Steps to Growth Capital Investor Readiness Skills

2.5 Maintain Your Composure

During meetings the investor may interrupt frequently to ask questions and perhaps make comments that will strike an emotional chord. Such behaviour can be a signal that the investor is interested and trying to get more information to consider your opportunity further. Keep your cool, maintain your composure and remain pleasant.

Expect too that you may have to deal with conflict in meetings with the investor. For example, as an entrepreneur, you have placed personal time, money and emotion in your business, and revealing the details to an investor may be difficult for you. The investor may try to investigate areas of your business that you aren't eager to discuss with someone who hasn't yet made a commitment.

Two Ways to Manage Conflict

Keep in mind that there are two approaches to handling conflict: confrontation and compromise. There are times for each approach. When you find the conversation moving into uneasy areas, remember, you can choose to confront or compromise.

Confrontation promotes an open exchange of feelings, views and opinions. When everything is out in the open, resolving conflict requires everyone involved to work through their differences by basing decisions on each other's arguments. Effectively solving conflict by using confrontation involves high energy and emotional discussions, intelligent arguments and very effective listening skills.

Compromise requires both parties to meet in the middle and come up with a solution that can make everyone happy. But be careful: using compromise to solve conflict may not meet all the needs of your business or the needs of your investor. Make sure you know what you can afford to give up and what you need to get in order to make your business successful.

Negotiation and conflict are discussed more thoroughly elsewhere in this self-study program.

Deal With Nervousness

Being nervous before and during a meeting or presentation is quite common. Here are some general tips to help you manage your anxiety.

• Prepare, prepare, prepare. It's probably the best way to overcome jitters.
• Practise both presenting the key elements and handling questions/answers. It will help you foresee problems you wouldn't have otherwise anticipated.
• Handle the logistics ahead of time. Prepare backup plans; then, if something goes wrong, you'll be ready for it.
• Know where you're going if the meeting isn't held in your office. Being late will make you look unprofessional and make you even more nervous.
• Don't forget to breathe. Breathing is a great stress reliever and can be done discreetly. Learning how to breathe will help you say long sentences without gasping for air.

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