Are You a Nutrition Label or a Picture?

Presentation is Essential When Asking for Money

     Imagine for a moment that you’ve had a very long day and you’re driving home, hungry and tired, fighting the rush hour traffic. You don’t want to cook, your spouse doesn’t want to cook, your kids can’t cook, and you really don’t want to hassle with going out to eat. So you decide to stop at the grocery store and just pick up something to eat…. a frozen dinner sounds like just the thing.

     Now, everything we buy at the store has a nutrition label that tells us the ingredients, how much fat, carbs, protein, etc. That label tells us everything we need to know about what’s in the package.

     But when you’re hungry and just want to get something to eat, is the nutrition label the first thing you look at? Of course not. You look at the picture on the front because it shows you exactly what the product looks like and, to encourage you to buy that package, the picture is designed to get you salivating over the salisbury steak, pizza, lasagna, or whatever else in the box.

     You need to apply the same principle when you prepare a financing request for presentation to lenders or investors.

Don’t give them the equivalent of a nutrition label. Instead, paint a picture in their mind that gets their mouth watering and makes them want to know more.

     You want to avoid a situation in which you think you are telling a great story but your audience only hears a lot of facts that are just plain boring. If you only give your listeners the nutrition label version, you haven’t made your offer very appealing, and they can’t picture what you are trying to do. So why should they be interested? What will make them want to open your package and see what’s inside?

     So remember to make your story interesting and appealing. Create a picture and emotion in the mind of the investors so they want to know more and are ultimately eager to invest in you.

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