Over the years, we’ve seen a lot of startup pitches – the good, the bad, and the ugly. There are a million different ways to piece together an effective pitch, but the following are consistent feedback points that I always coach entrepreneurs on when helping prepare them for fundraising. Here are my top three tips for nailing your pitch every single time.

1.) Establish a target for your startup pitch.

Before you present your startup onstage, introduce yourself at a networking event, or arrive at your potential investor meeting, you need to do a little backward planning to ensure you make the most out of your pitch. Ask yourself – what is my number one desired outcome? What do I want to happen after I deliver my pitch? Regardless of where you’re pitching or who’s hearing your pitch, having the desired outcome – or a target – in mind will help you remember why you’re pitching and zero in on what you came to achieve.

As you’re thinking about your target, specificity is key. There’s a big difference between a target of meeting key contacts and a target of securing three meetings with three investors in the e-commerce industry within the next week. The latter is much more specific and thus, much more effective. To ensure your target is specific, you can use the SMART goals acronym.

S – Specific. Can you define your target using clear, precise language?

M – Measurable. Can you measure the impact of your target in quantifiable criteria?

A – Agreed Upon. Is the rest of your team on board with this target? Does it make sense based on your quarterly and yearly objectives?  

R – Realistic. Is your target reasonable, given your startup’s current traction?

T – Time-Bound. Have you set a time constraint to help hold yourself accountable?

Follow these guidelines and you’ll have a specific, clear target that will keep your pitch on the right path towards success.

2.) Hook your audience of venture capitalists or angel investors.

There’s a reason clickbait articles get so many clicks, and it’s not rocket science – it’s a hook. Whether you’re writing an article for Buzzfeed or you’re up on stage delivering your pitch, you have one chance and one chance only to grab your audience’s attention, and you do so with a catchy, juicy, irresistible hook.

How do you know if your audience will take the bait? Here are a few key elements of a good hook that you can incorporate into your own pitch.

Effective hooks are…

• Genuine. Your hook should be catchy, but make sure it’s honest. If you don’t have the numbers you currently want or a highly-emotional story to open with, that’s alright. Find an angle that accurately reflects your startup and go from there. Authenticity is appealing, no matter how it’s delivered.

• Emotional. Attention – please read the following disclaimer: not all hooks have to be emotional, however, some of the best ones often are. If your startup solves a problem that could be considered more personal for the consumer, rather than professional, consider using an emotionally-charged hook to capture your audience’s attention.

• Direct. The opening lines of your pitch are not a good place to beat around the bush. Be direct. Don’t waste time introducing yourself and over-explaining your background (at least in the beginning), get started and hook your audience by jumping right into the action.

• Creative. Some of the catchiest hooks use an out-of-the-box format to break the norm and jar their audience’s perspective. You can do this by asking your audience a question, telling a narrative, using a fun fact or statistic or using second person narration to put your audience (“you”) in your customer’s shoes.

The key to a successful hook is to break the norm. By interrupting your audience’s everyday thought patterns and challenging their assumptions of what a pitch might be, you’ll be able to not only hook their attention, but keep them hanging on your every last word.

3.) Don’t just talk about startup traction, show it.

Now that you’ve hooked your audience’s attention, your next job is to continue building excitement around your startup. It’s this stage in the pitch where a lot of startups fail, because they simply tell the audience who they are, what they do, and where they’re headed. The best entrepreneurs know, however, that in order to truly get investors on board, they must show how they’re changing the industry and making an impact.

So, how do you show traction in your pitch? There are a few different ways.

• Social proof. Use testimonials or positive customer feedback to show how you’ve made an impact.
• Authority. Demonstrate authority in your field by highlighting media attention, certifications, and/or other recognizable awards and achievements.
• Numbers. Investors want to know every detail about every number in your records before they’ll invest. A few good numbers you might want to highlight in your pitch:
  • Market Size and Value
  • Revenue Projections
  • Profit Projections
  • Funding and Budget Allocations
  • Current Customer/User Base

You don’t have to incorporate all three of these elements—social proof, authority, and numbers — into your pitch in order to be effective. A solid approach is to pick your top three most impactful traction points to highlight in your pitch, and focus on those. A quality over quantity approach is always more memorable when it comes to demonstrating value.

Keep these tips in mind as you’re crafting and practicing delivering your pitch. Get clear on your target, craft a juicy hook, and demonstrate traction to set yourself apart from your competition and deliver a memorable, investment-worthy pitch.

You can apply this method to any field, including open source projects.

Check out one of my favorite pitches of all time on our startup pitch resources page. http://vergehq.com/pitch/