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Manage Stress Before a Big Pitch

Posted on by Rick E

We’ve all had those days where stress pushed us to the edge, and we all know it’s not good to be around someone who loses their cool.

You won’t leave a good first impression if you keep a strained demeanor. Manage stress before it takes over your body and turns you into an angry presenter.

Stress by itself is a normal reaction that doesn’t go away until the perceived threat is gone, but delivering a pitch isn’t a real threat. Remind your body that you’re not in any danger. Relaxation will help calm you down and assure you that everything’s going to be alright. Here’s why you should regulate your stress and how to do it:

Likeability

When things keep going wrong, it’s important to know that there’s still tomorrow to look forward to. Stress skews our perspective towards fear and negativity, which makes it hard to even consider that things are going to get better. In addition to feeling terrified, our expressions project the anxiety we feel in response to internal pressure.

Stressing out before a pitch can lead to failure because the presenter may already be anticipating that something will go wrong. The audience can pick up on your emotions and will definitely sense if something’s not right. You’ll lose your credibility as a speaker if people sense you’re too stiff. Confidence in what you’re saying is needed for other people to trust in you, too.

Stress Management

Stress buildup can be mitigated in the first place by placing security checks. Identify what makes you feel threatened. Is it the fear of being judged or being in front of a large crowd?

Once you’ve identified them, step back and realize that none of them can really harm you. The audience is just there to hear what you’re going to present; none of them pose a real threat. Your body will start to calm down once it realizes that you don’t need to fear for your life, and you’ll have nothing to fear once you regain your focus.

Monitor Stress Levels

Some things are truly out of our control, but it doesn’t mean that we should lose our cool. Even if we’re not the best presenter, we should strive to give our best effort.

Doing some relaxation exercises can help release some of that pent-up stress. It will help empty your mind and introduce calming imagery in place of stressful thoughts. Also remember to breathe. Breathing helps relax muscles that become tense when you’re stressed. Pacing around and doing some stretches helps you unwind and prepares you to move your focus elsewhere.

Concentration

Conduct everything you do professionally, and you’ll get the respect you deserve. Don’t let stress get in the way of your ability to make a great pitch. After all, a stressed presenter doesn’t look good. It makes you look hostile, distancing you from your audience. Relaxation should come easily once you’ve identified and let go of what stresses you out.

Manage stress. Don’t let stress manage you.

Reference

“Stress Management.” Mayo Clinic. April 8, 2014. www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/basics/stress-basics/hlv-20049495

Featured Image: “StartupStockPhotos” on pixabay.com

Developing an Introduction for Your Business Pitches

Posted on by Rick E

Introductions are crucial parts of business pitches, capturing the crowd’s attention before the presenter proceeds to his main topic. Your introduction should fulfill two purposes: to win your audience’s attention and clarify your topic and purpose.

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Favorable Attention Step

Communicologist Eugene White (1960) suggested the following tips on how to receive favorable attention:

  • Point out your subject’s significance to raise the stakes and demonstrate how your topic affects important factors. Attaching a sense of urgency to your pitch, directly or indirectly, makes your audience listen intently.
  • Use pleasantry, wit, and humor. This is a classic oratory flourish of master presenters who entertain while informing listeners.
  • Make a stimulating statement, refer to a famous quotation, or ask a provocative question to stimulate thoughtfulness and curiosity.
  • Mention common bonds with your listeners. People like speakers they can relate with. Bring out mutual traits, beliefs, life experiences, and goals to build the common ground between you and your listeners.
  • Pay the crowd a sincere compliment. A happy crowd is a crowd that listens.

Using one or a combination of the previous methods can guarantee you total audience engagement.

Clarification Step

After you have their eyes and ears, connect your opener with what you actually need to say. Clarify and link your introduction to your main topic with the following tricks:

  • State your speech’s point or purpose. Directly referring to your intentions immediately connects your introduction to your objectives and to your whole pitch.
  • Explain how you plan to develop your topic to give your audience a clue on your pitch deck’s length. This prepares them to gauge the amount of time you’ll be taking.
  • Provide necessary preliminary definitions and explanations especially if your topic requires a technical approach. When dealing with a lot of unavoidable jargon, get it out of the way before proceeding.

This phase acts as a transition that guides your listeners’ initial curiosity into rapt attention. You can’t simply jump from attention-grabbing straight into your pitch deck’s main body.

Tying Them Together

When used in conjunction, these two processes make for effective introductions that attract and engage while keeping in line with your message and purpose. They’re like a one-two punch combination, where you set up and measure the range before dealing the most significant blow.

Open your discussion with a favorable attention step that suits your audience, occasion, and topic. Afterwards, ease your listeners into the body of your speech by proceeding to the clarification step.

Conclusion

A well-designed deck and a well-planned pitch fall flat without an effective introduction for a lead-in.

Always begin by getting your audience’s attention. Raise the stakes, use humor, ask provocative questions, sympathize with your audience, or pander to them. Then, cap off the introductory stage by clarifying the connections between your main topic and your introduction. This way, you get an engaging and memorable opener that makes sure your listeners are all eyes and ears for you.

