This week we are working on giving an effective 3-minute business pitch for potential customers. This is the opportunity you have to make an impactful impression (good or bad) about you and your company and you never know when the opportunity may come up. We will be watching a video we used earlier this year as an example in how to pitch, keep in mind this pitch was made on TV so it may be more dramatic than your own.
Your homework is to write two pitches, one for your current company and one for a company we all know. Ex: Apple or Microsoft computers, Android Phone, Telefonica, Diario Vasco, Audi automobiles, Duracell batteries, you choose the industry and product you can talk about most. Prepare a 3 minute pitch on both your company and the one we all know.
Remember to keep in mind 3 things:
1. Why – why there is a need for this product. EX: to provide a healthier alternative to chewing tobacco
2. What – what is the product and what are it's features, what is different from similar things on the market. EX: Chewing product made from coffee grounds, for sports professionals and lovers of 'chew' to use, non-toxic alternative with benefits from caffeine.
3. Who – who are you (your company) connect the customer to the human aspect of your company. EX: We are an amateur baseball player and a scientist and we noticed a need in the baseball industry for another product.
Here's a TV show to give you an example of how and when this could be used towards potential investors:
Shark Tank is a TV show that has 5 Business Investors (they call “Sharks”), each episode has several entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas in hopes of getting more money/funding to grow their business or build their business idea. There are a lot of financial and business terms in every episode and in this one several sports puns or references to baseball which is an industry closely associate to chewing tobacco.
Sharks/Investors on the show say “I’m out” meaning they don’t want to invest in the idea. Sometimes on this show they say “I’m willing to have a 20% stake,” stake is another term for equity.
Some vocabulary from the video:
Brainstorming, capital, chewing tobacco or ‘chew’, entrepreneur, equity, Niche, Pouch, Seed money, stake, Royalty and royalties
Baseball terms:
'Home run" means a hit that allows the batter to make a complete run of each base and score one point per man on base = a big success
"Knock it out of the park" means to hit a home run that goes outside the field/park = be successful
