How To Make Film Investors An Offer They Can't Refuse

Read time: 2 mins | YT Video

In today's issue, I'm going to show you how to start making offers to investors that they can't refuse.  

There are 3 components to making an offer that can't be refused. I'm going to take you through each one and give you some examples so that you can apply them to your film.

Now, let's dive in.

1. Hook them emotionally 

Humans make decisions based on emotions. Investors are human. Therefore, investors make decisions based on emotion.

This is a logical argument. It makes sense, but it's kind of cold and leaves you feeling a bit empty. 

It's the same when you're pitching investors. 

The logical side needs to exist. The numbers and your plan need to make sense. But the emotion side needs to draw the investor into your project. 

The way we do this is by finding the emotional drivers behind an investor's decision to support your film.

We find the emotional drivers in two places: the film and the filmmaker/s. 

For the film, we consider: subject matter, theme and location.

For the filmmaker, we look at what communities they belong to where they might have an affinity with potential investors. Some examples are sport organisations, alma matter, religion. 

Once we have these hooks we know how to identify the right investors. And we know which aspects of the project to focus on in our pitch. 

2. Be prepared

There is noting worse than being pitched, asking for a script and being told it will be ready in 2 months. 

When it comes to raising finance you need to be ready. This means having your script, finance plan, budget, pitch deck and schedule ready to send at the click of a finger. 

When you do this right, you instil confidence in an investor. And investors need confidence in order to hand over their hard-earned cash for something as high risk as film. 

You also move up their priority list. If your project is one of many that an investor is looking at, but it's the one that is most prepared and furthest along, they are going to favour your project. 

3. Decrease the time between sacrifice and reward

Everyone talks about ROI. 

But speed to ROI is a very important consideration for an investor.

If you can decrease the time between when they pay you and when you start paying them back, your offer will be more attractive. 

Some ways to do this are:

1. Only take the actual cash from investors when you are ready to close finance. 

2. Have distribution in place before production, to ensure there is no time delay between completion and the first sales. 

3. Raise finance during post-production. 

 OK, that's it for today. 

I hope you enjoyed it.

See you again next week.

Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

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