Practice crafting this part to hook your audience right from the beginning.

Need help refining your business pitch? Contact our pitch deck experts now and receive a free quote!

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References

“The Role of the Introduction.” Boundless. Accessed July 20, 2015.
White, Eugene. Practical Speech Fundamentals. New York: The McMillan Co, 1960.

Get Back in the Game: Regain Your Sales Pitch Skills

Posted on by Rick E

It’s challenging to get back on your feet after losing your touch. Failing to deliver is unacceptable when rejected sales pitches result in lost profits.

Humans are prone to mistakes and these happen with sales pitches, too. You might trip, lose your touch, and wonder how you even got there in the first place.

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While there’s no set timetable for recovery or a rock-solid formula to regaining your edge, there are three factors to assess if you want to get back in the game:

What defined your style?

Over time, presenters develop their own personal brand. These define you as a presenter.

Remember which pitch skills worked for you. Review your old pitch deck sales presentations and identify what made them work.

Were your slide designs simplistic?

Did you share any relevant stories from personal experience? Did you connect to your audience with shared beliefs?

Find answers by looking at your past performances. Know your style, take notes on what you can improve on, and start practicing again.

How can you make yourself relevant?

Look at how successful brands sell their products through advertising.

According to Interbrand group chief executive, Chuck Brymer, effective branding techniques define what a business stands for.

Coke is a refreshing drink, Nike is for sporty go-getters, etc. They understand what their customers want and adjust their ads to stay relevant in the market.

As presenters, you also represent your company’s brand.

How you do your sales pitch reflects how your company does business with others, whether you speak professional or casually. You embody what your company stands for, so bank on those beliefs to re-establish a connection with your clients.

How can you rebuild credibility?

Successful companies stay that way is because they never compromise their core beliefs.

As cited in Jim Aitchison’s book, Cutting Edge Advertising, Avis consistently positioned its message as the number two brand for car rentals. This gave customers the impression of a hard-working company.

In order to stay relevant, companies continuously understand how their customers behave to pitch their products effectively. Take this same practice and apply them to your sales pitches. Remain consistent with what your company stands for and understand how these can relate with what your clients believe in. This builds up that relationship with promises and trust.

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Regaining your edge shouldn’t be limited to these three factors. Keep practicing and trying out new ways to make yourself unique.

Focus on how you want your listeners to see you and what they’d miss if you quit.

To get that edge, call a pitch deck partner to help you out. All it takes is fifteen minutes.

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References

Aitchison, J. (2004). Cutting Edge Advertising: How to Create the World’s Best Print For Brands in the 21st Century. Singapore: Prentice Hall.
Brymer, Chuck. “WHAT MAKES BRANDS GREAT?” Marketing Magazine. Accessed May 11, 2015.
“Sales Presentation Skills: Stay Relevant to Pitch Ideas.” pitchdeck.com, May 11, 2015. Accessed May 15, 2015.

How to Plan for Your Next Successful Pitch

Posted on by Rick E

Sharpening your pitch skills isn’t limited to preparing before the actual thing. You have to take a look at the results of your pitch, too.

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Every idea you present will affect others in some way. After every pitch, you need to look into two types of general feedback:

  • How your audience reacts as you present
  • What you did to invoke those reactions

Knowing exactly how your audience reacts will give you information on what you need to fix. Looking into these lets you sort between what your listeners like and don’t like about your performance. By gauging the quality of their feedback, you’ll know what techniques to keep and which to remove.

In fact, this method of evaluation is so crucial that companies such as Volkswagen and marketing experts like Northwestern University’s Philip Kotler (1972) highly recommend it to keep their customer relationships healthy. In his article, “A Generic Concept of Marketing,” Kotler discusses how these help gauge audience behavior and what it costs to achieve the results you want.

Attitude & Behavior-Related Responses

No matter how you present your ideas, they will affect your viewers in some way. Positive responses, such as smiling and nodding in agreement encourage better rapport between speaker and audience. Negative behavior, such as blank stares or people dozing off, might hurt your reputation in the long run.

As a presenter, monitoring audience behavior during and after your pitches can help identify points for improvement. For example:

  • Were your slide designs relevant to your content?
  • Was your information presented in an easy-to-read format?

Observing and remembering these simple reactions allow you to build your skills as you go along.

Costs and Efficiency

Preparing a pitch deck and getting the needed information costs time, sometimes even money. While it’s true that positive results matter, you also need to consider what it took to get to that outcome. When evaluating this aspect, you can ask yourself things like:

  • Did you spend a longer time formatting content than you should have?
  • Did you have to buy any information for your pitch deck?
  • Was there anything you could save up on or do more efficiently next time?

As with any business, costs—time, manpower, and money—matter, especially when it comes to marketing and advertising. It’s no different when making a pitch deck to sell your services, products, and ideas. Finding out what to save up on and what to invest in can make the difference when planning for your next pitch.

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Audience feedback can sometimes be so overwhelming that you don’t know where to start. However, applying these two control skills will help you clarify what you need to improve on and how to do it.

At the end of the day, considering your audiences’ reactions can give you an edge over other presenters. Using that to improve your pitch deck will become second nature once you realize that you deal with people, too.

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References:

Kotler, P. (1972). A Generic Concept of Marketing. Journal of Marketing. Vol. 36, No. 2. Retrieved from: http://www.8pic.ir/images/rommbbx28bfgpry1idn.pdf

PowerPoint Karaoke: Have Fun and Improve Your Pitching Skills

Posted on by Rick E

I’m sure you’ve tried karaoke to wind down with colleagues after a long day of work. But have you ever thought to give PowerPoint Karaoke a try?

In PowerPoint Karaoke, participants are challenged to take the stage and deliver a pitch based on slides they’ve never seen before. The rules are pretty simple. Instead of singing power ballads, participants will need to make sense of random slides, and connect it to an assigned theme. They will also be restricted by a time limit. The results are usually pretty crazy and absurd. To give you a clue, here are some slides from a PowerPoint Karaoke event held in Seattle last 2012:

As you can probably imagine, PowerPoint Karaoke can lead to some pretty hilarious situations. The best speakers are those who are willing to step out of their comfort zone, ready to have fun while practicing their improvisation skills. It’s the perfect game for anyone looking to deliver better and more engaging pitches.

Getting started:

If you’re ready to throw your own PowerPoint Karaoke party, here are some tips to help you get started:

  • Build your pitch decks beforehand. Be creative and go for slides that will challenge the participants. If you want, you can find pitch decks online and edit them for your use. Five to seven slides per deck will do.
  • At the event, let the participants draw for their speaking order and assigned theme. This will give everyone an even playing field, and prevent people settling for topics they’re familiar with.
  • You can decide whether you want speakers to control their own deck, or have the slides auto advance.
  • Set a time limit that’s no more than 5 minutes.
  • Decide on a winner by letting the audience vote. You can prepare forms, or just ask them to choose their favorites by show of hands.
PowerPoint Karaoke is a great activity to try with your colleagues. Gather a small group in a room and start having fun. Urge everyone to test their improvisation abilities and improve their pitching skills.

Featured Image: Simon Law via Flickr

4 Steps to Mastering the Elevator Pitch

Posted on by Rick E

The idea behind the elevator pitch is said to have originated from businessmen who needed to pitch proposals to prospective investors as quickly as possible.

Incidentally, it also gives the investors a chance to turn down ideas promptly (especially those that are not that good or do not match their investment profile). The fast paced delivery indeed works well for both parties. If you have a plan to acquire funds from a potential investor, mastering the art of the elevator pitch will definitely work to your advantage.

In his Forbes article, Rick Frasch already provides the eight mistakes entrepreneurs need to avoid in their elevator pitch. Now here are four tips from us on how to get it right:

1. Establish your story

Set aside a time to write your story, preferably without interruptions. When you write, visualize that you’re telling the story to a family member or a close friend. This can help you put your mind at ease.

Write anything relevant to your ideas. Don’t forget to silence your inner critic and not edit just yet.

2. Let it sit for some time

Once you are done with your pitch’s rough draft, go and do something else. You may want to go for a walk or drive around the neighborhood.

The idea is to let the story sit for a day or two so you’ll have a fresh perspective when you read and work on it again.

3. Polish your hook

Start editing down your story to its barest essential. Your goal is to craft a killer 60-second elevator pitch. While you’re at it, think about adding a good hook.

The hook is the part that will let you jumpstart your pitch. It should be about 15 seconds long. This is important because those 15 seconds are your only chance to convince your prospect to listen to the rest of the pitch.

Add an element of curiosity to your hook. You may choose to start with engaging phrases such as “What if…” or “Picture this…” At this point, you should have you prospect intrigued.

4. Explain what’s in it for them

Now that you have the attention of your prospective investor, it’s time to key in on engaging the audience. Persuade your listeners into actually investing by explaining how your idea can bring in profits. P

Prove that there’s a market for it and that your solution is something that customers would be willing to pay for. Close your pitch by creating a sense of urgency.

Whether your product is only available during the Holidays or you’re racing with a rival in filing a patent, use urgency to motivate, not force people to invest.

The Final Word

Spend enough time practicing your pitch. Time yourself as your practice. Make sure that you can say whatever you need to say within the 60-second limit.

The key to a great elevator pitch is not just to pitch in a rapid-fire approach. Even if you can’t deliver a mile a minute speech, you would still be able to impress your audience.

And most importantly, memorize your lines. If you’re using a pitch deck presentation, do not read from the slides. Investors can sense if you’re not ready and just winging it, so practice extensively to perfect that pitch.

Reference

Frasch, Rick. “8 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Pitching To Investors.” Forbes. Accessed June 10, 2014.

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