From the early days of their first “just do it” posters Nike have set out to capture the spirit of a winning attitude by association with global sports heroes who win when it matters most, against the toughest competitors, in the cauldron of an Olympic Games or World Championship.

 Athletes like Paula Radcliffe don’t just compete. They dedicate their lives to a single goal to the exclusion of everything else. Every daylight hour is focussed on a training regime, a mental and physical preparation towards that single goal that would terrify us. When she says ‘nearly isn’t enough’ most of us would have said enough already!

Can this approach to translate to the pitch? A winning attitude is evident in most successful companies since without it they also can’t compete. It is usually not lacking in pitch teams who launch into the  preparation with all guns blazing and a real desire to perform well.

However, unlike Paula, they are not channelling their ‘winning attitude’  to the exclusion of everything else. Why? Because they have day jobs, clients to look after, operations to manage. So while they may be ‘putting everything into the pitch’, they aren’t. ‘Enough’ will be what can be done in the time available after other demands are met.

If Paula, or Mo, were on your team you would not say enough so readily. You would fight for more preparation, more training, more resource, better support and make “nearly isn’t enough” your mantra. After all, it only takes one of your competitors to be doing this and they will win.

The unfortunate Ed Milliband seems to have chosen the wrong career. In politics in the 21st century, with 24/7 screen exposure, ’style’ puts ’substance’ in the shade. Journalists are having a field day at his expense. Mary Ann Sieghart: “Even Ed’s friends don’t see him at home in Downing Street ……only 16% of Labour supporters agree that he looks and sounds like a possible Prime Minister.”

Matthew Norman is more explicit, if that is the right word, saying “If politics is like sex, Ed will never find the national G-spot”. He further suggested that voters decided “within 0.03 seconds of his becoming leader…. that they did not want to dive under the blankets with him”

While the G-spot is as elusive in business as elsewhere, the style over, or under, substance issue is live. Every pitch, audience and decision process is different so claiming one more important than the other is foolhardy. An outstanding solution presented indifferently can win against brilliant pitching of a moderate solution, sometimes.

However, typically in practice three or four firms of very similar ability-in the eyes of the potential client who selected them-will be in competition and the chances are that their technical solutions, the substance of their response, will be of very similar quality. Chosing the ‘best’ is not easy. 

In these instances style will often be the only differentiator in the eyes-or rather the emotional responses- of those judging. And yet, so often, work continues right upto the last minute with attempts to improve the substance leaving no energy for improving style, the winning ingredient that just might hit the G-spot.

A recent article in the Evening Standard  carried the headline: GOOD IDEAS AREN’T ENOUGH- ED NEEDS TO PROJECT POWER.

Journalist  Jenni Russell discusses the four major problems he faces only one of which is largely under his control. He cannot do much about the ’structural impotence’ of the opposition, or the ‘plague of Labour’s legacy’, or Cameron’s success in ‘acting in some ways as Labour would be proud to do’.

The fourth problem which is largely under his control (or is it?) is his style and manner.  A problem shared by many pitch teams and those who lead them!

“Voters doubt his capacity to lead. Milliband’s private charm and intellectual curiosity aren’t translating well to the public stage. He isn’t coming across as a man comfortable with having and wielding power. These are essential qualities in a leader.”

In the competitive pitch the clever ideas person who developed the strategy may not be the best to pitch it .  Feelings may be bruised when someone with more ‘power’ but less intellect is chosen to present.  What matters is the impact on the audience.

If the substitute bench is empty, serious performance rehearsal, not a tired run-through, will help. It is not a miracle cure for a lack of charisma. What it can do is raise every individual performance and that of the team to  greater levels of confidence, clarity and persuasion. More power.

A winning combination would be one where David Cameron pitches Ed Milliband’s ideas - as he is doing!

This year the awards recognise people who best demonstrate a particular characteristic of great performance. In no particular order:

Energy:  Mary Portas.  Lots of expertise delivered with compelling energy. Unfortunately too late for our high streets?

Style:  The Middleton Family.  Kate for sure but the whole family made the Royals look ordinary.

Structure:  Christine Lagarde.  Great communication skills rooted in clear simple structures so you feel she really does know what she is talking about.

Body language: David Cameron.  No remarkable performances but he manages to create a physical impression of leadership his rivals in Westminster and across Europe can’t match.

Listening: Rebecca Brooks.  She deflected the hostility of the inquisitor MPs by listening, really listening, to each questioner and answering the actual question asked. Unlike Murdoch junior.

 Pausing: Rupert Murdoch.  A pause has rarely been more powerful than his response to the question, Did you know what was going on?  After a seemingly endless delay his barked NO! took the wind out of the collective MP sails. 

Theatre:  Kim Jong-il  (deceased).  A million people in weeping in unison takes some beating.

Passion:  Sir David Attenborough. Who else?

Presence:  Aung San Suu Kyi.  A voice too rarely heard but an unmistakable and compelling presence.

Charisma: Tariq Jahan. The Currys van driver who spoke so eloquently after the death of his son in the riots that a city came to its senses.

The element of surprise is a characteristic of any good speech or presentation. Depending on the event and the audience it can range from the theatrically dramatic to the unexpected use of storytelling.  Whichever, it is surprise that keeps your audience listening with enjoyment, hearing what you say and wanting more- even if your subject is not itself surprising.

The vicar of St Peter’s in Notting Hill, Mark Hargreaves, is a master of surprise. His deceptively simple ‘talk’ at the annual carol service took surprise as its theme.The very real surprise of the birth of Christ contrasted with the sad lack of surprise of so much of what goes for its celebration today.

