I will follow up on this once I have had the time to further examine this start up before creating appropriate targets.

I am involved in a sales organization at my university, and competed in a sales pitch competition last March. The most important factor in outreach that I learned was the importance of numbers. A key component of sales: the likelihood of receiving a “yes” proportionally increases when you reach out to more investors. Focusing on reaching out to the highest number of investors possible is the first step in gaining interest, and this process will also result in a lot of “no’s” to begin with, but increasing our outreach will allow us a higher likelihood of success.

I am a college student pursuing a degree in Business with a hospitality track, and hope for a career in professional sales post grad.

In building relationships with potential business partners, the smaller details are much more significant than expected. Before meeting with potential business partners, researching the company/individuals to collect information on their needs, interests, and goals is fundamental. By doing so, it’s important to use that information to envision ourselves in their shoes as the investor, and pitch to them from that perspective. It is important to know their struggles and make the connection to how we can improve that. In terms of attitude, many investors expect sales people to be overly pushy and often approach a meeting with that in mind. Approaching the investor with genuine friendliness is key, finding things to quickly connect with them on at the beginning of the meeting helps. Then, you must present the information factually, and be sure that the pitch is organized, non biased, and ultimately traces back to why we are worth investing in. It’s crucial to be prepared to answer questions, and if you don’t know the answer you should tell them that you will do some research on their question and that you will follow up in email after you get an answer. Additionally, following up in an email in general is a must as well. When necessary and within budget, bringing small courtesy gifts (such as a fruit basket, coffee, etc) can help break the ice as well for in person meetings.