“What’s your point?”

“What do I need to know?”

“What are you asking me to consider?”

Speed and brevity are the fast track to wisdom. Yet a lot of entrepreneurs don’t think about that until they are done speaking to investors. They dive into telling stories, writing business plans, presenting facts and defending their position, with excessive amounts of background information, as if that bolsters their credibility and investment potential. It doesn’t, it merely shows they have a lot of factual data, nothing more. It doesn’t move the investor an inch closer to better understanding what the investor experience is going to be like and the entrepreneur’s ability to positively influence it while mitigating risk.

Repeat after me before walking into your next investor meeting: “I am not doing a university research study or requesting parole. I am having a conversation with a peer (investor). I am there to build a trusting relationship and the investor is seeking to reach conceptual agreement with me, such that both of us can see a wild attractive opportunity staring us in the face.”

Keep it simple. Slash the background information, please.