His talk captured interest from the start as he talked about the Leonardo exhibition, referring to the mosaic replica of the Last Supper,  hanging in the church. He pointed out the surprise on the faces of the disciples and from there in everyday conversational language helped us imagine  the genuine surprise of the innkeeper, Mary, the wise men and, especially, Joseph.

He has a rare gift because he does not just find the right thought-provoking words. He delivers them in a way which is itself surprising   in a place of worship where so often the manner is still that of the preacher lecturing rather than that of a friend engaging in a personal conversation. You felt he was talking only to you.

It is a pity, indeed a surprise, that in a world where so much of the trivial is accessible on our iphones that a talk this exceptional, not written down or recorded, was a one-off enjoyed only by those at the service that day. It seems to me that a box-set of Mark Hargreaves talks would be a Christmas gift worth having!

One of the best pitches I witnessed was that of great Saatchi creative director, the late Paul Arden. He was presenting a new campaign with a lot at stake. After the strategy had been explained, he rose to speak. Or not. For 60 seconds he stood quietly in silence, as if lost for words. Then a hesitant mutter of ‘this is so uh I’ .. another 60 seconds passed..’It’s so special Iam lost’…another ’uh’, a seeming eternity of silence.

 Finally he spoke. We the home team sighed with relief. The client meanwhile had been brought to an astonishing level of heightened expectation. Calculated or instinctive, (Arden never said) this totally unexpected  use of the dramatic or pregnant pause worked its magic. I don’t remember the campaign. 25 years later, I remember the pause.

In her excellent book the Star Qualities,  Caroline Goyder explains how “pitches happen in the pause”.

From years of coaching actors, she understands that it is in the pauses that your audience can take time in their minds to assess you, and what you are saying, time to form an opinion- difficult in the face of a torrent of words. It is in the pause that you will be seen as confident, engaged in communicating with, not proclamating at!

Some music lessons. It was Claude Debussy who said: “Music is the space between the notes”. And even better,virtuoso pianist Artur Schnabel: “The notes I handle no better than other pianists. But the pauses between the notes- ah, that is where art resides!”

These words from Governor Rick Perry probably killed off his chance of being nominated as the Republican candidate. In the live tv debate last week he was in attacking form, “I will tell you it’s three agencies of government when I get there that are gone. Commerce. Education…………..and what’s the third one”?  60 painful, for him, seconds later, “Sorry. Oops”.

Whether it was one of those memory blanks that can happen to anyone or whether, which seems unlikely he did not know the answer, most viewers will read the worst into his gaffe and assume he does not know what he is talking about. Initally he handled his lapse with a smile, maintaining strong eye contact.

 Had he finished that way much would have been forgiven. Instead he looked away as if for help, compounding the D’OH!  impression. In any live presentation it is easy to forget that the words alone are a minor part of the communication impact. The way you say it, the body language, the tone and expression play the major part.

The supreme communicator President Ronald Reagan handled gaffes effortlessly with his engaging folksy style and with clever words.  Challenged in debate by Walter Mondale, targetting his age over one of his many lapses of memory, he turned the tables  with humour saying “I am not going to debate for political purpose my opponent’s youth and inexperience”.  Even Mondale laughed.

Sir Clive Woodward, an inspirational and innovative Rugby coach, took on a real challenge in his contentious role as the British Olympic Association Director of Sport. Without treading on toes of some outstanding National Association coaches such as athletic’s Charles Van Commenee, he was charged with adding a competitive edge to what is now known as “Team GB”.

Linked by sometimes slight British qualification, this team spans competitors in events that are supremely individual, like athletics and swimming, to genuine team sports like hockey, to manufactured ones (under 23 soccer featuring 38 year old Beckham ?) and ones that are overt IOC television ratings eye candy, like Beach Volleyball (female).

Undaunted, Woodward has identified that a common factor that can contribute to success is a team ethos, with defined values. To give this more of a sound bite, given that communication is an all important ‘Olympic’ event, he has given this concept a new word, “TEAMSHIP”. The values around which the team ‘can now unite and focus’ are Performance, Pride, Respect, Unity and Responsibility.

Whether or not Teamship will prevent Jessica Ennis clipping a hurdle, Woodward’s premise is sound. Drawing from his experience not just in sport but in the corporate world, he understands better than most that competitive organisations are typified with a strong culture and team ethos. Teams pitching for such companies tend to win more often!

Even in an age of equal opportunity the pitch audience, in most sectors, is more likely to be all male or mixed with few that are female only. Whatever the mix, the principles of good pitching are much the same, the first  being to do research into your audience! The enterprising Lady Geek , inspired by founder Belindar Palmer, offers five bits of good advice. The last three apply universally.

The Party Conference season is already a distant memory, overtaken by the fun the media are having with Liam Fox and Adam Werritty. In truth the conferences were not that newsworthy and the speeches from all sides uninspired. Amidst this mediocrity, Cameron, without scaling the heights of his leadership winning ”No notes Cameron” speech five years ago, stood apart.

 It was not a great speech but it was cleverly constructed. Philip Collins in The Times analysed it making this observation.

“Rule of three; three rules. The first full paragraph of the speech tells the story in miniature. It is already obvious that whatever we think of the content of the argument, there is a structure here on which to hang the material. There are three questions and we shall take them in order. He ends this summary of the speech with the operative word: leadership.”

Here is that first paragraph.

People have a very clear instruction for this Government; “Lead us out of this economic mess.” “ Do it in away that’s fair and right.” “And as you do it, make sure you build something worthwhile for us and our children.” Clear instructions. Clear objectives. And from me a clear understanding that in these difficult times it is leadership we need. 

Armed with this clear, signposted, easily communicated ‘three’ structure Cameron could focus on his delivery, giving a performance of command and confidence. Leadership in action. Essential to the winning pitch.