As if preparing and delivering a presentation to your peers isn’t nerve-wracking enough… you also have to worry about the Q&A period at the end of your talk!
You’re worried about people asking not one but TWO questions! Having to decipher those questions that are really just comments. Then there is THE dreaded question: the question you don’t know the answer to.
You don’t want to appear stupid in front of your audience!
Truth is that the Q&A period can leave many first-time public speakers feeling like they need to know everything before they give a talk!
But you don’t, and we’re going to debunk this myth and more in today’s Build Tip.
I’m joined by Lara Hogan who is the VP of Engineering at Kickstarter and Author of Demystifying Public Speaking. Together we’ll be sharing a number of strategies to help you get ready for ANY question you receive during your next Q&A session after a presentation or team meeting. You’ll also learn some techniques to calm your nerves, engage your audience, and keep them wanting more!
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Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.
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Episode Transcript
Poornima: Whether you're new to public speaking or you've been doing it for a very long time, there's gonna come a point at the end of your talk, and right before that Q&A, where your nerves are gonna flare up.
You're gonna be thinking, "What questions are people asking?" Or, "How do you respond to a question that you don't know the answer to?"
Well in today's *Build* Tip, I'm gonna cover answers to these questions and more. Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker. And today I'm joined by Lara Hogan, who is the author of *Demystifying Public Speaking*, and a lover of donuts.
Lara: Absolutely.
Poornima: Yeah. So Lara, you and I have given a lot of technical talks through our careers, and gotten to this point where maybe we're not as nervous giving the talk. But at the end, there's that Q&A period. Right?
Lara: Right.
Poornima: Where we can't anticipate all the questions. Those wonderful two-parters. People who do comments instead of questions.
Lara: Absolutely.
Poornima: Or you just don't know what the answer's gonna be.
Lara: Totally.
Poornima: So, let's kinda walk through each of these. Let’s start with the first where you just don't have a sense of what the questions are gonna be.
Lara: Yeah.
How To Prepare For A Q&A Session
Poornima: Do you have a technique that you use?
Lara: Absolutely. So I like to just in general have a feedback crew of three to five people. And hopefully they're people who you know well enough to make sure they're gonna
give you good critical feedback.
Poornima: Yeah.
Lara: 'Cause it's not worth it to just get feedback from people who you're not sure are gonna help you actually get better.
So at the end of your practice run, maybe with that feedback crew, maybe they've helped give you some feedback about your body language, about your words that you used, etc. Ask them to help you do a practice Q&A.
Poornima: OK.
Lara: Yeah.
Poornima: That's great.
Lara: I love to make sure I have a mix of people, maybe people who are new to the topic, maybe people who are really familiar with it, or know the audience really well.
Poornima: Mm-hmm.
Lara: 'Cause they can help you level up your game, and get some practice to reduce those nerves.
Poornima: Yeah.
Lara: That when you're finally on stage you're like, "I've done this before."
Poornima: Sure. And do you feel like the questions that they ask are usually indicative of what the audience is gonna ask?
Lara: I try to ask for two different kinds of questions. One's just like a stereotypical, “If you were in the audience for real, what might you ask”?
Poornima: Yeah.
Lara: But if they're your friends, they're gonna be nice, normal questions.
Poornima: Right.
Lara: I also like to add a version two, which is like, “Let's get weird.”
Poornima: Yeah.
Lara: Give me that statement that's not actually a question. Or like totally intentionally
misunderstand the point that I'm trying to make, and ask me that question.
Poornima: Mm-hmm.
Lara: That way I have some practice in knowing how to handle those really sticky moments.
Poornima: So doing this in a practice session and dealing with peers, you're probably gonna feel
pretty good.
Lara: Yeah.
How To Respond To A Question That Is Really Just A Comment
Poornima: But what do you do in that moment where you may get that comment that's a question? How do you respond?
Lara: Totally. I think it depends on the situation. I want to remind everybody, your audience is rooting for you. Whenever you get that, "This is more of a statement than a question." I promise it's not just you feeling the weirdness of that, it's the whole of the audience, too. And you're still in a position of power. You still have control over the room.
Poornima: Mm-hmm.
Lara: And your whole goal is to teach people something new. And make sure that they are leveling them up in whatever the topic is that you're talking about.
You have completely, a complete opportunity to be like, "Thanks for that. Here is how I would either reframe it, turn it into a better question, or answer the question, that you think you really wanted." Provide the information to the audience, too.
Poornima: Mm-hmm.
Lara: Yeah.
What To Do If You Get Asked A Question From Someone Who Is Online
Poornima: That's good. Now I also know a lot of times there are questions that come up where the audience isn't present, they might come up from audio, video, somebody might have written one in, Twitter, whatever. How do you facilitate those kind of questions?
