Most failed pitches will share the characteristic of too much content. They fall into the  irresistible trap of more is best, cramming in every salient fact,  compelling case-histories, blinding statistics, unique reasearch findings, unassailable track records, irrefutable claims of superiority and differentiation. 

This ignores the simple truth. It’s not what you put in to a pitch that matters. It’s what your audience takes out. At best this will be three or four key messages and an emotional response that will always outweigh the rational one.

This is where storytelling comes in.  Since that famous time, immemorial, stories or narratives have been shared in every culture. Booker Prize writer, A.S.Bryant: “narration is as much a part of human nature as breath and the circulation of the blood. Indeed as human beings we are all natural storytellers…. some more innately skilled than others, but we all have stories to tell”.

So the morale of this particular tale is to sacrifice some content and tell a story. As long as it has some relevance it can come from personal experience or be a formal case history described anecdotally. Just as they did when children, your audience of hardened business professionals will listen and engage with your story, with their imaginations coming into play. They will remember the stories long after they forget the rest of your important argument.

The other plus side of the story is this. It is much easier in the heat of a pitch to tell a story naturally, and with confidence, than it is to present the compelling arguments.  And the sooner you bring in your stories, the sooner you and your audience will relax.

Build on this confidence by acting the story, as you would for children. Pause for dramatic effect ( the wolf  dressed as grandma), expansive open gestures (the beanstalk reaching the sky)  and smile (the happy ending).  All are aspects of your performance that  can say ‘you are delighted to be here’.

Remember, in any pitch, storytelling is the way to make the emotional connection and that you, the storyteller are the most important element. It’s all about you and your team.

Tarzan has swung back into action. As the Mail said: “Still bursting with ideas at 79, Michael Heseltine makes many ministers half his age look burnt out by comparison…. If this near-octogenerian has infected them with one ounce of his dynamism, he has done us all a service.”

His Growth report, like the man, is bursting with ideas. Whether you agree with them or not, and whether Cameron can act on any of them or not, is almost secondary to the sheer impact of the energy he brings onto the scene.  Interviewed on Radio 4, it was this sense of energy, rather than any particular remark, that made you feel optimistic that some positive change was in the air.

Right now few politicians are blessed with conspicuous energy. Although more energetic than most, David Cameron’s is being sapped by infighting and incompetence and Obama’s dipped, perhaps disasterously, in the first television debate.

And yet in any pitch, political or business, energy is fundamental to success.

In his remarkable book, It’s Not How Good You Are. It’s How Good You Want To Be, the great Paul Arden wrote: “energy is 75% of the job, if you haven’t got it, be nice”. 

Last time around both the Democrat and Republican Conventions gave us memorable performances. The soaring oratory of Barack Obama and the bizarre but compelling utterances of Sarah Palin. This time the formulaic delivery of Mitt Romney was only slightly countered by the ‘plucky-loving-wife’ piece and a bright but nasty contribution from Paul Ryan. (And of course Clint!)

 Luckily for Obama, who no longer soars and is an incumbent who has become less presidential after four years in office, he had two superb ’seconders’. The first of these was Michelle whose presence on stage was such that many are already sizing her up as a future president. Her speech was well crafted and hit all the right buttons, frequently - my “Barack” and our “poor upbringing”, the importance of “our girls” and of course lots of “love”.

It could have been mawkish but wasn’t because it was not the words that counted. It was her performance. More than any other major public figure she is the embodiment of great communication through body language, gesture, tone of voice, eye contact and facial expression. Check out her speech, and the smile, on You Tube with the sound turned down. You will get the message!

http://youtu.be/IVGAI8o5i4o

But even Michelle was somewhat overshadowed by Bill Clinton, and Obama certainly was. Among recent world leaders Clinton remains in a league of his own. He is known for his legendary charm, with the ability to ‘work a room’ like no other, making everyone he meets feel that they are special, and that he is only interested in them. 

Somehow he has the gift of taking this personal touch on to the platform, holding an intimate conversation with an audience of many thousands. His body language is not expansive but each gesture reinforces a key point. He combines this easy style, brilliantly, with words ‘I can understand, in my sort of language’. 

As Obama said to the New Hampshire crowds, ” President Clinton made the case in the way only he can. Somebody emailed me after his speech- they said, you need to appoint him secretary of explaining stuff. I like that.”

As a one-time track athlete it is tough to acknowledge that cycling will now be the number one Olympic sport and much of that is down to one man, Dave Brailsford, Director of Team GB’s cyclists. The tenet of his philosophy is the “aggregation of marginal gains”, a simple desire to seek tiny improvements in many areas that add up to a significant gain.

It is a philosophy that should apply to the competitive pitch where winning margins are also often by inches and not the proverbial mile and it starts with an attitude, in his case ”We are driven by not wanting to lose more than wanting to win. We’re not bad losers, we just hate it.”

For Brailsford selecting the right team and then fostering team spirit was a key. He spent some three years identifying the perfect team to support, protect and deliver Bradley Wiggins to the Yellow jersey,while managing highly competitive egos, like Mark Cavendish and Chris Froome. The resulting teamwork won the day. How often in the business pitch do the egos stumble over each other?

When it came to preparation Brailsford took nothing for granted. Wiggins was already a proven Gold medal cyclist and fit beyond normal doubt. This was not enough and no other team approached the Tour so clinically and this included bringing innovative training regimes from outside cycling, notably the GB swimming team. 

