Episode #310: How To Be A Pitch Contest Winner

As Covid slowly declines here in Japan, things are slowly getting back to a semblance of normality. Imagine my surprise, to be asked to apply for a spot in a Chamber of Commerce pitch contest, with actual people in the room. Actually, I was a ring-in, because originally they told me I would have to join the pitch contest later in the year because this one was already full of contenders. Covid took care of that little glitch and eliminated some of the pitch contestants who became infected, so I was shuffled into the pack at the last minute.

I asked the organisers where in the batting order I would get my chance. I was in the middle, which isn’t a great spot. I prefer and recommend you go first or last. If first, the idea is to blitz it so that the first impression is owned by you. Also all the other contestants are being measured against you and they are not going to measure up at all. The end spot is the most preferred because this is the final impression and the one that lingers longest in the mind before the voting process starts.

Ten minutes is long enough if you know what you are doing. The other contestants who went for a slide show made some basic errors. You only have ten minutes, so the point is to build a strong impression for your company. If you choose to use slides, then make them super interesting. The other contestants didn’t go for that idea and decided to just boor everyone with lines of text and more text and some more text, for good measure. In the case of one of them, their profession was a people business, but there were no people in the slides. If it had been me, I would have had tons of photos of customers enjoying their service, lots of shots of happy families, some shots of the behind the scenes preparation for delivering the service. Something visual so we could identify with the service they provided. Text means your brain has to think whereas images tell you all the information you need to know immediately.

In my case, I decided to take a leaf out of the content marketing handbook. Content marketing means you provide some examples of your service to show your credibility. It might be white papers, testimonials, videos, podcasts, books – all manner of things which underline you are a legitimate expert in your field. We have produced a handy little card to fit into your wallet called 6 Impact Points For Persuasive Power. Before the talk, I distributed these to everyone in the room.

When it was my turn to talk, I explained that persuasion power is needed by everyone in business, be they leaders, salespeople, colleagues and anyone who would like others to cooperate with them. Now I have cast a wide net, to make the topic relevant to all gathered to hear this pitch. I didn’t say much about Dale Carnegie, except that we will celebrate 60 years in Japan next year. That is sufficient credibility by itself. I mentioned the five core areas we cover, to give people some idea of the scope of the business and that was about the sum of the propaganda. It is supposed to be a pitch contest, but actually waxing lyrical over the virtues of your company is pretty dull for everyone else, so it doesn’t really get very far.

I went through the six points explaining how they work and how anyone can incorporate these into their presenting skill set. The audience feels they are getting some value for their time rather than being forced to listen to irrelevant details about another company they have zero interest in. People are primarily interested in themselves, so by focusing on how these 6 persuasion points can help them, they feel some benefit from attending and listening to me. The other key thing with this choice of content was that I have to be able to walk the talk. If I am going to run around telling others how to present, then I have to be able to be the role model myself. This is a chance to add credibility, when you can do what you recommend to others. The speakers before me felt the gap in presenting expertise and it was also obvious to the audience. The speaker after me publicly said that I would be hard to follow and she was right, because her presentation unfortunately was not benefiting from the points I had just been making.

The pitch contest was no contest, because I planned it that way. No powerpoint in sight so that all the focus was on me. I also chose a subject of universal applicability and interest. I demonstrated what I was talking about, so that people could leave the affair thinking they learnt something from an expert and that card is for sure safely ensconced in their wallets. One of the earlier speakers mentioned he had spare copies of the powerpoint, if people wished to have them and naturally no one was interested in the slightest. Their carry home item was A4 size, not attractive and also not particularly useful in information terms. A robust business card sized summary of the 6 points on the other hand was kept. That was no accident.

So when we are presenting with other speakers, lets always assume we are competing with the other presenters and lets approach it like a contest, making sure we emerge the winner.