Understand the Brain for Better Pitching

There are three parts of the brain:

The best fundraisers know how to talk to each part of the brain.

To successfully pitch repeatedly, you need each pitch to convince each part of the brain to be in order. First, convince the survival brain, then the social, then the logical.

Today, we are discussing the logical brain; in past issues, we discussed the survival and social brains.

2026 State of AEO Report

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Does the Logical Brain even matter?

Once you've satisfied the listener's Survival and Social Brains, you can start talking about numbers and figures and rationally explain whatever you are pitching or selling.

The best pitches never even get to this part.

Investing in startups isn't rational. 99% will fail, its a gut instinct, an impulse buy. The decision is made with emotion and feelings derived from the survival/social brain and NOT from the rationality of the logical brain.

How to speak to the logical brain?

The truth is that even if you can get a commitment out of FOMO or gut instinct, through due diligence and the entire investment process, you’ll eventually need to convince investors that the investment is the right decision logically.

When doing this, the key is not to trigger the survival brain. Many founders know so much about their companies that they make way too many assumptions about what others know. Always explain it as if the investor has no baseline knowledge; if you are explaining things at too basic of a level, they will tell you. If you are being too complex, they will zone you out.

While there are books on reason and logic, the basics are simple. Always start with a statement that the investor agrees with and continue your line of thought without making any jumps the investor can’t take with you. As long as you start somewhere they agree and don’t lose them along the way, you’ll bring them to the destination you need to reach. Especially if you already have a commitment before needing to jump into the rational conversation.

2026 State of AEO Report

A year ago, most marketers weren't thinking about AI search. Now it's one of the fastest moving channels in the industry and nobody has a playbook yet.

So we built one. We surveyed hundreds of marketers to find out how they're approaching answer engine optimization, where they're investing, what's actually working, and what isn't.

The result is the 2026 State of AEO Report. Real data. Real strategies. A clear picture of where AI search is headed and how to get ahead of it.

Download the free report

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