Pitch Lab Joined us at Women Who Startup Headquarters
One thing that any Founder knows is that we need to constantly iterate on is how we present information. Pitching, speaking, giving talks, leading Board meetings are all things leaders and founders and pretty much anyone leading teams or working on just about anything needs to be able to do and do well. Communicating an idea, a thought, a product/ service or company is something we know we have to do particularly well as startup founders and so we tend to love to learn new ways to to improve the many ways we can successfully get a message across.
Which leads us — back in time for a minute — to November 2017 when a very cool duo Toni Mays and Jay Mays the co-founders of Pitch Lab, based in Denver, Colorado came to give a fresh perspective on How To Be A More Engaging Speaker through the power of comedy and storytelling.
Jay Mays is a 20-year sales veteran and stand-up comedy producer. From his underdog beginnings in dive bars to being awarded Best Comedy Venue in Miami, Jay has produced live comedy events for some of the biggest names in entertainment including Viacom, Soho House & Live Nation. As co-founder of Pitch Lab, Jay combines the seemingly disparate worlds of sales and comedy to help professionals be funnier, more engaging speakers.
We were also graced with the lovely presence of another special guest, local Denver comedian Nancy Norton.
Nancy Norton a regular at Comedy Works since 1992, she’s done standup nationally in clubs and internationally on Cruise ships and entertaining the troops. You may have seen her on A&E, Nickmom Nite Out or on PBS in her one woman show. Nancy Norton is a member of the National Speaker Association speaking on the value of humor for stress relief, problem solving and team building. Nancy will entertain your team and help setup your company for success with a big laugh. Nancy will work with you on punching up your script, as well as coach you for confidence and a dynamic delivery in all your presentations.
Together Jay and Nancy led us through a brilliant, fun and engaging evening workshop that gave everyone many new perspectives by using comedy as a powerful tactic to not only engage an audience of any size but to also practice a completely new way to present information with a different tone, tempo and outcome that many have never even considered.
The entire group of attendees who joined us for this truly engaging workshop had the opportunity to step up and face those fears of public speaking and deliver a joke. Like literally. It was a brilliant exercise that helped many break through many of their fear of public speaking and very quickly created comradery amongst a group of strangers. The power of comedy and humor in context of presenting even the most important or complex business information is a skill and what we proved is that it’s more than doable and can be practiced and used as another skill to clearly present information and change the tone of that information.
It was a pleasure to welcome Pitch Lab to present and engage our community in Denver and we look forward to seeing many of our founders drop some fresh humor into their startup pitches. Pitch Lab works with pretty much any organization, teams or companies and we highly encourage you invite them over to shake things up.
