From BizLaunch: 3 Marketing Actions to Secure Venture Capital

From Author Patrick Mcfadden of Indispensable Marketing

There’s one thing for sure about every VC (Venture Capitalist) and that is “If they invest in you, they will like their money back!” Recently, I was listening to a VC talk about the importance of entrepreneurs marketing (communicating) value, to get not only his time, consideration and capital but other VC’s as well. Basically to secure an investment. Well, I came away with three marketing actions you can take now to secure venture capital as an entrepreneur:

1. Communicate in 90 seconds or less.
The entrepreneurs who secure capital investments have the ability to communicate their vision in 90 seconds or less. Remember, marketing is about communicating value. You’ve got to be able to get up in front of a room, explain your idea and vision for how you’re going to make money for shareholders in 90 seconds or less. You have to communicate your vision and articulate it in a way that everybody can understand, and if you can’t do that you better start practicing in front of a mirror, and/or get some professional coaching because it really matters a lot.

2. Spend 5 minutes on why you can execute the business plan.
There’s a huge gap between someone with a great business idea and someone with the ability to execute. This is the reason some VC’s who partner with entrepreneurs like to take control of the company, so if that person can’t execute they then can fire that person.

3. Showcase Leadership.
This is actually achieved by taking the first two actions above and as my mentor Zig Ziglar would say, “those who never take step number one, never take step number two”, but in this case “those who can’t take action number one and action number two, never showcase number three.”