Skip to Main Content
Pitch an Idea
shortcut

Pitch an Idea

by Curtis Newbold
April 2024
5 pages
6m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Pitch an Idea

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 ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Start your free trial

You might also like

Writing, Presenting, and Communicating with Confidence

Writing, Presenting, and Communicating with Confidence

Harvard Business Review
Become a Better Problem Solver by Telling Better Stories

Become a Better Problem Solver by Telling Better Stories

Arnaud Chevallier, Albrecht Enders, Jean-Louis Barsoux

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781098172213