Seven steps to rocking the pitch of your life!
Posted on 22nd April 2022 at 17:08
Imagine waking up late when you have something important to go to like a wedding. You throw your clothes on, get in your car and go.
Imagine waking up late when you have something important to go to like a wedding. You throw your clothes on, get in your car and go. Or rather you don’t because your car doesn’t start, so you use your friend’s car. You nearly miss the turn off on the motorway, although manage to get on the right road only by reversing and nearly hitting a lorry! You arrive, pull on the rest of your clothes and say f**k a few more times!
Sounds ridiculous right?
And in a way it is. You may recognise it as the introduction to the comedy, “Four weddings and a funeral”.
Even if we don’t relate to it, we may relate to being unprepared for something which is really important to us.
What if you attracted an amazing opportunity to do a pitch for your dream client or a key note at a prestigious conference I imagine you’d want to be prepared and to the best job you possibly could.
Here’s a few things to consider before doing the pitch of your life ~
1. Who are you speaking to and what do they want? If you’re not sure who exactly who your audience is can you find out? If people have booked on to an event and you have their contact details can you ask some of them?
2. What do you want out of your talk? To motivate, to inspire, raise awareness of your brand, or sell. Or something else. It’s important to know this because it will inform the tone of your pitch.
3. Get all the details you need ~
How long are you speaking for? Please be polite and keep within the time frame. Are there other speakers? What time will you be on? When and where? Check what is needed around any tech – leads, projectors and so on. If you’re planning on slides, sometimes they want them in advance, so you can check this. Are you able to practice in the space?
4. Start writing your pitch as early as you can before you’re due to speak. This gives you time to write it, edit it, edit it and edit it again, so it’s honed down to the last detail. It gives you time to practice it and keep practising it until you have it nailed. And you can practice, not just what you’re going to say, but how you’re going to say it. You can practice on your own or with someone else. It can be useful to get some feedback from some people you trust, what’s working well and what could be even better. Some people find it useful to record themselves. If you do this, please be kind to yourself as we can be our own worst critic!
5. What are you going to wear? You may want to wear your brand colours or you may want to consider what colour the background is so you can wear something which contrasts this. If you’re being filmed as a general rule solid, rich colours can look better than patterns, stripes, florals or checks.
6. Before the day, visualise your pitch going super well. You rocking the crowd! When you do this, get into the feeling you want to feel on the day, whether that’s relaxed, inspired or something else and turn this feeling up. You can do this a few times
And finally, on the day, enjoy it! The more you enjoy it, the more your audience will. All the preparation you have done will mean you can. Go you, you rock star! ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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