If you are a SouthPark fan, you’ll recall the episode known as the “Training pants Gnomes,” by which gnomes have built a company according to stealing training pants in the residents of South Park. Once the kids finally catch them and get why they’re doing this, the gnomes say it’s a part of their strategic business plan. “What’s your plan, exactly?” the children ask. Among the gnomes fires up a PowerPoint presentation to stipulate their three-phase approach. Slide No. 1 states “Steal Training pants.” Slide No. 2 is blank. Slide No. 3 states “Profit!”

I am unable to stress the number of business pitches I have seen such as this, where Phase The first is “create widget,” Phase Three is “profit!” and also the crucial Phase Two is really a complete unknown. Begin to see the information on my pitch critique worksheet in the finish of the column to make certain your pitch is finished.

Let us if you have a capital acquisition strategy (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/22/07, “Rules for Raising Capital”) as well as an advisory board (see BusinessWeek.com, 2/1/07, “Don’t Do It Yourself: Create an Advisory Board”) to improve your credibility. You’ll need two more things: a sizzling pitch and a number of funding sources. Within this column we’ll nail your financing pitch, and I’ll address financing sources lower the street.

Roping Them In: I am presuming you’ve already produced a killer strategic business plan, that will yield your executive summary and financing pitch. Your strategic business plan is going to be about 20 pages, covering every aspect of your company. Make the hrs to really make it perfect, because you will be repurposing the company plan’s content in sales presentations, marketing collateral and white-colored papers, recruiting pitches, and your website. Your executive summary is really a two-to-five-page bottom-line form of your strategic business plan, a riveting bulletin in the front line that primes investors to see on.

Couple of people may wish to pore within the whole plan-for this reason you need to rope them along with individuals first pages and establish that you are a knowledgeable, reliable person having a substantial idea before you decide to construct every detail. The financial lending pitch is ten to fifteen PowerPoint slides obtained from the manager summary. This is actually the distillation of the business, which you’ll want to design to provide within twenty minutes for attention-span-challenged people (see BusinessWeek.com, 9/12/06, “Grab Your Audience Fast”) and (see BusinessWeek.com, 12/5/06, “Presentations with Something for Everybody”). You will probably require the help out document form, too. Like a former venture capitalist, I have read tottering towers of financing pitches and project proposals. Frequently the pitches were for services or products that nobody truly needed, or projects that were not cost-justified, or even worse, fabulous ideas presented poorly. To stick out, your pitch must be concise, compelling, and finish.