I want to speak with you about one of the most important words in raising capital and life.
Trust
This five-letter word can make all the difference in your success.
I have authored 251 posts on this website in the past eight years. Of these posts, 121 have been about trust.
We have discussed the importance of trust when pitching investors. We have talked about how trust can make or break the very dreams you breathe life into every day.
As a writer and an investor, I guide Vision Masters in winning their battle for cash. With liquidity, you can deliver the lifeblood of innovation. You make it a reality.
That’s why I refer to you as a Vision Master, not a visionary — because you crave mastery over yourself and others to make your visions real in the real world, and to a large extent you are discovering what is really needed.
To that end, you have heard me say that 93% of companies do not fund their vision and fail. You have heard me say that you should not raise capital like those 93%. I’ve said “If you raise capital like everyone else, you’re going to have the same result as everyone else, which is very little.” Do not become one of the grim statics in the startup war. Be as innovative in raising capital as in your product.
So the problem you face and have to master is simple: Investors don’t believe you.
They have no faith in your financial projections.
They find your polished presentation to be a sales pitch.
They know that the future “win” for business will not resemble your current business model, yet you persist in selling your current business model. They wonder why?
They wonder why you keep selling your product rather than yourself, but they don’t know how to ask the right questions about you.
Sometimes they want to be somewhere else, anywhere else. They are tired, oh so tired, of the unremitting exaggeration they hear from founders.
Trust fixes many of these problems. To build that trust you have to be different from the rest. You have to engage investors with stories about your life, your customers, your team, the market, and your future acquirers so that they want to learn more.
You have to communicate in the way that we have for thousands of years. You have to tell a story.
Not any story. The right story at the right time.
Join me on Thursdays at 9 AM Pacific time each week (10 AM Mountain, 11 AM Central, noon Eastern) and I will tell you a story that may change your life. (This is the Story Pitching Mastermind. This mastermind is complimentary, yet priceless. Zoom in at https://us06web.zoom.us/j/5894317487?pwd=ZXNPTWtnZUZVbDR1aHowckZCNlZaQT09 .