Читать книгу Wake Up and Sell the Coffee! - Martyn Dawes - Страница 29

We now needed an audience. Tony suggested I contact a business angel network in the Cambridge area called the Great Eastern Investment Forum (GEIF). I’d put in a call but hadn’t heard back from them.

Meanwhile, we had a slot confirmed for me to present at a similar event run by an accountancy firm in Yorkshire. I enthusiastically prepared a presentation. Mark and I set off up north. It was the first time I had actually stood up and presented in front of a live audience armed with chequebooks.

I knew it was my big moment and I was certain I had prepared well. In ten minutes I was done and there was applause from the audience, but I knew immediately that although everything I’d said was fine it somehow hadn’t hit the spot.

After the talks there was a buffet laid on, with time for networking and the opportunity for the entrepreneurs who had pitched to meet the investors. I didn’t have the stomach to eat and I fumbled with a glass of wine. I had one or two enquiries but it was all a bit polite and I just felt I hadn’t gained any real traction.

As I was about to leave the event someone approached me and Mark. I didn’t even get his name. He said as an investment it wasn’t for him but he could see we were on to a winner.

This was another one of those moments of pure serendipity; we never saw that gentleman again but what he said had a profound impact: “You’ve got a great business but you’ve got to sell yourself, make them want you, make them believe they’ll lose out if they don’t invest. You sounded desperate.”

“Desperate, of course I’m fucking desperate,” ran through my mind at a million miles an hour but I kept my mouth shut and listened to this helpful stranger.

We both thanked him and almost ran with excitement back to the car. In the space of a minute I had gone from sheer despondency to a sense of deep elation because I now understood how to present to potential investors.

It was late and we had to get back to London. I didn’t waste a minute. Mark drove and I rewrote the entire presentation. I’d write a section, even a sentence or two, and read it out. I hardly slept and by the middle of the following morning had completely rewritten my presentation. Rather than now talking to each slide I had prepared an impactful speech that supported the presentation. It pressed all the buttons that investors would want to hear.