Have you ever heard the term: I’m tired of listening to you?

Now, why is that term so meaningful when it comes to investor pitching?

The answer is simple. Investors sit in a room and listen all day to one presentation after another. And listening is tiring. Especially if every founder is using the same generic pitch template.

Listening is one of the ways for our brain to have external information input. And brain cell activity requires twice as energy as any other cell in the body. So, no wonder it’s tiring.

Remember the last time you spent all day in a conference room, listening to meeting after meeting? All you did was sit there. But by the end you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck.

That’s how investors feel every single day. So, the question is, what can you do about it?

You could try and secure the first meeting of the day to catch them while they’re fresh. But that’s easier said than done.

No, the way around this problem is to stop trying to make investors listen to the problem you are trying to solve and instead make them visualize it. Paint a picture that makes your world vivid, engaging, and unforgettable.

Here are three powerful techniques you can use to do just that.

1. Get straight into your story

At the start of your presentation, you have one or two minutes to capture the imagination of the investor.

So avoid long, meandering introductions about your background, your advisory board, and who does what. Just give a quick intro, some polite hellos, and then say these words:

“I’ve got a story to share with you today”

You aren’t there to pitch or sell, you’re there to share your story and educate the investor on why your company will transform the world of your target audience.

By saying these words, you flick a switch in your investors’ minds. Their imagination has come to life and they’re ready to visualize your story.

2. Focus on your pivotal moment

A great pitch story is short, punchy, and to the point. So it’s always best to start with the moment that inspired your company to exist.

I like to call this starting from the middle.

There’s a good reason that some of the bestselling novels and most acclaimed Hollywood blockbusters are told in a non-linear style — I’m looking at you, Oppenheimer! It’s because the action is always somewhere in the middle.

If you want to grab investors by the lapels and make them take notice (metaphorically, of course), start with a moment of tension. Shine a big bright light on the broken process and make investors see it through the eyes of your target audience.

Get that right and your solution will feel essential.

3. Put a real person at the heart of it

Storytelling has the ability to connect people like nothing else. But simply telling a story isn’t enough. It needs to be crafted in a way that ties to your go-to-market strategy, your product, your audience, and everything in between.

So when you tell your story, put a real person at the heart of it. This will create an instant connection that provides context for the rest of your pitch.

Here’s an example:

“One morning, Sarah, my marketing manager, came to me and said she realized we missed the auto-renewal date and now we’re stuck with another $25,000 contract for the next 12 months. And she isn’t the only one. I thought to myself, my runway is short, I can’t burn money on these mistakes. There must be a better procurement tool with alerts built in. I can’t trust employees to put an expiration date in their calendars for every contract. That’s why we created company X.”

Avoid saying something along the lines of: Companies today on average are spending $500,000 a year because they miss auto renewals. It’s not about the companies. Companies are not buying your product, people who have a pain point do. Tell it through the eyes of the person experiencing the pain.

By creating a protagonist for your story, you humanize the problem for your investors and make them imagine themselves in that situation.

Final thoughts

In order to raise, an investor must connect with you. And in order to connect with you, an investor must be able to visualize your world.