What's the timing for your next pitch?

According to psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, it might be critical.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman wrote of eight judges in Israel who spent their entire days reviewing parole applications.

The judges reviewed a case every six minutes and their default position was to deny bail – only 35% of applications were approved.

They stopped for three meal breaks – morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea.

After each break the percentage of favourable rulings dropped gradually from around 65% to nearly zero just before the next break and returned abruptly to around 65% at the start of the next session. It seems the hungrier and more fatigued they got, the more likely they were to keep people in prison!

Don't let a hangry audience come between you and a yes. Get in early to make a time that's best for you and your audience – especially if it's a competitive pitch.

Research tells us that self-control is tiring; if we must force ourselves to do something challenging (like those poor judges did every six minutes) we are less able to exert self-control if challenged again.

With less self-control we are more likely to make decisions based on intuition, rather than considered thought. And it’s more likely that this intuition will be wrong.

That’s bad news for any of us that must follow a dud pitch, or pitch to a weary audience. (Which can happen in competitive pitches, board meetings, job interviews.)

Fortunately, research also tells us that low blood glucose might be the culprit. When we are actively involved in difficult cognitive reasoning or engaged in a task that requires self-control, our blood glucose levels drop.

But restoring these blood sugars quickly can immediately improve our decision-making. Especially our intuitive decisions.

So don’t take any chances on how your audience is showing up to your big moment. Start by pitching them some Gummy Bears, Snakes or Kool Mints.

And if ever you're pitching to the Pitch Camp team, bring Snakes.

Sometimes we can be so consumed by building and delivering a great presentation that we miss some very simple, obvious things. That’s why a fresh set of eyes, ears and perspectives is so important.

Getting someone you trust to critique your work before you pitch it to the people that matter, not only gives you a chance to have a valuable run-through, it can alert you to some potentially fatal flaws in your approach, or aids, that you wouldn’t have picked up working on your own.

For some fun, do this short, amazing Selective Attention Test by Chabris and Simons to see what we mean.

(Hint: concentrate hard and make sure you count out loud.)

Visualisation is the practice of repeatedly imagining what you want to achieve. It’s a go-to strategy for elite athletes.

By game day the pros have already seen the putt rolling into the hole, the goal curling into the back of the net, or where they want to be midway through a race in order to power home.

As you get closer to your game day, learn from them, and find the time to visualise what a winning pitch might look like for you.

Visualise how you will arrive on the day. What you will be wearing. How you will face your audience for best effect. What your colleagues will be doing.

See yourself confidently introducing your key point to your audience, owning the room with your presence, nailing every question.

Seeing is believing. And for the best pitchers it starts well before the meeting does.

Ever watched Rafael Nadal serve a tennis ball? Picking and pulling at himself like a gorilla in the mist.

It’s not a nervous tic, it’s a pre-meditated routine. And it has helped make him one of our greatest high-pressure sportsmen of all time.

What routine can you embrace to help calm your nerves and steel your focus?

For many years my pre-performance routine consisted of making last minute changes to my pitch in the passenger seat of a car on the way to a meeting. How well do you think that worked for my stress levels?

Then as I got better, I found more time for a pre-performance routine. I began to favour a tip I learned at a Dale Carnegie course years earlier.

“Smile,” I would say slowly out loud, to myself, or my colleagues, through a big toothy grin. And I would repeat that several times.

It’s amazing how relaxing a smile is – for you and those around you. I can’t recall the last time I didn’t enter a pitch smiling. It’s a great way to start a session.

Finding your pre-pitch routine is another sign you are on the right path to high performance.

Tennis great Billie-Jean King believed pressure was a privilege.

Her view was that we shouldn’t fight what our bodies are identifying as stress, we should embrace it. That we’ve earned it.

That might require a change in your mindset.

The best mindset change advice I’ve heard comes from our One Percenter inspiration, James Clear. To get in the right headspace he suggests switching two words: “have” and “get”.

“I have to present to a room full of people today” is a very different mindset to “I get to present to a room full of people today”. It moves us from task to privilege.

Shifting from “I have to nail this presentation today” to “I get to nail this presentation today” immediately releases the pressure and frees us up to do what we know we are capable of doing.

Not many of us get to have our ideas heard by the people that matter. Enjoy the privilege.

Not everyone in a presentation will always be your ally. How you handle your critics can sink or save a presentation.

One approach we recommend starts well before you enter the room. And it’s remarkably similar to a tactic employed by former FBI lead hostage negotiator, Chris Voss, that he calls the Accusation Audit.

In his Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss explains his Accusation Audit as imagining the worst things your counterparts might think or say about you and then, if it serves your purpose, sharing these negatives at the outset of a negotiation.

Early in your preparation, anticipate the naysayers attending your presentation. Ask your client confidantes about the attendees and the perspectives they might bring. Consider their potential beefs with you and your thinking. Then work through a quick acknowledgement you can deliver should the need arise.

It will help you acknowledge concerns, demonstrate an understanding of the issues and bring an unexpected empathy to the table. Hopefully, even the most sceptical audience member will have reason to listen on.

It's one thing to have a great structure for a presentation, but any structure is only as good as its content.

If you are struggling to populate your Presentation Pyramid with quality content, do what the advertising industry has been doing for years and write a Creative Brief.

It’s the simple set of questions that, when answered well, has people wearing Nikes over Reeboks, saving money on everything from car insurance to movie tickets and paying too much for their watches.

We've listed them below, and included expanded tips for populating your own Creative Brief – plus an editable template for you to download – in our Free Resources page.

Who are we talking to?

Where are we in their minds?

What is the problem we are trying to solve?

What is the promise?

