Delivering Your Pitch 

You have planned your pitch. You’ve populated the relevant boxes. What’s next?

In this section we outline the best way to populate your final boxes and detail the sequence for delivering your thoughts.

1. Your Creative Opening and Introduction 

It's time to tell a story

Pitch Camp loves Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens and other great reads about how humans got to the 21st Century and where we might be going.

In Harari’s pitch, he explains how our imaginations took us from timid jungle mammals to the dominant species on the planet. And how every day we use our imaginations to tell and process stories that motivate us.

Your most effective pitch is a story. It asks people to imagine something they don’t currently have, and promises transformation:

“Right now, we are here. By implementing my recommendations, we can be there, where we all really want to be.”

We all love good stories. They open our hearts and minds. We tend to remember them better than dot points. So it’s important to build storytelling into your pitch if you want people to see what you see and to give your data and other evidence their best chance of working in your favour.

The best place for storytelling is at the start of your pitch.

Use the Creative Opening box in your Strategic Pitching structure to tell either a true or hypothetical story your audience can relate to, and which promises them a better outcome. Here’s an example:

Creative Opening

“For many years I sweated bullets before a pitch. Around 2001, I remember flying to Sydney to pitch to the Mitsubishi Car Dealers Group, looking to land our biggest account yet.  

We had done remarkably well to get short-listed from Brisbane and it was a national client that would change our business forever. This was it! The game changer!

We had been working for months on our pitch. We had some great work to show, and I was responsible for leading the pitch. So I did what every confident, in-control leader would do the night before: I spent it on the toilet and wide-eyed in bed, sleepless with nerves.

The next day, my discomfort was apparent to everyone. At one point I even forgot what I was meant to say.

It was the worst 24 hours of my professional career. I let myself and my team down and, despite having some great concepts, we missed out on the business.

The room could smell that I wasn’t ready for a piece of business like theirs. And they were right. 

After that it was either change things or resign myself to a career of hard work and disappointments. So, I went looking for some pitch skills training. And the course I found changed my entire career trajectory. It gave me a structure for planning and pitching my thinking that, with a bit of modification, I still use today.”

Story told. Now introduce your audience to the desired outcome you want them to take from your pitch.

Introduction / Desired Outcome

“Today I want to share my pitch structure with you, so you can always be at your best in front of any audience. By committing to use this structure every time you pitch, you will build confidence and authority, give your ideas their best chance of success and your career outrageous momentum. And I am going to show you how by addressing three things.”

This introduction can also be framed as your objective if you feel more comfortable framing it that way. “My objective today is to introduce you to you a structure that….”

And then you can go about sharing your agenda and each key point.

2. Your Agenda, Key Points and Proof

Following your Introduction, state your agenda: item One, item Two, item Three. Be short and sweet.

Then address each agenda item individually by stating your key point up front. This gives your audience a direction for their focus, and context for the evidence you are about to pitch.

Prove your key point with the proof from your proof box.

Close by restating your key point.

Then move onto your next agenda item.

3. Recap and Summary

By now you have said everything you need to say and it’s time for a quick recap.

You might think this is a little bit of overkill, but people can go off on tangents at any time in a pitch. A recap is a great way to demonstrate the organised thinking you just pitched and to give your audience another chance to contemplate your promise before you answer their questions.

Do this by revisiting where your story started, with a quick pointer to your creative opening and the need for transformation it inspired.

Then recap each agenda item, its key point, and any compelling proof you might want to reprise before restating your Desired Outcome: the point you want to leave with them.  

You’re done.

All your boxes are filled and your sequence for pitching should now look like this:

What's next?

With your sequence sorted, and clarity about what you want to say, it’s time to work on your visual aids, if needed, and to rehearse.

Don't forget to thank them

When rehearsing, and on the day, remember up front and in concluding to thank your audience for taking the time to listen to you. Remember, they have just done you a big favour — and your idea goes nowhere without their buy-in.

Happy pitching!