The art of pitching

I had a catch up with a well known pitch doctor yesterday. He reminded me of some of the most important factors, and regular mistakes we make while pitching.

Biggest mistake: Wasting time talking about ourselves. They already know enough about us, or they wouldn’t be in the room. The right amount of time to allocate talking about ourselves is close to zero.

Biggest Opportunity: Leave some questions unanswered. (counter intuitive I know) This creates the opportunity for real conversation. When we converse, we see how each party thinks. It also enables us to determine if we have the right chemistry to work together.

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3 thoughts on “The art of pitching

  1. Nice recommendations. But I would go back to the roots and think about basic presentation skills. I saw a lot of pitchers with really good business-ideas. But they just weren’t able to transport them. I’m talking about bad slides (a lot of text, overloaded grafics) AND about the person who helds the presentation. So if you are not used to stand up and talk about your ideas in a fluent, self-confident train it! Show your slides to friends and your familiy, try to get as much feedback as possible….and maybe buy a good book. There are loads of tips on the internet, too.

  2. If anyone hasn’t, I highly recommend ‘The Perfect Pitch’ by Jon Steel.

  3. I’d like to flip this post on its head and recommend a fantastic book called ‘win without pitching’ by Blair Enns. Maybe not suited to everybody but definitely worth a look.

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