted you to read a slide deck, they wouldn’t need you to be in the room. The point of a pitch presentation is to give you an opportunity to talk about your business naturally and in your own voice. Join Allon Raiz for episode 15 of his Raizor’s Edge podcast series, The Successful Pitch to understand more about what it communicates to your audience when you read your slides verbatim. www.raizcorp.com

What do you do if an investor invites you to pitch but doesn’t provide a templatised slide deck? First off, don’t overdo it with the slides, information overload is a big mistake. Join Allon Raiz for episode 14 of The Successful Pitch where he talks about why it’s important to cull the information you provide in a pitch. www.raizcorp.com

Dress counts. What you decide to wear to a pitch tells your investor how capable you are of reading the company culture and, by extension, the market. But the “what-to-wear” decision can be fraught with emotion and nuance. How do you dress to show your potential investor respect but also reflect your personality? In episode 13, Allon shares a general rule of thumb. Listen now. www.raizcorp.com

Many would-be entrepreneurs make the assumption that if a problem can be solved by a product or service, it amounts to a sustainable business. A cold toilet seat in the middle of winter is a problem that many people would love solved. However, there is a miniscule subset of people who would be prepared to pay for the installation and running costs of an electrically heated toilet seat for their home or office. Aspiring entrepreneurs erroneously view a market as a function of a perceived problem without considering whether people would be prepared to pay for the cost of solving that problem. Listen to episode two of 20 lessons over 20 years where Allon Raiz discusses the importance of taking time to honestly assess the market size, the ability of that market to pay the right price, and the right time to enter the market. www.raizcorp.com · www.raizcorp.com

The more complicated your business model, the more vulnerable you are to risk. Investors prefer simple models because the risk decreases with less working parts to the model. Listen to Allon Raiz in episode 12 of The Successful Pitch where he breaks this down with an excellent example. www.raizcorp.com

Investors need to understand how much of the addressable market your business could potentially win but this number needs to be presented realistically. Taking into consideration that competitors will respond as soon as you enter the market, what is the best way to present your business’s market potential to an investor? Find out more in episode 11 of The Successful Pitch.