Paul Boross is probably the world’s only presentations/pitch specialist, business trainer and life change expert to have real front-line experience of motivational psychology and high profile TV/stage presentation and comedy. Here "The Pitch Doctor" gives us the low down on making the instant pitch ...
elevator pitch as a greatly shortened pitch, cramming a personal introduction and product benefi ts into thirty seconds. But that’s the wrong way to think of it. It doesn’t help you, and it doesn’t help your client. Instead of trying to cram your entire sales
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presentation into as short a time as possible, I want you to change your focus. Instead of pitching to win the business, which is extremely unlikely to happen, pitch to win a chance to pitch. Your three minutes has to buy you the next thirty. Never try to cram all of your most fabulous
ideas and compelling USPs into three minutes, or into any length of time for that matter. They will simply go in one ear and out the other, and leave the client feeling more resistant to your message than they were to start with. “I have no idea what that guy just said, but
he said it so quickly that now I just don’t want to listen to another word.” How do you feel when a friend starts
telling you something without fi rst introducing what they're going to say? You might feel confused, disoriented, even irritated, to the point that you have to stop them and ask, “Why are you telling me this?” Until you have a ‘frame of reference’, it's just noise. The more you try to cram in, the less the listener can take in, especially if you have
omeone once asked me, “How do I squeeze a thirty minute pitch into three minutes?” My answer was, “You can’t”. Some people think of an
caught them off guard. They’re just not in the right frame of mind to take in your torrent of information, regardless of how passionate or excited you may be. Instead, focus on how that initial three
minutes is the trailer for the movie, the hook that leaves them saying “Call me” instead of leaving them with their heads spinning, saying “erm.. well it was nice meeting you”. “I just met this really interesting guy. We
only had a couple of minutes to talk so I’ve asked him to come in next week to discuss his ideas in more detail.” Think of the elevator pitch as a trailer for
the main feature. You might even practice your elevator pitch and use it as the introduction to your main pitch, just like a newspaper headline gives you a reason and motivation to read the full story. Just think – one elevator pitch that you can use in any situation from a chance meeting, literally in an elevator, through to the introduction of a full blown presentation. This approach also means that you can
adapt your pitch to whatever time the client gives you. If you think you have an hour but the client tells you they’re running late and you only have ten minutes, you need that ability to adapt. Whether you go on to deliver the rest of your pitch right there and then, or a week later, makes no difference. What matters is that you have their full attention. When you think, like a journalist, in terms
of headline, then teaser, then story, you’ll be able to adapt your pitch to any situation.b Visit www.thepitchdoctor.tv
what that guy just said, but he said it so quickly that now I just don’t want to listen
to another word.
It's all in the handshake:
The strength of your handshake is in your genes. State University of New York at Albany found in a study of 143 men that those with strong handshake were healthier and had more aggressive male dominant characteristics. The study found that the strength of a handshake was mainly determined by the genes, and not by the man’s muscularity.