Pitch Perfect – Creating a Dynamic, Clear, and Powerful Impression with Your Pitch
You have an amazing business idea, a game plan to set it in motion, and a passion for driving the project. All you are missing is the funds to kickstart your exciting journey. As you scour through all the funding sites, you realise (with horror!) that almost all of these investment opportunities require you to submit a video application or present a pitch. How can you design that perfect pitch to ensure that your idea does not simply rest in your mind?
Investment or start-up pitches also fall within the arena of public speaking or communication. In designing those pitches, it is not just the body language that matters – substance is key too! A pitch can be long-drawn, technical, and confusing; your potential investors might be hard-pressed to pay attention and be excited about your idea. At the same time, fancy slide animations, exaggeration, or over-promising are unlikely to impress the sharp minds of your audience members. With this fine balance, you must approach the process of pitch crafting with care!
To help you design that eye-catching and strong pitch, here are three quick tools!
Tool #1: Create that Relevance Bridge
Think of your potential investors as a child (no, we don’t mean that they are childish!). You need something interesting – a fancy toy or a shiny object – to draw their attention and start pulling them in. This is what we call the relevance bridge; the term is a metaphor for the process of finding something that excites the audience and draws them towards you. This will come across as an idea that they cannot pass up or ignore!
The relevance bridge is a tool that should appear in the first part or phase of your pitch (not later on, when you have already lost your audience). When starting this segment, pick out a problem or a long-term potential that can be flagged out – think of it as the long-term goal on the horizon that you are trying to capture. Remember to go for precise and simple (e.g., minimising 3-syllable words, jargon) that achieves the purpose above. For a professional gloss, try an analogy or illustration to play with the audience’s imagination (“Imagine a world where …”).
Tool #2: What is Your Game Plan?
You have your audience hooked – what’s next? If the relevance bridge is the beautiful doorway to attract your audience’s attention, your game plan is the gorgeous furniture that will make them settle down and accept your idea. In a similar vein, your plan should be set out with precision and simplicity – a balance that is often easier in theory than practice. You should resist the temptation to use superfluous, confusing terms to impress. Your pitch may be the hundredth presentation your potential investors are assessing, and information fatigue may set in!
Instead of overloading your audience with details, focus on structure in inviting them to buy into your idea. Start with a distant, positive goal that is within reach (e.g., our plan is to let users consolidate all their schedules in one application). Then, build on that horizon by setting out how your team aims to bring the target audience to that goal. You can group your points based on direct signposting (e.g., the first phase, second phase …), themes, or even perspectives (e.g., we bring three benefits – convenience, security, and flexibility: for convenience …).
*** “Bite-sized” information…sometimes literally ***
Tool #3: Join the Community
You have pulled them in and encouraged them to explore your idea – what will let you seal the deal and lock them in? For a pitch, the element of scale is often something a founder likes to highlight at the outset, that their product/service is something the masses would use. This is a reference to the depth and longevity of a use case. Thus, a pitch should show the audience members how the idea is likely to be a consistent and persistent feature in the world.
One element that helps achieve this effect is presenting your idea/pitch as an invitation to join a larger movement. The first level is to highlight substantive evidence of the interest – this can be done by highlighting the take-up rate or even client numbers (e.g., 9 out of 10 of our leads agreed to join us …). For a confident conclusion, try ending with a 1-2 liner flourish that encapsulates the driving force behind your idea. This may be a broad statement, but when contextualised against your idea, it may come across as a powerful message (e.g., With that, we urge you to join us in moving the power of data into our users’ hands).
Pitch for Your Success!
A pitch may be a make-or-break moment for your idea – a strong one can set you off on a confident start to growing your business; an uncertain one may make you question the viability of your proposal. This careful attention to the pitching process is one way to ensure that you ace the opportunity to draw in your early investors and adopters of your idea. If you find yourself struggling with that pitch, try out the tips above!
If you want to take your speaking skills to the next level…
If you are keen to take your public speaking skills & presentation skills (either business/corporate presentation / kids in-class presentation) to the next level so that you may communicate and deliver speeches with greater flair and charisma, feel free to check out our public speaking/ presentation skills course for adults and public speaking course for children below!
For more about our (weekly group classes) Public Speaking/ Presentation Skills Course for Adults :
https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/courses-and-programs/group-classes-for-adults/
If you are looking for a 2-day intensive public speaking/ presentation skills course for adults instead (for our adult learners who can’t do weekends), learn more about our presentation skills training course here: https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/presentation-skills-training-course-by-world-champion/
If you are looking for Public Speaking/ Presentation Courses for Kids / Children:
https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/group-classes-students-age-9-18/
If you are a human resources manager/ business owner in your company…
We want to help you bring out the best in your team, organization, and company. Public speaking and communication skills for the workplace, such as persuasion, remain a priority for most corporate training out there. We believe in staying ahead of the curve in sharing the contemporary communication skills to help you and your team remain relevant, competitive and nimble. Through our customized corporate training programmes, your team will benefit from an in-depth, hands-on, and potential-maximising public speaking & presentation skills training programme!
Feel free to reach out to us to curate your own public speaking corporate training programme for your team, company, or organization! Let us help you develop them into highly effective public speakers at work, empowered with effective presentation skills & storytelling skills – them giving speeches with charisma, influence and impact is something you can look forward to!
For effective presentation skills training Singapore & public speaking training for corporates/ employees: https://publicspeakingacademy.com.sg/corporate-public-speaking-training-workshop/
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