Lara: Yeah, that's a really good question. I think—I hope—it helps to have a good moderator.
Poornima: Uh-huh.
Lara: To make sure that someone can actually help you navigate especially as multiple different sources of information giving you those questions.
Poornima: Yep.
Lara: But by and large, I just try to scan them, and kind of see which ones are the most relevant to my topic.
Poornima: Yeah.
Lara: Or which ones are gonna help me give an answer that will actually level up the entire audience who's listening in.
Poornima: Nice. I like what you said. So you're gonna filtering, but in a way that's gonna benefit the audience.
Lara: Yeah.
Poornima: Not just filtering for the sake of filtering.
Lara: Absolutely. Yeah.
What To Do When You Don’t Know The Answer To A Question
Poornima: So let's talk about the last, the dreaded question, that you don't know the answer to.
Lara: Oh, those are my favorite. Yeah.
Poornima: Yeah.
Lara: I found that just in general in my career, not just in conference settings, but as for standing up in front of my team, or my boss.
Poornima: Sure, meetings.
Lara: Yeah. You have to be able to say, "I don't know."
Poornima: Yeah.
Lara: And you can do it gracefully. Just saying, "I don't know," doesn't mean that you're bad at your job. It doesn't mean that you didn't do all the—no one human can possibly know all there is to know about the topic on which you're speaking. So I like to practice also with that feedback crew saying, "I don't know." And in a really graceful and helpful way.
Poornima: Mm-hmm.
Lara: So maybe like "I don't know. I'll follow up later." And like respond on Twitter when I finally do the research on their answer.
Poornima: Yeah.
Lara: I might just be like, "I don't know. That's a great question. Come find me at the break and we can talk more about it." And my absolute favorite one is to be like, "You know, I don't know the answer to that question, but does anybody else in the audience know the answer to that question could you raise your hand? You should go talk to that person."
Poornima: Yeah. That's great.
Lara: Just totally punt on it.
Poornima: Yeah. No, that's fair. Awesome. Well thank you so much, Lara, for joining us.
Lara: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Poornima: Yeah. And thanks all of you for tuning in today. And special thanks to our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker, for their help in producing this episode.
If you've enjoyed this episode, then please subscribe to our YouTube channel. And if you have friends out there who are nervous about Q&A, be sure to share this episode with them. Bye for now.
Lara: Thanks so much.
This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker.
All this month we’ve been focused on the theme of pitching. We started out by talking about why many creative problem solvers shy away from pitching, leaving it up to CEOs, founders, and sales people. But, pitching is a really valuable skill that all of us need to hone in order for people hear us out, adopt our ideas, and believe in our solutions.
To help you embrace pitching, we shared the most common mistakes people make when pitching and how to overcome them. Then mentioned that the most effective and authentic pitches boil down to a powerful technique many of already do every day, storytelling. We covered why storytelling is powerful, how to condense a story down, and weave in our credibility.
By now you hopefully understand the importance of pitching, but you might be worried about having to pitch different audiences, and what to do in a setting where you only have 5 minutes or as much as 50 minutes to pitch.
Don’t worry Marie Perruchet and I have you covered! In this final segment on pitching, we’re going to share the various types of pitches you need to prepare.
You’ll learn:
- What to include in a long pitch
- How to condense a long pitch into a pitch that is five minutes or less
- How to modify your pitch to address different audiences
- How to practice your pitch, so you deliver it effectively
Need more help with your pitch? Reach out to Marie on Twitter or on her website.
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Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer ((http://femgineer.com/) and Pivotal Tracker (http://www.pivotaltracker.com/). San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA (http://www.startmotionmedia.com/design/).
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Episode Transcript
Poornima: Hey guys, we've been talking about pitching. I previously talked about the common mistakes people make when it comes to pitching, as well as some techniques to help you pitch in a way that resonates with your personality. If you missed either of those segments, check out the links to them below. In today's final segment, I'm gonna dive into the various types of pitches you need to prepare.
Welcome back to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker, I'm your host Poornima Vijayashanker. Each episode of *Build* consists of a series of conversations I host with innovators, and together we debunk myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech.
I'm joined again by Marie Perruchet, who is the author of the latest book, *One Perfect Pitch*, and in today's final segment we're gonna dive into the various types of pitches you need to prepare. Now Marie, we are all pretty familiar with the elevator pitch, right? It's 30 to 90 seconds, and everyone obsesses about it. But in your book, you actually talk about having a lot of different types of pitches, or different lengths, right? Having even a longer pitch, and then whittling it down to that elevator pitch. So let's start by talking about why you should have a longer pitch, and what to put in it.