What is the support?

What is the personality?

It's amazing how much this process will crystallise your thinking. Populating your presentation pyramid will become a whole lot easier. And on the day, your audience will be amazed at how well you understand them and their problems, and will be more willing to trust your recommendations.

If brainstorming your ideas for a group pitch hasn’t been working for you, try this:

Split up.

Research suggests if you want to increase our group productivity, you should first break out as individuals and come up with your ideas separately. Only once your individual ideas have been captured should you then come together to discuss them.

According to one Yale study, groups in which individuals come up with their own ideas first can produce twice as many ideas as a group-only method, especially for diverse teams.

Get the best out of your team by getting them thinking on their own before you come together as a group.

You’ve followed our advice and sent the team out on their own to come up with some ideas. How do you avoid a free-for-all when all the ideas flow back into the room?

Yaroslav, Danylchenko and Stocksy, in their Harvard Business Review piece “3 Common Fallacies about Creativity” offer a Steve Jobs remedy we love.

They tell how when Jobs took over Pixar, it had been struggling to produce a blockbuster despite being home to some of the smartest people in the business. And how, after noticing that excessive criticisms were too often shooting down creative ideas, Jobs instituted a policy of “plussing,” where one could only offer a criticism if it included a potential solution.

Criticisers suddenly became collaborators, team dynamics changed completely, and a string of successes followed, starting with the development of the movie Toy Story.

At Pitch Camp we shamelessly copy this advice.

Our internal team workshops start by sending members off to ideate on their own, and then bringing them back together to build on each other’s ideas, using techniques such as plussing. It’s led to some of our most satisfying outputs, including our One Percenters and Book Club.

Presenting our ideas online might be convenient, but it has two big downsides: the removal of our ability to effectively “read the room” and our reduced capacity to make a good first impression.

Knowing the 7-38-55 percent rule helps. Created by UCLA psychology professor Albert Mehrabian, the 7-38-55 rule identifies the key influences for the likeability of someone in situations where we are forming a first impression.

Mehrabian’s research found that only 7 percent of our impression is based on our words, while 38 percent comes from our tone of voice and 55 percent from our body language and face.

Body language and tone of voice—not words—are our audiences’ most powerful assessment tools.

When you consider body language is a whopping 55% of the equation, it’s not just what we as presenters miss by not seeing our audience, it’s what our audiences miss when they can’t see us properly.

More than half our opportunity to make a great first impression is taken away when we are hidden behind a PowerPoint slide or they are shooing the cat away.

To give yourself your best chance of success, go offline, and get in a room with the people who matter. Even if it takes a little more organising.

Preparing for a pitch is hard work. It’s tempting to grab one you prepared earlier, replace a few words and hey presto, you’re ready to go.

Not only is this approach short-sighted and lazy; it might mask a bigger problem:

Your head’s not yet in the game!

Surely your next big idea, new client, or career-defining job opportunity warrants more than a tired retread? Where is the 18” low profile sex-machine alloy mag wheel with spinning hub cap? The glam and playful stilettos with the signature red soles?

Always start with your structure and consider the argument you want to make. If you’re struggling for inspiration, write a Creative Brief.

Chances are this will get the juices flowing and you will see the need for some original thinking and problem solving. Then you’re on your way.

Feel free then to draw on previous work, but only once you know where it fits.

For some reason, too many of us think other people’s time is more important than our own. We are reluctant to call them before a pitch and ask what they, or others in the meeting, are wanting from us on the day.

Sure, that might mean weathering some uncomfortable moments talking to people you don’t yet know or who might occupy intimidating leadership positions, but that’s no reason for self-sabotaging paralysis. Consider the upsides:

a) The worst they can do is refuse, and then it’s on them. At least you have made the effort and acted professionally.

b) If they do say yes (and in my experience they often do — subject matter experts love talking about their subject matter), you will know what they need from you. You will also have built some rapport that might give you a more receptive audience on the day.

Procrastination is the inexperienced pitcher’s ugly enemy. It robs them of time and opportunity and sets them up to fail. And it is totally avoidable.

If you sense yourself procrastinating, do two things:

Prioritise.

Consider how important this pitch is to you.

Where does it rank amongst the other tasks you have coming up? Then allocate the time you are prepared to spend on it. Sometimes, all you need is a little clarity.

Diarise.

Now that you know the time you are willing to allocate, diarise your preparation into the meaningful chunks you need to complete the task.

Then, using your structure to keep you on track, establish the key point you want to make and work through the evidence you need to prove your point. Use what time you have left to be as creative with your delivery as you want, and then rehearse.

It’s counter-intuitive, but the best place to start any pitch is at the end. Before anything else, consider the one thing you want people thinking as they leave your pitch. From there, build your case.

And don’t confuse where to start with where to open.

Your opening is about your delivery: it’s the hook that creatively engages your audience, and it’s the last thing you prepare. You need to do the meaty “thinking” before the fancy “showing”, especially if timing is tight. Using the right process will help.

As Donald Rumsfeld famously said: there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. That’s not something you want to contemplate while hungover, but with a clear head you should know that if you have been asked to speak, it is your “known knowns” people want to hear.

If you still have doubts, ask the person who invited you to speak why they asked you. Their why will show where you can add value and the perspective they want you to bring.

Asking this question is always a great strategy. It brings clarity and can help you build some much-needed confidence. Often people in authority have higher opinions of your capacity to contribute than you do.

Fix spelling mistakes. Have an agenda. Stick to the time you were given. Use people’s names and know their preferred way of being addressed.

How can decision-makers trust you on the big things if you can’t get the little things right? Don’t blow your chance by forgetting to tie your shoelaces before the race.