Pitch an Idea
Public speaking guru Nancy Duarte once argued, “A great presentation gives smart ideas an advantage.” We all have smart ideas, but the way we pitch them to decision-makers makes all the difference in the likelihood of those ideas being implemented. If you pitch well, your ideas take root and are more likely to be implemented. If you don’t, well, your great ideas may never get past the “if only” phase.
Let’s first clarify a potential sticking point, though: a pitch is different from a full-on presentation. Pitches are what get you to the presentation. If you can sell an idea quickly to the right people, you’ll often be invited to give a more in-depth explanation of your ideas. Nail the pitch, get the decision-makers to the next step.
We frequently use the phrase “elevator pitch” to describe the idea that to be successful, it needs to be strategically concise and pithy enough that you can motivate someone to want to know more—and it has to be done in 30 seconds to 2 minutes, or roughly the time you would have with them on an elevator. If we stretch that to 3 minutes, here’s the burning question: how do you pitch a solid idea under 180 seconds with enough impact for it to make an impact?
Let’s walk through the idea using a single example along the way, broken into its parts.
First, Know Who You’re Pitching To
As best you can before you make the pitch, understand the person or people you’ll be pitching to ...
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