What to include in a long pitch
Marie Perruchet: Yes Poornima, people get fixed on the idea that they should have just one pitch, but actually you need many pitches, because they should be tailored to people you're talking to. If you're pitching a bid to see a company, or a bid to be company, it's gonna be a different pitch you know. If your software is addressing different industries, your story should start with a different character.
And the reason why I say that you should have a longer pitch, is that you should accommodate it, and make it flexible depending on the situation, and that over time, depending on the data points that you get, you rearrange your pitch. Also, why it's important to have a longer pitch, is that you can actually break it down and share the parts that you want to share, depending on the time you have, types of setting, the timing, the location; so many components that you have to include when you're presenting.
Poornima: Got it. So in a longer pitch, let's say we wanted to build our longest pitch, and it was what? Would it be like 15 minutes, or 10 minutes?
Marie Perruchet: It can be an hour, it can be two hours.
Poornima: OK, yeah.
Marie Perruchet: It can be five minutes. But definitely a great pitch would include a hook, a great hook, how you catch attention from people. It should talk about the problem, all the momentum, the achievement, or the breaking news, you know, what's new about your product. Talk about the solution, telling why you're the best at doing what you do. You know, great team, great founder's experience, you've had those awards in design, you learned to build the Siri technology.
Talk about your key differentiators, because so many other companies, all building the same product, or as advanced as you are, or you are belonging to a group and everybody's competing for funding. So you should be able to tell what makes you different and better than the others, and then you end talking, maybe about the market, or talking about the go-to market strategies, and finishing with an ask. You know, how do you want people to help you to build, and share, and keep working at your product.
Poornima: Got it. So your longest pitch has every single element that you talk about in your book, and all those various pieces.
Marie Perruchet: Yes.
How to condense a long pitch into a pitch that is five minutes or less
Poornima: So now, taking things away, that feels scary, 'cause it's like, "Well, yeah, the award was important." Or, having this one key player on the team was really important, so how do you know what to take away for those shorter pitches?
Marie Perruchet: As the minimal available product, you have to test your pitch. And what's important here, and people usually don't pay attention, you should listen. You should listen how people reformulate their pitch, and that was one of my early techniques. You know, when I came to Silicon Valley eight years ago I had no pitch. And what I would do is that, at the time, helping founders, helping them, talking to them, explaining what I was trying to do, and telling them, "Hey, what do you think? What did you hear? Could you articulate what I've just said? What makes sense, is it simple enough? Does it make you think of something else?" So trying to have those open questions.
And then, as you take down notes, if you're quick enough or used to that, or you can actually record with your phone, you know, videotape or just taking your voice recording, and then you replay it to yourself later on. And you see which words people are using. And you know, politicians, they do the same. They test it, and they see what the press picks up. And so, then you have to pick it up again, and then replay it, and practice it again, until, you know, the one day your pitch will be perfectly tailored to the person you're pitching to.
Poornima: Got it. OK, so see how people reformulate your pitch, and what are the highlights that they talk about when they do, and then that will help you kind of condense it down.
Marie Perruchet: Yes.
Poornima: Nice. Do you have an example from any of your readers, or companies that you've coached, where they went from a long pitch to a shorter one?
Marie Perruchet: Yes. So I worked with a company called Autodesk, and we worked with their marketers, and they would send me their pitch and I would review those pitches. And most of the pitches, they're very long, and include information that is not relevant to their audience, or they don't have a very specific call to action. So, I would go over and actually shorten the pieces that were not relevant, and then have them rewrite their pitch so that it would be a little bit more focused.
We start with founders, but also engineers and designers. What we do is that, if they have a 50-slide, or even 25-slide presentation, I'd listen to them, so that's kind of a first run. And then I tell them, "OK, this is what I think is important to highlight, depending on the time we have, and your target audience." And then I have them reformulate it and reframe it, and it gets much easier after we have them practice as well.
Poornima: What are some of the common things that you ask people to take out?
Marie Perruchet: Usually when I work with founders, but also engineers and designers, I like to focus on the story, you know, what makes them passionate about what they're doing, what drew them to work on developing that product or that project, because what I like is that understanding people perspective. They see things that I don't see, and this is from a more technical perspective, and what they do can actually change your situation. So I wanna know what drives them, and what are the problems that they've identified. And then they can share it with others. But you have to be able to communicate it in a very short and concise way, 'cause you know, I've been in the room with investors, entrepreneurs, and after 20 seconds they're being interrupted. So you have to give it right away.
Poornima: Got it. And so what are those pieces that you've seen over and over again, that people might put in that bloat their pitch, that you like to remove?
