Set everything up right

We repeat over and over again to our clients the importance of preparation in getting a successful outcome. Consider carefully the environment you set up for the pitch to be delivered – this sends out an important message to the audience.

When we present to people, where we are looking for interaction – we never have classroom style set ups, or a conference table – we’ll often position people in a semi-circle sometimes with no tables and move around as we present – the result being that people see no ‘barrier’ to getting involved and the interaction that we want works well and our ideas are observed and taken on board more easily.

The ‘Pitch’ itself 

You are looking to get buy in to your ideas. The ‘pitch’ therefore must be a journey in collaboration.

A great way of doing this is by getting interaction from the people in the room – (with the right set-up as above) and then by using a flip chart to write up the responses as they come out and attach them to a wall with a bit of Blu-Tac.

You could also present this way. As people come into the room your ideas are already on the wall and you move around from sheet to sheet and make your points – asking for input. How different is that? How would the audience feel when they are expecting another (boring?) presentation?

Using this method, you can get a group working together to discuss each possible solution to the problem they were trying to solve. A singular idea suddenly becomes a collaborative effort proposed by the entire group. ‘Buy in’ will be significantly increased

Moving fixed mindsets on…

The more experience people have, the more assumptions they are likely to make around why an idea “won’t work.” This is often because they have seen many successes and failures throughout their careers and want to avoid repeating mistakes. As a result, the most seasoned workers — who typically happen to be the most powerful — can be the hardest to convince.

To ensure your creative pitch stands a chance, you must combat their urge to lean on expertise and kill your ideas before they even take shape.

When your goal is to generate as many new ideas as possible, remind everyone that we are ‘initiating’ ideas, and not giving them the ‘go ahead’. The message is that we are nurturing ideas as opposed to shutting them down. This small shift in language takes the pressure off everyone and encourages those important people with great know how to think creatively. To practice, tell your meeting attendees that they can only respond to ideas shown with the comment with “yes, and.”

As an example, instead of shooting down a proposal for a 90-day free trial, for example, the team will be forced to water that seed and grow the idea. No longer will people say, “It’s too expensive.” They will instead focus on building value around the idea or coming up with solutions to the problems they would have posed. This could lead to a whole host of spin-off ideas, such as building out a marketing funnel to follow up on leads at the end of the trial period.