Jan
Whether you’re DEMOing or watching, some links and key ideas for pitching.
***UPDATE: WebInno presenters and attendees, this means you too!***
Stay within the six minutes by focusing on what’s most exciting to THEM and by ending with what you want them to DO. Don’t try to show or tell all you possibly can. It’s never about tonnage. It’s about leverage. It’s the compelling core idea.
What is the point of being at DEMO? What is the ACTION you could stimulate? What do you want the audience (both there and remote) to actually DO when you finish? (stuff like: try out the product, tell someone else about it, blog that it’s a great thing, whatever…) Have a clear objective.
For those about to pitch, we salute you:
10 pitching rules to break
10 tips for pitching
Body language cheat sheet
Nail the “ah-ha moment”
Name who you help & how
Who & how part 2
Apply the “which means that” razor
- Think about the audience’s motivations, needs and interests. Connect and resonate with these needs when you demo.
- The pitch itself is never the ends (I did “great,” but so what?). It’s a business tool. To accomplish something.
- Focus on what you want to accomplish, and have a clean ending that leaves that thought in their heads, preferably 20-30 seconds BEFORE time is up, so your last words can settle in.
- Maybe the goal is to get them to come to you for a full product demo. Tell them that. Say “come to me for a full product demo.” If your 6 minute pitch touches a nerve with their interests and motivations, they will. But don’t leave it to chance.
- Don’t think that just by showing them “interesting” and “exciting” and “good enough,” they will figure out what they should do next to engage with the idea.
If you only have time to read one post, this one’s lightning fast and universally useful.
SCORECARD: Using the ideas above, tell us how DEMO pitches you saw stacked up. Who left money on the table? Who swatted it out of the park? What one thing would have made the most difference across many pitches? You can use the top 10 lists as “scorecards.”
(Inspired by Twittering with @loiclemeur this morning.)
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I’m not sure if it was the distraction of paper hats, but my assessment of the presentations were not real high.
I felt like they just hadn’t thought through what they were doing with there presentations. Like ok, you’re parking app has all this functionality to it, but you’re still not telling me why I should care, let alone presenting that functionality in that context. You’re not even giving me a broad brush stroke view of what you trying to do.
I just kept thinking that, If I was ever in a position to be up there like that, I’d have spent days agonizing over every little detail.. like some desperate purification ritual you do in the hopes the Gods might bestow there magics on you. Instead the presentations seemed a little like it was performed by people who’s concept of reality didn’t include a concept of magic, so why bother?