Who's pitching?

Is it you or your PowerPoint? If your PowerPoint is pitching your idea for you, you are wasting your time and your targer audience's time.

My stance on PowerPoint has softened a bit recently as some ideas, software and marketing specifically, do lend themselves to visuals.

Visuals, including financials, should only come into play after your target audience has bought into your idea at a high level. For example, a very common response to any idea pitch is "how much does it cost?" Reality is that unless your idea is free your pitch will be unsuccessful because your audience is looking for an easy way to say "no."

Getting your audience to buy in conceptually, saying for example, "so if the numbers are right, how do you see this idea working for you?" opens a door for you to produce your visuals to confirm in your audience's mind the reason why they said "yes."

Remember that you're pitching your idea to a person whose first response to most pitches is "no." Falling back in visuals or pounding through PowerPoint slides helps them say "no" more than it helps you get them to say "yes."

Having confidence in your ideas, getting high level buy in and then confirming buy in with visuals will give your pitches more chance of success.

Time and Money

When building a pitch keep in mind that your target audience wants to hear 1 of 2 things.

1) Your idea will save time

2) Your idea will save or make money

Really, the list above is 1 thing, saving/making money. Time savings should save your organization money in the short term and allow it to make more money in the long term through increased productivity.

How your idea will save time or save/make money for your organization may not be readily apparent. On the surface many ideas may not have an obvious connection to the list above.

The chances of your pitch being successful will increase if you take time to look below the surface and connect your pitch to a number that is important to your audience (more on that later).