How do you collaborate with others to refine and improve your idea?

A big part of knowing your audience is knowing their problem and understanding how you can add value to them. Step one, be a good listener and observer - you will find more cues than you expect. These will then help you carve a tailor-made pitch!

State the problem you're solving for them. Can you add texture to it? Meaning can you exemplify it with excerpts from anything resembling customer interviews? How are they solving the problem now? And how is that still unsatisfactory or else you wouldn't be looking to talk to them in the first place? I find the job to be done interviews the ace in the deck. They reveal the most about forces of attraction that pull your customers towards hiring your solution and forces of rejection, that make them stay the current course. And when I say customers, the audience for your deck is the customer in this specific case.

In framing your idea as a solution, it's critical to understand that you are selling / providing BENEFITS. Benefits are the be-all and end-all reason that your customers will perceive value and buy. Your product/service/solution is simply a means to produce those benefits. When preparing your pitch, don't make the all-too-common mistaking of thinking your solution is what people are buying.

Once you know their problem, re-iterate it to make them feel heard and then, present your idea as the SOLUTION. Become that problem-solver friend we all go to and you will naturally add value. Don't sell, solve!

You need to paint a picture of opportunities and challenges. Do it in 2 slides. That should do the work. Out of that tension, your solution should emerge as the saviour of the day. Or at least a very good bet.

Put the time in to become deeply familiar with your costs and potential risks before pitching your idea. Either of these factors could create deal-breaking doubt or completely invalidate your idea. It's important both that you put this work in to create conviction and buy-in regarding the validity and potential of your proposed idea, both for your audience and for yourself.

Market and industry knowledge is key here. Know your product, know the competitors, know what alternatives are available. Products and services alike. These key insights help you pose as an expert and someone who knows what they are talking about. Would you rather have your objections handled by an expert and take their word for it? 100% Do your homework and be prepared.

If what you're going for is their approval, then you need to build buy-in every step of the way. You're selling your proposal at every step. And part of it is to have a response to the strongest objection. Maybe even the second. Back them up with social proof. You don't want an explosion at the end. You want the resistance to diffuse or melt step by step as you go through it.

There are multiple ways to handle emotional objections. At the core of all lies TRUST. Your audience will make the change and take the risk only and ONLY if they trust you. Do not bombard them with your ideas and opinions at this stage. Make them feel valuable, make them feel heard, be open and honest - share a similar experience and how a change benefitted you. Disclaimer: Never disregard, discard or invalidate your audiences' emotions.

Develop a "hypothesis tree"... When incorporating feedback, it's easy to add this as additional content (or simply to "fudge" your overall message). In reality, you should take any feedback to its logical conclusion. If it invalidates a hypothesis within your overall argument/storyline, that particular hypothesis and its downstream dependencies need to come out (but no more). This way, you can use feedback to lathe down your idea/proposal into its strongest form.

All the steps boil down to this: A pitch no longer means you presenting "your idea". People seldom want to hear about you. Paint a picture for them. Let them tell you their story and take the lead - that engages them the most. Introduce your ideas as solutions and ask them how they would see those ideas into the story. They'll sell themselves. You just need to subtly direct them into the picture you want them to see. Remember: When you talk, they think and they can think themselves out of it. Engage them and do the thinking.

The hardest part of receiving feedback is to listen to it objectively. We take criticism personally which makes it hard to learn from constructive feedback. Understand that mentors and advisors want to see you succeed; their feedback is only to help you improve. It's a humbling experience to receive tough feedback but the more you can take the comments, see the value, and incorporate into your startup, the more progress you'll make. Feedback then naturally becomes part of your process and not something to fear.