Pitching Your Story

photo by ajq82

Are you a verbal ninja?

Can you tell me who you are in the space of an elevator ride?

More importantly, can you Wow! me  in to wanting to know more about you?

All this, in seven words or less.

Pitching is the single most important skill you will ever need.   It is the key in winning baseball and softball games for a reason.  She who controls the ball, controls the game.  Ditto for dealmaking.

You have a great mission, an awesome project you need to fundraise for, a fantastic product you are seeking investment capital for, an innovative service, idea.  Well, guess what?  If you can’t excite people about it in the brief and unexpected windows of attention that life throws at you, you have nothing.  Pitching your story is daily practice of telling your story in the most concise and compelling ways.

Think about a major league pitcher’s repertoire of curveballs, knuckleballs, and my favorite – the split fingered fastball!  And at speeds of 90 miles per hour and higher.  Amazing!  Each of these pitches are deployed with deadly precision depending on the batter with the ultimate goal of striking him out.

Your repertoire

Know your batters.  Know the situations you can create opportunities in.  Then craft a version of your story to pitch for each one.  Here are five examples:

1  The Elevator Pitch

Your classic two minute story soundbite.  Who you are, what you do, why it is so relevant and then – what do you do?

2  The Waiting For a Drink at the Bar Pitch

My favorite.  This is where your ears and memory serve you best.  Do a little chit chat, take note of what they are drinking and throw your seven words or less pitch followed by your business card.  Leave them intoxicated but intrigued.

3  The Let’s Have Lunch Pitch

OK, this is the long inning.  You have about an hour to move from first pitch to a substantive dialogue about your project.  Remember, the most important letter in the word “lunch” is u, as in you.  So, listen.  Don’t do all the talking.  Leave room for the person to imagine themselves in your story.

4  The Meeting Pitch

You can explain what you do in encyclopedic detail or you can inspire the person on the other side of the table and let them to imagine.  Guess which one works better?

5  The Business Card Exchange Pitch

This is the curveball.  They are expecting the pitch so you need to be ready with the unexpected.  Be brief, be ready with your card, and be personable.  Chances are, they are not going to remember too much in such a brief moment so make sure they remember you.

When Not to Pitch

Never accept the invitation to do a pitch over the phone or via email.  It offers the other person too much opportunity to dismiss your effort.  A face to face meeting allows you to get an immediate read on the person and fine tune your pitch accordingly.

Your Story in Six Slides

A final thought.

A great way to think about telling your story is to think of it in six slides.  Here’s an excerpt from Fred Wilson that captures the spirit of this idea perfectly:

So when you sit down and build your pitch deck, think of six slides that will inspire and leave something for the imagination. The best part of six slides is that you will get through them in time to have a real substantive conversation face to face about your business. Imagine that.

Read the entire post here.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

The Romance Between Text and Image

photo by John’s copper craft

People like to see things.

Your eye is naturally attracted to images, colors, interesting objects.  Less so to text.

Come on, admit it.  Don’t you like looking at book jackets that are zippy?  How many of you go into a wine store and really know the difference between all of those bottles of wine and end up picking a bottle because it has a nice looking label?

I like blogs that have pictures and videos.  When done well,  my respect for the attention paid to visual detail and artistry transforms me into a subscriber.  Make it easy for me to enjoy your content and I will be your biggest fan.

As with any communication effort, it is important to know how effective your tools are in building your presence.  How engaged are your viewers?  What is your Return on Investment (ROI)?

Video is the romance between text and image.

It is the energy that brings to life words and pictures on a page.

I am in love with the two minute video.  One minute is even better, depending on what the story is.  Video is a powerful way to bring faces of the people involved with your work to your viewers and to the world.  While this is a very compelling reason to use video,  it is just as important to know what your ROI is.

Here’s an excerpt from a post by Michael Hoffman of See3 on figuring out if  and how video is working for you.  He suggests  5 questions to help you think this through and does a great job at helping people become better at visual communication.

In fact, a Forrester study found that “any given video stands about a 50 times better chance of appearing on the first page of results than any given text page that Google has indexed”.

Cast your eye over the full post here.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

From my iPad to my Blog

Not too sure how to get my sketches in my blog posts. So bewildering and confusing for me.

I drew this on Sketchbook Pro on my iPad in just under a few minutes. I spent the next part of my evening trying to figure out how to export it, resize it and stick it into this blog post – easily.

I love creating text and image on this device. The drawing app I use is easy to manage and control. I know it is just me, slightly exhausted from running around the Queens Art Express for the past four days, and wishing I could just write, draw and share stuff without getting crazy.

Does anyone know how to do export images from Sketchbook Pro into Wordpress on an iPad?

Follow Me to Blue Avocado

I have an article in Blue Avocado about being an executive director who knits that I think you’ll enjoy.

For those of you in the nonprofit world, I’m sure Blue Avocado needs no introduction.  But if  you are new and want a taste, these are some of my favorite features –  Board Cafe, Nonprofit Finance and Strategy, and Word on the Street.

And to Blue Avocado readers stopping by, I hope you will feel right at home.   Take a peek at some of my style notes I have posted for people who change the world.  Or visit the archives to read about how to get into an art gallery, why confidence is sexy and knitting social media strategy.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

How to Ask for a Million Dollars

Earlier this month I went to Albany to lobby for money.  One million dollars.

I stopped in Century Twenty One down in the financial district, my artspy source to get insolently styled T shirts, LaCoste sneakers, and winter white cashmere sweaters marked down to prices that can only be described as The Big Deal of the Day.

Not this time.

Nada Prada for me.

Nothing looked good on me today.  (Note:  I have decided to let go of being responsible for the world and not looking like Wow! in that horrible fitting room mirror, as if anyone could with all of that nakedly nonflattering flourescent lighting.  What are you kidding?)

“Do you have anything less formal, more fundable looking in a medium?”

The sales associate sprinted along side of me, clearly impressed by my speed-racking skills.   She pointed to a rack on the wall with marked down items.

“Oh, and I’m not interested if its not 70% off.” I smiled at my command of the situation.

But deep down, I knew I was not feeling good, doing good or looking good.  Nowhere near Wow! as I needed to be.

Write

What do you do when you are not feeling Wow?

I find it helps me to write down what I am feeling as I am feeling it, as if I could coax all of that out of me through my moving pen.

First

To start writing, I start with:

a list

any list

just to start writing

and thinking.

Then

I start a story by:

writing a list of things that annoy me

things that can screw up my day

and faults, mine and everyone else’s, but mostly everyone else’s.

Then what?

Getting this far will make you feel better.  It always works best when you end with:

a list of things you are thankful for.  Especially if you are asking for a million dollars.

Get more Wow!

If you want more style notes  for people who change the world,  please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee