Pitch with purpose by ideas worthdoing

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by Ideas Worth Doing

Pitch with Purpose!

www.IdeasWorthDoing.org Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) Not to be posted online

Delivering a presentation that gets you great impact and impression is one of the most important skills you’ll have

There are numerous tips and techniques on how to do so.

Here’s some that you should never forget + some great videos

Pitch with Purpose!

WHY?WHAT?

HOW?

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Three Key Questions

How can you best do this?

What do you want to achieve?

Why should your audience listen to you?

WHY?WHAT?

HOW?

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Three Key Questions

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#1It’s not about you,

it’s about them.

“Pitching is about your product, your business, you.”

Wrong! It’s all about the people you’re pitching to: Your potential partners, customers, or investors.

You need to know: What do they want? What are their concerns? What excites them? What turns them off?

Spend lots of time thinking about this deeply.

Then craft your presentation to fit their needs and interests first, not yours.

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#2Focus, Flow,

Form and Finish.

Focus: Decide what are the most important elements your audience need to know.

Flow: Make sure there is a logical, natural flow from one part of your presentation to the next.

Form: Help your audience keep track of your what you’re saying. When you start, provide a “road map” content page and re-show this before you start each new part of your presentation.

Finish well with summary of your key points and a specific call-to-action (What you want from your audience?)

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#3Not too much,not too little,

but just right...

“When you’re given a short time to present, try to cover as much as possible.”

NO! This is never, ever a good idea. The human brain can only absorb a limited amount of information at one time.

LESS IS MORE: Focus on most critical elements. In a short pitch, the objective is to interest your audience enough, so that they be captivated and want to spend more time with you to learn more, later.

1 slide=1 min minimum is a useful rule-of-thumb. If you have a 15 minutes, you should have a maximum of 15 slides, ideally fewer (Remember, don’t cramp lots of information on each slide either.)

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#4ENERGISE

your audience!

One of the main things you are ‘selling’ is YOURSELF!

People like to associate with people who have energy and enthusiasm.

Show your passion, what your story and vision is, what drives you and your team, not just the facts and figures.

People will reflexively respond to you during your presentation. Be mindful of this always.

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#5Watch

these 4 great short videos...

#1 Nancy Duarte from Duarte Design

Her firm helps coach TED Speakers and designed Al Gore’s Academy-Award winning presentation, The Inconvenient Truth.

Search online for “Nancy Duarte” and refer to her books: Resonate and Slide-ology

Click to watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT9GGmundag

#2 TED Talk “Start With Why?” by Simon Sinek

Powerful idea about how to influence and inspire, with examples from Apple, Wright brothers...

Click to watch: http://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action.html

#3 Stanford e-Corner: Make a Great Pitch, by Guy Kawasaki

Plus many short video talks and lessons here that are very insightful, related to growing businesses, raising funding, building teams and so on.

Click to watch: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=1177

#4 TED Talk video on Pitching by David Rose

There are many excellent videos on TED.com you can learn from, showing you how to introduce new ideas, technologies, all of them are no longer than 18 minutes.

Click to watch: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_s_rose_on_pitching_to_vcs.html

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Dave, Ideas Worth Doing

dave@IdeasWorthDoing.org

Wish you all the success

ahead!

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) Not to be posted online