(Free template inside—no email hoops, just help)
Last Thursday night I got a WhatsApp from Tom, a London founder I’d met once at a meet-up:
Tom: “Mate, investor loved my elevator pitch in the lift at Level39. Asked for a deck by Monday. I’ve got… zero slides.”
We jumped on a video call. Tom looked fried—hoodie, empty mug, toddler toys in the background. Very human, very real. He read me the pitch that had hooked the investor:
“City retailers lose £2 bn a year to last-mile delivery failures. We cut that by half.”
Thirty seconds of gold. Trouble is, you can’t email an elevator. You need a deck—fast—and you need to stand up with it, even faster.
Step 1 – Stretch the spark
I asked Tom to breathe, then write his one-liner across the top of a blank slide deck. Under it we pencilled five sticky notes:
- Problem – the £2 bn pain.
- Solution – his clever routing API.
- Benefit – happier customers, lower costs.
- Proof – pilot data from three shops in Soho.
- Ask – £1.2 m for 18 months.
That’s the spine. We built the rest around it with my FREE Pitch Deck Template (grab it here—direct link, no forms).
Step 2 – Pick the right coaching lane
Tom thought “coaching” meant generic pep-talks. I broke down Pitch Hero’s six tracks:
- Investor Presentation Coaching – his obvious fit: deck, narrative, brutal finance Q&A.
- Pitch Deck Creation – From content strategy to slide design
- Start-Up Pitch Coaching – Demo Day drills for first-time founders.
- Executive Coaching & Media Training – TV lights, board squabbles, crisis calls.
- Conference Speaker & Panel Prep – making subject-matter geeks shine on stage.
- Pitch Training for Companies – getting whole teams to sing the same song.
“Investor track, please,” Tom said. “But can we borrow some media tricks? I babble when I’m nervous.” Done.
Step 3 – Make it breathe
We swapped rainbow charts for one clean graph, ditched jargon, kept two fonts and three colours. White space became our friend; clutter got the boot.
Suddenly Tom saw his own idea—clear, sharp, fundable.
Step 4 – Rehearse without the bravado
Friday night we practised in ten-minute bursts between his toddler’s bedtime stories. I threw curve-balls:
- “What if Amazon builds this tomorrow?”
- “Why isn’t Royal Mail doing it already?”
Tom learned to pause, smile, and steer back to the slide that answered the fear. His shoulders dropped; his sentences shortened. Confidence isn’t loud—it’s settled.
The Monday meeting
Tom went in with eleven slides, a quiet grin, and our breathing routine in his pocket. He rang me afterwards:
“Alan, they’re drafting the term sheet. Said the deck told the story and the rehearsal showed I can run the ship.”
That’s the bit people forget: slides open doors, but the human behind them seals the deal.
Your turn
- Download the free template—same one Tom used.
- Map your five sticky notes onto it tonight.
- Need a second pair of eyes? Book a FREE 20-min Deck Audit;
- Choose your lane if you want deeper coaching—investor, sales, media, keynote, or team.
You already have the spark.
Let’s stretch it into a deck—and a story—that moves real humans to say “yes.”