Pitching without Prompts

I am very proud to be part of Dent Global's Key Person of Influence program. An accelerator designed to become more visible, valuable and well-connected in the industry you love. In my case helping companies connect their people with purpoose.

Being a Key Person of Influence involves mastering 5 Best Practices:

• Pitch

• Publish

• Product

• Profile

• Partnership

There are 2 types of pitches one has to design and develop that aim to inspire oneself, potential customers, and partners.

A short, sweet, and hard-to-beat SOCIAL pitch and a more informative CAPSTONE pitch. In a capstone pitch, you have to communicate: Clarity, Authority, Problem, Solution, The Why, Next Step, Essence of your business.

Below you can view both the SOCIAL and CAPSTONE pitches for GetFocused.

GetFocused SOCIAL PITCH:

GetFocused CAPSTONE PITCH:

Now, if your brain is anything like mine - being able to keep a linear narrative thread in my head is no easy feat. It often feels like thoughts and ideas are continuously exploding inside, like popcorn cooking in a microwave.

This can be very much a gifted talent when it comes to 'Big Picture Thinking', for example when sharing ideas in a brainstorming meeting, but somewhat of a detriment when having to analyze, refine and look at the details. I am pleased to say that in the GetFocused team - Normunds Puzo our CTO is very much an Evaluator....hence we complement one another tremendously when it comes down to getting focused during meetings and executing what matters. Take our 3-minute scorecard & get actionable steps you can start using TODAY to improve your meetings!

Therefore, the prospect of Pitching a 700-word document without any prompts was incredibly challenging. For visual, creative thinkers there is no better way than to storyboard! In the CAPSTONE pitch above you see me gazing to the horizon from time to time. This was simply a case of, giving my brain a moment to capture the 'next image' to share.

Below you can view a couple of images from my storyboard: (As you can see, you do not have to spend time refining these images into masterpieces).

Now, if you watch the Capstone you see that I ended the pitch jumping in the lake in my tuxedo?

What was the reason for this?

Part of the magic of working in an accelerator with like-minded 'go-getters' is that you hold each other accountable to get shit done! Accountability buddies make habits stick!

Fjona Hill, from Hampton Manor, set a capstone challenge to help 'integrate' the CAPSTONE deeper into one's conscious and subconscious brain. I thought this was a great idea as my previous attempt, at the Capstone pitch, was shot with me reading my presentation notes behind a slide deck.

Check out the posts above where Fjona was offering a fine dining 'Peel's on Wheels' experience as a 'cost' for not completing the task, hence, I felt it be appropriate if my attempt was not perfect, to jump in the lake in my finest tuxedo as a 'cost'.

In my mind, nothing in life is perfect, however, you can always be making progress....hence why I ended up in the water. However, I gave my CAPSTONE my best shot and with practice it can only get better!

I am now excited and inspired (rather than nervous and daunted) at delivering my pitch to potential customers and partners. Therefore the cost of getting wet was definitely worth the price!