Preparing for a pitch. Any advice?

A rough guide I use is 1 slide p/min, for sparse slides, or >3 minutes for dense product/spec slides. Never less than 30 seconds p/slide, or it's too fast.

To get the content it will take 3-10 practices. Doing this in front of a mirror, with a stopwatch, out loud to yourself is a good thing.

If you need prompt cards, don't write out the full pitch, put in keywords and pictures to help you.

Try to include a human story. e.g. Jane is a mother of 2, who wants to do X, we help Jane by doing Y. This helps people to imagine your solution and empathize with it.

On the day... give yourself time to get to the venue and feel around the place. If you get nervous, find a space to rehearse.

When you pitch breathe, smile, make eye contact, talk clearly to the whole room. Instead of saying "ummmm..." or searching for words you forget, pause, smile and carry on. Don't apologize for messing up, it wastes time.

When people question your pitch, thank them for asking the question (polite), repeat it back for the audience (time to think), ask a qualifying question if needed (shows you listened).

If you really don't have an answer, don't panic, ask to come back to them later with a better answer.

Good luck!

Get a friend and make him/her ask hard questions like... Why? Why you? Why do you thik you will succeed?
Nothing technical, just biz questions.

This link is for sales, but many concepts are the same: https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0

The entire article is worth a read, IMHO

This comment was deleted 7 years ago