April 12, 2022
One of the most innovative things a business coach can do is help their customers obtain capital. Access to funds usually separates stagnation from fast development, whether your customer is an established company trying to grow or a fledgling startup entrepreneur looking for seed investment. The procedure can be scary for business owners unfamiliar with investor expectations, due diligence, or financial storytelling.
As a business coach, what you advise will count towards determining your clients' success if you know how to use the correct tools and approaches. In this article, the mythical tool is cracked that every coach needs to enable clients' funding journey.
Investors would like to know your concept prior to funding it. A business model canvas is a graphical structure; it divides a business concept into bare essentials: value proposition, customer segments, channels, revenue streams, and so forth. It's a useful instrument that helps entrepreneurs organise ideas and describe models. You can use the business model canvas as a coach to:
Additionally, you can use it with Lean Canvas if the client is at the ideation or MVP stage. Lean Canvas is perfect for first-time investor meetings since it gives a summary of the structure and places a strong emphasis on problems and solutions.
After the business model, step two is to create a pitch deck, which must be a mind-blower. Investors invest in narratives, not in goods. A good pitch deck builds an investment narrative using visuals, storytelling, and essential data. These are some of the instruments to help your customers create high-impact decks:
Ensure the deck has required slides: problem, solution, market size, traction, business model, competition, team, and the ask. Tell your consumers that clarity and impact are essential since average investor deck scans take less than four minutes. You may outsource the expertise of a professional or firm to help in crafting a refined pitch deck, but make sure you read more about the agency prior to registering with them. Expert techniques help in designing well-structured and organised presentations that attract investor meetings.
If the pitch deck tells the narrative, the figures show the facts. If the pitch deck is the story, the figures support it. Investors should pay heed to the numbers, especially if they show an easy road to success. Financial projection instruments allow users, not necessarily CPAs, to create revenue forecasts, profit-and-loss statements, and cash flow models.
Recommended software:
Lead customers through optimal practices as a coach:
Fundraising is a daunting process. Coaches can help clients install a good system for managing outreach, follow-up, and investor relations. Use these tools to make the effort easier:
Guide your customers to:
A methodical follow-up process doubles the success rate of funding and shows professionalism that impresses investors.
Investors seek a good, well-managed equity configuration. A dirty cap table suggests anarchy and subpar management. That's why one needs cap table management software.
Top recommendations are:
Motivate your clients to:
Besides getting them ready for the current round, you guarantee their future capacity to raise more money.
Not every startup that is early in its development wants to abandon stock. Introducing your consumers to non-dilutive funding sources such as grants, contests, or revenue-based loans can help you enlarge their worlds. Websites to look into:
Extending the investment timeline beyond capital enables customers to maintain equity and raise funds for growth.
Most clients want to fundraise when they are not ready. This can easily backfire for you, especially if you're not fully prepared, leading to mistakes that would be avoided. Hence, avoid premature pitching to prevent embarrassment and wasting time, subjecting investors to a preparedness checklist.
Create a tool or checklist that includes:
Think about using this checklist as a session coaching tool to assess and progressively improve preparedness. Every milestone sees clients presenting great presentations, and most likely, they have better success.
Apart from supporting a check, assisting customers build money is about enabling them to create investor relationships, understand financial strategy, and clearly state their goals. As a business coach, you are not just a mentor but also a connection from great ideas to the cash needed to execute them. These systems and tools will enable your consumers to tackle funding confidently and professionally. The payback is improved results, brighter promotions, more successful companies, and a coaching relationship of actual, measurable value.
