Turbocharge Your Investor Pitch Deck with Storytelling

Imagine this. You and your friend are having a conversation about your favorite subjects. Your friend is a history buff, and thoroughly enjoys reading about battles fought and kingdoms won. You, on the other hand, find history stuffy and have only painful memories of enduring endless classes as the teacher droned on.

How can the same subject enthrall one and bore another with the same force? It all depends on who introduces it to you. Be it your grandmother or your teacher, the power of storytelling transforms the way you see or understand the world.

Pitching your story

“We love your work but…”

Frustrated with yet another ‘soft no’ to the impassioned pitch you emailed with immense confidence? As a presentation consultancy firm, we have been seeing a lot of highly informative, data-rich, and fact-packed pitch decks get rejected despite hitting all the checkboxes. So, where is the problem?

In our experience, the problem lies in a weak or non-existent story where you are merely rattling off facts or data, potentially causing information overload.

Why stories matter

“Stories powerfully hook and hold human attention because, at a brain level, whatever is happening in a story is happening to us and not just them”

Jonathan Gottschall, author of The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human

Storytelling is a surefire way to :

  • Create an emotional connection with people, which is extremely important to hold attention spans for longer than a few seconds

  • Personalize your pitch by sharing true-life stories, which will make the problem real. It helps people relate to the situation or problem you are trying to solve
  • Enable the audience to empathize, which is vital for your pitch to be prioritized in their minds
  • Sharpen the recall factor by helping people visualize vividly in their minds thereby making it experiential
  • Engage deeply and be motivated to involve themselves in your vision

How to craft an investor pitch that tells your story

Even the shortest of stories have a clear beginning, middle, and end that will propel people’s attention, prompting them to ask, “what next?” Your pitch deck must act like a compelling, attention-grabbing trailer that makes your audience think, “I want to watch the movie!”

Improve readability and incite curiosity in your pitch decks by keeping the following points in mind:

  • Design and text are not separate but work together to help people visualize the story. Embrace design as part of the story’s progression
  • Data is only one of the characters and is not the story itself. Data is important to anchor your story but should not overwhelm the content
  • Keeping it concise with short text and informative graphics is crucial. The shorter and more impactful the story, the deeper the engagement
  • Outline the specific outcome or goal that you envision to make the audience feel that there is a very real business opportunity here

A well-crafted pitch deck has all these elements enabling the reader to understand your story with a quick scan in a couple of minutes. It most effectively gives the investor a peek into your world and leaves them wanting more.

So, go ahead. Create your investor pitch deck and share your story, and it won’t be long before you get an email that goes, “We love your work, and…”

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Qcept Presentations

Qcept is the one-stop-presentation design agency for startups, SMEs and large enterprises. We transform your presentations within tight deadlines – delivering high quality every time.

Original article published on Qcept Presentations
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