Presentations and pitch specialist Paul Boross, AKA The Pitch Doctor and author of The Pitching Bible, offers insight into the techniques used by the batch of entrepreneurs in episode four of Dragons' Den.
I’ve been helping professionals to develop their pitches for 25 years, and in that time I have seen quite a range of approaches. This week’s Dragons’ Den was no exception, with each entrepreneur trying something a little bit different to get the dragons’ attention.
The first lesson comes from the pile of money that the Dragons have on their tables. They are waiting to invest. They are not sitting behind a gatekeeper or hiding in the shadows, so by the time an entrepreneur gets in front of them, they are already interested.
This point was beautifully demonstrated by our first entrepreneur, Bob Davis. He came on confidently, his product hidden under a mysterious black sheet. He succinctly asked for the investment, established his credibility and talked about the market opportunity for his product. But in trying to raise the dragons’ curiosity, he couldn’t give the game away by saying what the product actually was. At around the time that I was shouting at the TV, Theo Paphitis echoed my sentiments, saying “Bob, it had better be good!”, and “Get on with it!”
This brings us to lesson number two. When you already have the audience’s attention, you don’t need to carry on trying to get it.
We then saw a brief pitch from Camilla, who rents out bedrooms to people staying at major events. She faced probably the most common stumbling block in the den; a massive exaggeration of her business’ growth potential. Lesson three? Your audience might not know your business, but they know their business, and they know what growth should look like.
Fraser Allen was up next with a very different pitch to Bob’s, in that he showed us the product first before describing the problem that it solves. Deborah Meaden revealed that what Fraser really wanted was the dragons’ expertise and market contacts, and 5% was an insulting stake to offer for that.
Lesson four is that no matter how much time, money and effort you have put into your product, you need the investors’ help. Don’t undervalue it.
Samson is on next, bringing us an electric face steamer. The less said about that the better. However, I suspect that he's off home to invent the electric egg-off-face taker.
Lesson five; sometimes, the product is just a bad idea.
Marcella and her Mexican band bring us a musical pitch next. It’s very reminiscent of Levi Roots’ pitch, as Peter Jones also observes. Unfortunately, the only thing that it has to do with the product is its country of origin. Her product is a range of authentic Mexican dips and drinks. Apparently they’re good, and she drops in some names of familiar stores that already stock them – Harrods and Selfridges. It sounds impressive at first but, when the dragons do some digging, it turns out that sales volumes are rather low and Marcella has not set aside nearly enough money to fund the kind of marketing campaign that would make a difference. Her pitch was essentially very simple – “try my Mexican food and if you like it, help me sell it”. Everything else; the band, the name dropping and the PR expert that she brought along, were all for show.
Lesson six; when your pitch is very simple, keep it that way.
Chris O’Connell is next with his revolutionary dry ski slope that saves you from breaking your fingers, which is apparently a very common problem with the traditional design. The problem is that ‘apparently’ is all the evidence that he can provide to support his pitch.
Lesson seven; don’t make claims that you can’t back up with facts.
Finally, we come to Robert Lewis. His pitch has plenty of impact because as he reveals his product, he doesn’t say a word. His introduction and his product are superb, but he is completely unable, or unwilling, to answer a simple question about sales. Deborah Meaden drops out after a very frustrating exchange with Robert, quickly followed by Duncan Bannatyne, who Robert dismisses in quite an abrupt way. I can feel Robert’s negativity through the screen, and I could only see this ending badly. Robert then reveals that he has a major order from the US, but where’s the proof? It’s on an email, and he forgot to bring it.
Peter Jones likes the product so he tests Robert’s confidence. Robert says that he is 100% confident that he’ll receive the order, so Peter offers him the full investment for...100% of his company, and if the order is genuine, he’ll reduce it to 49%.
If Robert is trying to mislead the dragons then he has just painted himself right into a corner. He accepts Peter’s offer, perhaps with his fingers mentally crossed that the order really will come in.
Lesson eight; don’t bluff unless you’re ready to have your hand called.
I think that Dragons' Den shows us, time after time, that there is no set formula for the pitch, but there is a core of information that the dragons need every time. Yes, they like to be entertained once in a while, they like to be engaged, and they like to be surprised. But above all, they want to make an investment.
It’s exactly what they’ve been waiting for.
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