Monday, May 10, 2010
Insights and Opinions: The Hook
For today's Insights and Opinions section, we have a piece from Aaron Fyke, who has been a clean technology insider and investor for many years. Aaron gives his take on how you should be pitching your firm--and why "the hook" is important.
I wanted to talk a little about pitching for fundrising, although this applies to many sales meetings as well. When I was visited by many companies at my old firm I was amazed at how many entrepreneurs would try to cram as much as they possibly could into their pitch. It reminded me of my first resume writing attempts in undergrad where, in a desperate attempt to look like I had more experience than I did, I would cram every part-time and after school job or activity onto the page. I assumed that people would view my worth as the literal sum of the activities listed. To remove one would be to lower my overall worth.
I now understand the purpose of a targeted message and I understand the truism of "always leave them wanting more". Your goal in any pitch is not to sell yourself to your audience, but, if possible, make your audience clamor to know more about you... (More...)
Read the rest of Aaron's article in our Insights and Opinions section.