Or as it transpired on the day, not. Nevermind, it was a classic Sun headline last week, worthy of the great tradition set by Kelvin McKenzie in the paper’s heyday. It represented something of a fightback by the tabloids, struggling in the wake of the Telegraph whose headlines have dominated for the last three weeks.

For newspapers and magazines, the great eyecatching headline is the point of sale pitch. Some more from the Sun. ‘PORNOCCHIO’. ( Heather Mills)  ‘UP YOUS DELORS’.  ‘PIGS ‘ERE’ (swine fever).  ‘YOU CAN’T QUIT QUICKER THAN A THICK QUICK QUITTER’  ( commended by the Poet Laureate!).

The headline acts to differentiate in a competitive situation. Yet in most pitches and presentation documents, there is little attempt to differentiate through a memorable title, something that will make it stand-out and easier to remember.

Why? Perhaps because so much effort goes into the content, with changes right upto the last minute, that no time is left to create the ’selling’ title. A mistake.

An article in the Daily Mail  today introduced the concept of Warrior Women as a new  group to take over from the overexposed WAGs. Inspired by the feats of Joanna Lumley, ( recognised here in an earlier post) , the writer, a woman, nominates  her warriors.

She choses them for being independent, strong, unapologetic with grace and passion. They include Helen Mirren, Michelle Obama, Marianne Faithful, Camila Batmangheildgh, Annie Lennox and Shami Chakrabarti.

All of these would be great in any pitch but may not be available!  However, the concept of women warrior is relevant when it comes to casting a pitch team.

Other things being equal, in terms of role and qualification, teams that are only men or only women, tend to perform less effectively than mixed teams. This observation is based on coaching scores of rehearsals.

Why is this?   It is almost certainly due to the better balance that comes from the differences in the approach to communication. Men, generally, talk to convey information,’report-talk’, wheras women, generally, talk to build relationships,’rapport-talk’. (www.eloquentwoman.blogspot.com).

And, after a pitch, I have found that the women in the team will usually have a better sense of  ’how it went’. In other words, how was it relationship-wise?

This headline was in the Evening Standard today, “Lumley set to win Gurkha campaign”.  The way she did this, with charm and passion, was  the subject of recent post, Easy Opening , on May 7th.

And she won without using PowerPoint!

Of course it has its uses.  For some theatre style presentations, for much repeated product demonstration, but too often because it is easy to create and cheap.

For most  pitches, however, when a small team of four, or so, is presenting to a similiar number, beware!  It inhibits story telling and  dilutes personal impact as the screen takes over. 

As Malcolm Gladwell, of Blink and Tipping Point fame, said recently….” he was a firm believer in the axiom Power corrupts.  PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.  PowerPoint has destroyed storytelling”.

Take a look at this amusing demonstration of how Lincoln might have used PowerPoint  for his Gettysburg address:

        http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/

Two recent posts, Just Be Yourself and Easy Opening, both looked at  some practical ways of handling nerves in a pitch, allowing your nice side to shine through.  Some interesting observations on http://theresazagnoli.blogspot.com reinforce the importance of being nice, being likeable.

“Gallup’s ‘Personality Factor Poll’ concludes: it turns out that in politics, the single best determination of electability is likeability. Not knowledge, not experience, not the candidate’s position on a specific issue– likeability.”

This is one of the reasons the Obamas, both of them, rate so highly and why Boris Johnson is a more formidable politician than many had anticipated.

It’s much the same in business. People, decision makers, chose to work with people they like.

Interestingly, when formal rating or evaluation is applied to assess a pitch, factors such as likeability are rarely included, or at any rate not in an overt sense.  However, it is self-evident that ‘likeability’ will increase scoring across all the measured elements.

Nice guys do come first.  And, not for the first time here, rehearsal makes nice people nicer!

It is so simple to say, but surprisingly difficult to achieve in the hot house of a pitch when nerves are jangling, but being yourself, being conversational, is all that is needed to get through to your audience. You do not need to be an actor or assume the mantle of a speaker on a soap-box at Hyde Park Corner.

In informal, non-pitch meetings, that is how most of us are.  Engaging, listening, allowing space for response or for our words to be heard/recieved.   Under pressure to ‘perform’ in a presentation, there is always the danger of going into hyper over-drive, talking at, over emphasis, losing awareness of whether the audience is in recieving mode. You stop being your natural self.

This issue is well expressed in a recent post on www.presentationzen.com “In Zen, we put emphasis on demeanour, on behaviour… the natural expression of yourself.  You should be true to your mind, expressing yourself without any reservations.  This helps  the listener understand more easily…. Without any intentional, fancy way of adjusting yourself, to express yourself as you are is the most important thing”.(Shunryu Suzuki).

The secret to being yourself is simple. Rehearse.  The more you rehearse the more natural you become.  And the easier to listen to and understand.

Thoughts on how to rehearse are in the Best Practice Guides.

Have just been watching Britain’s Got Talent, intending to comment on an aspect of the programme that, it seems to me, is one reason for its huge appeal.  This its tremendous energy!

Since energy is a fundamental of successful pitching, (see the Best Practice Guide) it will be subject of future posts, but not today.  The reason for this is that, during  the break, up popped a commercial for  Milky Bar featuring  the original black  and white footage of the original kid.

It is often recognised as one of the 100 best all time, but for me it represents my first ever pitch experience.  In an agency long forgotten, I was lucky enough to witness the creative director of the day persuade the very conservative Nestle client, comfortable only with close up /product/ pouring milk/ life style approach, to buy the  totally original Kid.

It was a superb pitch. I remember little of the detail. I do remember  brilliant story telling and an air of unshakeable confidence in the idea.

So the Kid has not changed. Nor have the priciples of great pitching.

This week we have seen Joanna Lumley in brilliant pitch mode. Seemingly effortless, she has outshone Gordon, of course, as he stumbles from one disaster to the next but also the articulate attack dogs , Cameron and Clegg.

Her performance combining charm, theatrical timing with passion, is near perfect and something most of us can only dream about, particularly if the dreaded presentation nerves are a factor.

In any competitive situation some nervousness, the adrenaline rush, is natural and ‘harnessed’ will help communicate the depth of commitment.  However, nerves can undermine confidence particularly at the all important start of the presentation. So if you rehearse nothing else, rehearse how you start!

Often the easiest way to break the ice, even before the agenda etc, is to tell a ’story’. This can be from relevant personal experience, a topical news item of that day, something that allows you to  start conversationally and engagingly, rather than pre-sent-ation-ally. Putting you and your audience at ease.

In her excellent site ,www.speakingaboutpresenting.com , Olivia Mitchell has this to say about ‘The Story Opening’:

” Opening with a story helps you to be conversational and establish rapport with your audience.  Stories allow you to subtly establish your credibility without bragging, add humour…and gently raise controversial issues.  In fact, stories are such effective openings that there is no need to move to anything else.”