Short meetings can lead to big allocations, but you need to build a consistent, compelling elevator pitch to stand out from your competitors. We tell you how.
Your elevator pitch should:
- Clearly explain who you are
- Tell investors why they should care about the market opportunity
- Show that you are best placed to access this opportunity – focus on what you do differently, not better
- Get investors to act now – convince them not to take a ‘wait and see’ approach
- Be used by everyone who works for your firm – they can say it in their own voice, but they’ve got to hit those key points
Allocations can be won and lost at conferences
It’s the morning coffee break.
Delegates are chatting, checking phones, and contemplating their biscuit options.
You’re scanning the day’s agenda when the trustee of a major pension fund puts his coffee down next to yours.
“Tell me about your fund,” he says.
This is it. You’ve been trying to get a meeting with this group for months.
This is your chance to make a strong impression.
You’ve got two minutes.
If your pitch goes well …
… they’ll smile, make eye contact, and lean in to learn more. They’ll want to talk longer and hear the stories behind your fund.
They’ll walk away knowing that you invest in the best opportunity in the market and that they should trust you to access that opportunity over anyone else.
Days later, back in the office, they will tell the rest of the investment committee the story of your fund. Why? Because it was memorable, compelling, and makes them look good to repeat it.
Before long, they’re arranging a meeting.
Congratulations. You’ve taken the first step to landing a career-changing allocation.
If your pitch fails …
… they’ll fidget, they won’t make eye contact, and their feet will face the closest exit. If this happens, you’ve missed your chance. And you probably won’t get another.
What’s more, your competitors’ stories will sound even more compelling.
You need a compelling and consistent elevator pitch
Investors hear a lot of pitches. If your two-minute pitch fails to give them a compelling reason to invest or sounds like everyone else’s, they’ll forget it in five minutes.
But some salespeople are just born to do this, right?
It’s true, in chance or shorter meetings with investors, some can speak with confidence about their fund and turn on the charm. Others struggle to put their thoughts together.
But if the messages are compelling and everyone is consistent in delivering them, the messenger won’t matter. From the smoothest IR manager in the room to the world’s most introverted analyst, everyone will be able to achieve the same outcome.
They will all be able to provide compelling answers to four key questions.
Who are you, what do you do, why should I invest with you, and why should I invest now?
Let’s look at each of these four questions in turn.
With each response, how can you move investors onto the next stage of the sales process?
Who are you?
Introduce yourself, your firm, and your fund.
Drop in an interesting fact about the team or the firm’s history. You’re not just another US buyout firm or French convertible arbitrage fund.
What do you do?
Tell the investor what you invest in.
This is your chance to explain why the opportunity – and your approach to it – is so special. Tell them something about the market that surprises them or makes them look at it differently – you’re more likely to pique their interest.
And is there something about your approach that differentiates you? Perhaps you focus on companies in a later stage of growth compared to other funds investing in this market. Or maybe you have a unique approach to mitigating risk.
If all you do is talk about the opportunity like everyone else, investors will stick to the managers they already know.
Why should I invest with you rather than another fund?
Imagine convincing an investor that there is an incredible opportunity in European mid-market buyout or Latin American renewables infrastructure, only for them to agree and allocate to your competitor!
If you focus on saying you are better, you will sound like everyone else. The best team and the best deal origination mean little to investors – it sounds like subjective opinion.
You want them to believe that what you are saying is objective fact.
Instead of saying you have better origination, explain what it is about your origination that makes it better. Is it the local specialists who have spent the last decade building relationships with entrepreneurs? Is it your CIO’s school network? Focus on providing evidence of skills and resources others cannot replicate.
Do this and you’ll give the investor difficult questions to ask your competitors.
Restrict yourself to two or three of these distinguishing features. Any more and it’s likely investors will remember none of them.
Why should I invest now?
You must create a sense of urgency.
Motivate them to advance through your sales process now. Trigger their FOMO! Leave them in no doubt: every day that goes by without them allocating to you is money lost.
Investors are prone to taking a “wait and see” approach. If they say, “We’ll keep you on our radar” or something to that effect, you’re unlikely to hear from them again.
Be consistent to be effective
Once you have compelling answers to these questions, make sure everyone across the firm is using them when talking to investors. Investors won’t allocate to managers who can’t agree on what they do and why they are good at it.
Now everyone can deliver the same key messages, it’s time to get out there and turn short meetings into big allocations.
Do you need help peeling the onion to discover what really makes you different from your competitors? Get in touch with jon.greene@apexgroup.com at Apex Strategic Marketing Partners to discuss your elevator pitch.