It was Brailsford’s ‘aggregation of marginal gains’  that was the platform for success  but it was the genius of Bradley Wiggins that delivered. Trying to explain what makes him so special Shane Sutton, his coach, said “he digs deep”. But said the interviewer “don’t all these cyclists dig deep?” A pause, then, “He digs deeper than the rest. When he shoves his hand in the coals of a fire, he holds it there longer!”

So often  the feedback after a close pitch will be that there was little to separate them, “we just felt the working relationship would be better”. In other words they felt the emotional connection was stronger. Feelings rather than rational judgement have influenced the decision.

It is not news to any experienced pitcher that likeability and relationships can outweigh the good creative or technical solution -where real differentiation is tough to achieve. And yet frequently the effort and energy on the solution will be all consuming at the expense of focus on the relationship opportunity. There are two phases to consider.

The first, whether the prospect has met you or not, is the relationship they already have with your corporate brand. They will bring this into the pitch.  The positives will have allowed them to short list you but they will have some doubts that will need countering. The creative maverick will need to convince on delivery. The reassuring  market leader may be seen as less interested. The brilliantly professional may be seen as too cool.

In the early days of Saatchi & Saatchi, the attractive brand image of daring creativity and outrageous success was tempered  by concerns of  ‘difficult to work with’.  As soon as they met the agency, these concerns vanished under the charm offensive mounted by  Maurice Saatchi and Tim Bell. Cementing relationships was key to their pitch strike rate.

The second opportunity lies in the time between the brief and the presentation. This may be a matter of days or of months. Typically a hell of a lot of time and effort will go in to analysis, briefing meetings, familiarisation visits, document writing with the aim of being better prepared than rivals and, of course, impressing the prospect.

All admirable provided the time is seriously used to foster and consolidate relationships.  Keep on evaluating them all the time, across the board. Simply put, the prospect should like you more, be more comfortable with you and more engaged by you than with any of your competitors.

This is the vital groundwork that sets up the pitch to close the emotional connection.

Is passion the most over used word in the pitch?

The dictionary definitions include “object of intense desire”, or “a strongly felt emotion such as love, hate or envy” or for passionate, “capable of revealing intense emotion”. How often, truthfully, can  these expressions describe your response to any aspect of your pitch or the prospect? And yet passion will be ‘claimed’.

 To impress people about your wit, you don’t claim “I am funny”, you make them laugh. (Incidentally, unless you are indeed genuinely funny, don’t try jokes in a pitch.) Even more so, if you want people to feel your passion, do not proclaim it. “We are genuinely passionate about your project” will ring false.

Either you are passionate or you are not. Generally you can’t just add a dose of  ‘manufactured enthusiasm’, or instant ‘professional  passion’ during rehearsal and expect it to work on your audience. “Instant passion is like instant coffee; it’s quick and makes you wish you had a percolator”. Cala Lane.

Passion has become a lazy way to communicate willingness to work hard for a client, or customer, says James Edsberg, of strategy consultancy Gullandpadfield www.gullandpadfield.com  who lists’ lazy’ passion killer advertisers such as Deutsche Bank  ”Passion to perform, Purina Catfood “Your pet. Our passion”, Microsoft “Your potential. Our passion” and Fiat “Driven by passion”.

So if overt declaration of passion may be rejected what is the solution? As always, any pitch will be down to what people feel. Do they like you? Do you really, really want to work with them? Does your solution turn you on? If it doesn’t, it won’t inspire them. Have you made an emotional connection?

 ”Passion is the energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do”

This week the Duchess of Cambridge gives her first set-piece public speech since the wedding and, no doubt, advisers will have worked long and hard to craft  words suitable for the occasion.  Sad to say much of this effort will in vain.

Why? As a veteran royal correspondent, reported in the Sunday Times, said: “There is huge interest not so much in the content of what she says but in how she says it.” 

It’s the same for most pitches. While the prospect will never admit it. and may well have score sheets for specific content elements, the assessment they make will biased by their emotional reaction to ‘how’, more than their rational assessment of  ‘what’.

Luckily for Kate she is a natural on the how - as are most who pitch when not pitching! They need to bring their natural selves to the party, and not allow undue focus on content to spoil it.

The superb Skolia choir, out of Notting Hill, are driven to astonishing levels of  performance by a musical director for whom the best is never enough. ( She would make a great pitch coach.) Her latest exhortation to her singers faced with the intricacies of Benjamin Britten was a salutory reminder that, ” You are not singing a shopping list!”

The same sentiment applies to many presenters. You are not pitching a shopping list!

In an article this week Simon Jenkins was looking forward with misgiving to the Oscar acceptance speeches.  He anticipated that their lists would be long with a gaggle of folk we’ve not heard of being thanked, endlessly. He then made some observations on general levels of speechmaking, many of which are valid in the pitch.

“When eventually the speech ends, no audience ever shouts, “More!” No audience complains that a speech was too short.”… Research shows that most audiences can recall little beyond the first five minutes of any talk.The brain simply shuts up shop..”

“The adjective rhetorical has become a mild term of abuse. Few speakers distinguish between uttering “the living sentence of the working mind” and reading out a text. The cadence of their normal speaking voice is lost in a reading drone.” (Rhetoric: the art of using speech and writing to persuade and influence.)

“The rhythm of words well-deployed is not just music to the ear, it is power projected. To be able to address others with confidence is a fundamental skill. To be inarticulate is to be handicapped.”

The ultimate source of great talks, and ideas worth spreading, is TED.com.

A recent one is a must for anyone interested in pitching and was given in compelling fashion by Nancy Duarte.  Check it out!

http://www.ted.com/talks/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2012-02-07&utm_campaign=newsletter_weekly&utm_medium=email

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!