How to talk to the money men

BusinessGreen.com: PR and communications is often seen as the preserve of large firms. What role does it have to play in startups?
Tom Whitehouse: As soon as a startup becomes a public company through the IPO process, its privacy as a company has ended. You're obliged to communicate. If you don't, your investor loses interest, your shares lose liquidity and then you suffer further loss of interest and end up an "AIM orphan " that no one wants to adopt. Investor communications can sustain investor interest both before and after you become a public company.

How should a green startup communicate?
The three rules of successful communication are: know and understand your audiences; have a simple and clear story; and be a good story teller. You must also realise that the story you are trying to tell has to be memorable. Investors meet two companies a day and monitor many more on a day-to-day basis, so their routine can lead to something akin to a hangover, whereas you are preoccupied with one company a day, every day. You have to make your company stand out.

How do you go about doing that?
Communicating with investors is like telling a bedtime story, although you're not trying to send your investors asleep, but trying to reassure them and make your story simple. As Albert Einstein said: “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." In a nutshell, the point will come when you have to ask yourself, exactly what do we do? This is the foundation to all communication and you should be able to outline what you do, simply and concisely in about 30 seconds.

What should you do to keep a story simple?
The terms you choose are important. Don't expect investors to communicate on your terms - they won't, they don't have the time. Their mindset is different, so instead of expecting them to come to your level of detailed knowledge, keep it simple. There are also positive and negative associations to the terms you choose. The phrase "product development", for example, has positive connotations, while "not commercial" will be read as "not ready yet" and invites clichés about green technology not making money. You should always use positive words to communicate with potential investors.

Besides keeping your pitch simple what other best practices should firms embrace?
There are a couple of golden rules every pitch should follow: don't bad-mouth the opposition because it comes across as defensive, and don't bring dodgy samples to a presentation - if you are going to demonstrate technology make sure your model works. Presentation is also important. There's still an association between big beards and green business, so don’t grow a large beard and allow investors to make those associations.

Tom Whitehouse is chief executive of Green PR and communications agency Carbon International