Today Reggae Reggae sauce enjoys national distribution and is advertised on television.  None of this would have happened without one Levi Roots giving the pitch of a lifetime on Dragon’s Den.

Last week, on channel Dave, they showed some highlights of the original January 2007  show, together with a recent interview with Levi.  As he says on his website, “the deal was to pitch, barter and sell your business to five multimillionaires……..if they choose to invest in your ting, you get the money”.

It was a superb pitch and scored brilliantly in three areas.

1. An unexpected opening.  Levi understood that ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’ when he entered the Den playing his guitar and singing his sauce song.  This included the verse  “Hot Reggae Reggae sauce , it’s so nice I had to name it twice”.  The Dragons were almost slain at the outset.

2. Audience participation. Instead of presenting at them, he engaged with them through a product tasting, apparently of the hottest version of his sauce by mistake, or not.  By now Dragons, or some of them,  succumbing.

3. The likeability factor. In any pitch people buy people and here the charm of the man was irresistible, such that he was forgiven for some dreadful content errors. For example, mistakenly claiming orders 1000 times the actual!

No wonder that he  can claim  “I slayed dem dragons”.

‘Learning to be like Obama’, the headline of an article in the Telegraph on Monday reporting that corporate high-fliers and politicians are queing up for charisma training.  Apart from the obvious, that  just now there is a distinct lack of charisma  among our allowances buffeted politicians, what are we talking about?

The Collins dictionary definition reads  “it is the quality or power of an individual to attract, influence or inspire people”.   The rather more attractive Greek origin translates as ” the gift of grace”.

Is charisma an absolute?  Some people have it, others do not?  In the article, coach Molly Watson suggests, and I agree, that it can be a learned skill. Clearly some are more charismatic, more often, than others, but not all the time. In many of Obama’s recent interviews he has not been ‘charismatic’.  However, he certainly knows how to turn it on when it matters.

Then he delivers all the characteristics that are, as Molly Watson insists, important: “all the subconscious stuff, like tone of voice, body language, posture and other non-verbal cues”. Filming performances, and  playing back with no sound, allows her pupils to face up to their  own body language.

Two recent posts here, ‘When body language tells all’ ( June 5), and ‘ The eyes have it’ ( Feb 22),  touch on this with the reminder that only nine percent of the impression you make is purely verbal.

Rehearsal will enhance any performance in terms of  likeability, energy and confidence.  All ingredients of charisma.  And whilst you may not be quite like Obama, you can avoid the charisma by-pass!

My last post talked about the winning attitude of the Aussies. In this second Test, that attitude is being tested to the full as England look set to take a lead.

An interesting comment was made by one of the expert TV commentators as an  Australian bowler,  the very wayward Mitchell Johnson, was taken off as the English openers scored off  him at will.

The expert comment? ”Now its upto him to give something back to the team”.  He was not talking about his fielding, he was talking about his body language!

This “giving something back” is much the same in a pitch. It can be the impression created by members of the team who are not presenting that can make the difference.

Are they fully engaged in listening intensely to their speaking colleague ? Even though they have heard it before.   Are they bringing totally commited energy to the table?

Or, are they going through the motions?  Worrying about their own contribution? Or, worse still, relaxing now their part is over?

Instinctively, and inevitably, the audience picks up on body language.  Do these people like each other?  Will I like working with them?

Two weeks ago my post, Tennis Lessons, looked at one of the shared characteristics of tennis and cricket. They both can last a very long time,  relatively little with the ball in play, leaving plenty of time for focus on body language, the external signal of attitude.

In the case of the Aussies, particularly when it comes to the Ashes, their attitude has become the stuff of folklore.

Here are just a few  press comments over the last five days. “Can you feel it?  Here it comes, that familiar dark-green aura: unflappable, relentless, invincible.  They’re coming to get us”.

And this, also from the Telegraph: “It’s an expression chiselled by years in the sunshine, a squinting single-mindedness, a tunnel vision that excludes the peripheral flicker of doubt and self destructon.  Think you can beat me ?  Think again”.

In the event, thankfully, England’s (in Wales) tailenders came up with a bit of Aussie attitude of their own.

The lesson from the cricket pitch? Any prospect, whatever the declared criteria, will be  forming their judgement on attitude.  How hungry are they for my business?  How confident are they? Are they winners?

And the other lesson? It is the practice time in the nets, the rehearsal, that underpins the attitude!

You’ve managed to present all your pitch charts without any technical hitches or mistakes, and the prospect is engaged and encouraging.  Home and hosed?  Not quite. This article, written for www.gorkanapr.com, discusses how  the way you answer the Q&A session can influence the final outcome more than your presentation.

Typically, competitive pitches call for a 30 to 45 minutes formal presentation followed by a similar period of time for a Q&A session.  Typically, also, 99% of the time and effort goes into preparing and, hopefully rehearsing the presentation.  1%, or less, is spent preparing how to handle questions.  Here are some of them.

Q:  Why is the Q&A so important?

A:  The prospect’s assessment is lead by their emotional, rather than their rational, response to these key questions.  How will I get along with these people?  How much do they like each other?  How much do they want my business?  It is easier to ‘read’ the answers in the informal environment of the Q&A.

Q:  How can you prepare for the Q&A?

A:  Develop likely questions of three types.  Rational questions seeking clarification, questions that are personal to the questioners and the deliberately hostile/tricky ones designed to gauge your ability to respond.  Note that some of the exact same questions will be asked of your competitors.

Q:  Can, or should you, rehearse?

A:  YES!  Furnish an ‘outsider’ with questions to act as client.  The team leaders fields each question, perhaps with brief response, before passing to the appropriate team member.  The manner of response, the ‘way you say it’ is more important than the clever answer.  And really listening to the questioner is vital.

Q:  How can you reinforce teamwork?

A:  Beware.  It is the people not answering who can undermine, or generate, a sense of team.  If they sit back, arms folded, study their notes, disengaged, they undermine.  If they sit up, focus intently on the questioner, listen with rapt admiration to their colleagues, then teamwork is evident and the meeting is energised.

Q:  What are the pitfalls?

A:  Poor time-keeping that allows the presentation to eat into question time.  Most prospects prefer to talk rather than listen.

A:  Avoid the very long answer, particularly where various members of team, adrenalin-fuelled, butt in to add their comments.

A:  If you get a question you can’t answer, don’t fudge.  With confidence say you will report back later.

A:  Not being ready to answer a tough question on level of fee!

Don’t end on a whimper.  Allow time for a strong closing statement.