Day 23 of 365 — Preparing for a pitch

With a pitch event coming up soon, pitching has been on my mind. Im out of practice, but that just means I need to prep more!

This will cover my methodology for pitching and what I do to prepare.

So with that said what goes into prep?

Well, depending on your audience you're going to need the following.

• A slide deck
• Talking points on each slide / a script
• Hype

Let’s touch on the white elephant in the room first, hype. Hype is everything! It’ll make you, it’l break you, it is you! If you don’t bring energy to your presentation you're going to lose some point off the bat. Can they be made up for? Of course, but why start behind? Got it? Coo!

Next up what I like to do is build out the slide deck skeleton, just headers & titles. From here I write a word dumb of everything I could possibly say about this topic. This will take a day or two to fill out, once done I wait one afternoon and return to the deck to start cleaning it up. Ill begin with adding bulle-

Oh why the day wait? Well this is a trick I learned from being a software engineer. Typically when Im faced with a hard problem I can generate a solution immediately, it is no the best, nor the most elegant, but it works. I step away from the code for a day and return with a new perspective. Ive allowed my memory to reset with new challenges which will evolve my thought process and approach to the problem. I can now look at what I did and either refine it to a more concise solution or realize I was being a dumbass and the optimal solution was obvious.

So yes I apply a “I was probably being dumb yesterday” approach, but it works! Back to the focus, I add bullet points to the slide, then refine it from there. I have version one. Next I need to people to bounce ideas off of. Typically other team members, family members, or friends. I ask them to pick it a part, what doesnt make sense, what pops out, etc. Once this is done you need a fresh mind, someone who has no idea what your company or pitch is about. They are your first real test. Do this a few times, iterate again, then practice, practice, PRACTICE!

If you’ve practiced enough you haven’t memorized the material you’ve developed a fundamental understanding of it and can deliver a heartfelt speech that is personable and not robotic like the last version of your iterations. The crowd will know if you're trying to memorize text or read off a notecard. Don’t be that person, familiarize yourself with content and be comfortable with it.