How to Nail Your Pitch on Zoom

Published in

Harvard Ventures

4 min readJun 29, 2020

As an entrepreneur, the ability to pitch your business well is a critical skill, whether it be a 30-second elevator pitch or a more robust presentation in front of venture capitalists. A great presenter is able to take the same underlying content and weave it into an engaging narrative that leaves her audience informed and interested.

But the coronavirus pandemic has forced everyone to adapt in one way or another, and business pitches are one of the many casualties. Pitch competitions are no longer held in person, and venture capitalists rely on videoconferencing tools like Zoom to decide where to invest their money. This situation has created a whole new paradigm for presentations — everything that entrepreneurs have learned about the most effective presentation strategies needs to change with the times, so here are some tips for presenting your business like a pro on Zoom.

Lighting

A shadowed figure stands in front of a large, circular light

Lighting is a whole new dimension to presentations that many people struggle with at first, often washing out their face or casting weird shadows that contribute to an unprofessional-looking pitch.When lighting your meeting, make sure to have any lamps, overhead lights, or windows behind your camera to ensure your audience can easily see your face. Also, stay cognizant of the angle of your lights — the best approach is to position them slightly above you. Natural or white lighting also tends to work better than yellow, so if your pitch is during the day a good strategy is to simply face toward a window.

Position

A man standing in front of a computer in an office

The position of the camera relative to your face is also an important new factor to consider. Ideally, you want your camera to be directly at eye level, so try mounting your monitor a bit higher or, if using a laptop, you can stack books or papers underneath to raise it to the correct level. If possible, raise your desk and stand as you present to create an environment you are more used to — just be sure to not move too far away.

“Eye” Contact

This one should be familiar to anyone who has ever given a presentation, but flip on cable news and you can see that even trained media professionals are still getting this wrong on Zoom. Though it is tempting to maintain eye contact with the image of the person on your screen, it is critical to remember that the correct way to maintain eye contact on Zoom is to look directly at your camera! This is incredibly easy to forget while you are presenting, since at this point we are all conditioned to look at the person we are speaking to, so try to consciously think about eye contact occasionally as you are delivering your pitch.

Dress to Impress…

…at least on the upper half. Zoom meetings are no excuse to dress poorly, and just like in-person pitches, dressing professionally conveys seriousness and poise. The best bet is probably just to dress exactly the same as if you were going to deliver your pitch in front of your audience — at least for any part of your body that you expect to be in frame.

Connectivity

Even if you follow all of the advice above, there is one thing that can erase it all — bad connection. If your audience is having to complete your sentences from context or seeing a stuttering image, it can be nearly impossible to really leave them with a good impression. If you notice that you are consistently having issues with connectivity while on Zoom, try asking others in your household to tone down their internet usage during your presentation. You could also try moving to different rooms, or setting up a wired ethernet connection. If nothing seems to be working, you could go further and upgrade your router or even call your ISP, god forbid.