Marie Perruchet: The pieces that I like to remove is repetition, is rambling, is talking too much about the 50 features and characteristics of their products. I just want to hear about three features, and really defining features. Engineers tend to overwhelm you with too many details, they think that you wanna know more, so you have to understand and tell as much as possible, but this choice, you have to make it for people. You cannot let people make their choice for yourself. You have to work ahead. So don't overwhelm people with too many details, too many features.
Don't talk too much about yourself, but make it relevant how much your past experience is gonna be relevant to lead that team into building the next product. And also I would say, be very concise, and don't beat around the bush from the very first few seconds, or from the very first few lines of your pitch. Go straight away, dive into your pitch right away.
How to modify your pitch to address different audiences
Poornima: In your book you also talk about the importance of having pitches that are tailored to your audience. So question to you, how do you figure out who's in the audience, and then how do you go about doing that tailoring?
Marie Perruchet: You absolutely have no excuses for not knowing who's in your audience.
Poornima: OK, good.
Marie Perruchet: There's so many ways today, on the internet, to get information, and pull information about people, their taste, their location, what they're doing. If you're working in a company, you have to ask your workmates, you know, what a person likes, or is it a great timing for you to pitch to them, getting as much information internally. And also, for example, if you're speaking at a conference, you have to know beforehand, you know, the profession, the level of expectations. When I run a workshop, usually I send a survey before, through Google Docs, and ask people, you know, your expectations, how much they're knowledgeable, so it's great, kind of a quiz to engage people, and making them feel that what you're gonna say is going to be for them.
Poornima: Yeah, I think that's really important, tailoring it to the audience, and doing your homework ahead of time, to knowing what that audience is. Now, I do know a lot of times people get overwhelmed because they think, "OK, my audience is going to be a bunch of engineers, and there's a lot of different levels of engineers. How do I whittle it down to, maybe the beginner, versus the advanced, etc." So walk us through how you would whittle it down, once you have an idea of who's gonna be in the audience.
Marie Perruchet: So you cannot address everyone in the room, but who are the people, the target audience, who's gonna be the most relevant to grow your product or your business. So maybe you would pick a couple, or maybe three examples, you know, three case stories that is going to appeal and help the audience think that you're trying to relate to their own problems.
So let's say, today when you pitched the interview to me, Poornima, you know we are both women, both interested into public speaking, we love video and talking about skills that can be relevant to specific audience. So already you had me there, 'cause I knew you knew me, I can see you did your homework and research, and took the time and effort to make it relevant. Because we are all busy, we have less, and less time, we have very short attention span. So right away you have to be extremely precise, and be relevant, to engage, and actually instigate people to listen and keep listening to what you have to say.
Poornima: I really like what you said about, you can't address everyone in the room, 'cause I know a lot of people try to please everyone, and they're just...it's not gonna happen. So yeah, definitely tailoring it, making sure it's relevant, to even a handful of people, can be really valuable. I know the last thing that you talk about when it comes to preparing, is actually doing the preparation practice. Walk us through what you recommend when it comes to practicing your pitch.
Marie Perruchet: Many founders and entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, they wait for the last minute to practice their pitch. I've worked with this head of a Google Glass competitor, Japanese CEO. We practice, and I say, "OK, you have to practice at least 20 times." He said, "No, I will practice 200 times."
Poornima: Oh, wow.
Marie Perruchet: And I was quite impressed, because the reason why you have to practice, and it's one of my signature exercise that I do during the corporate trainings, is that I have people line up, like speed dating, but they have to pitch for a minute, and then they switch and then they do it again. And I can tell you, the first few minutes, people are bored, and then the pitch ends after 20 seconds. But then, after they do it like four of five times, I have to yell and tell them you have to stop. 'Cause first, you know, they get inspiration, they get idea, and they go straight to the point. They cut to the chase, and they don't give information that's not relevant anymore, because they see that effect that they have on the face of their audience. So practice is very important. Also, practicing in a room, meaning that every time that I go and speak to a conference I arrive an hour before, to do the recognition of the room, knowing where I'm gonna walk, where I'm gonna get closer to my audience so that I don't ostracize part of the room, because otherwise that part will leave the room, and as a speaker, you don't want that.
And I would say the third advice that I would give, is practicing using the technology. So you can use your tablet, you can use your phone; so you record it, and that's OK, to look at yourself. I know we are all the worst judges of ourselves, but then you play it with the sound and no image, without the sound with the image, and you can see and correct all your filler words, your repetitions, the “ehm, uhm,” but also if you're flapping your arms, if you keep touching your nose, or playing with your rings. And then, over time, maybe you're not gonna change overnight, but you learn how to be aware, what are the mistakes, where you can improve, and then manage it over time, and manage that anxiety of public speaking, but also knowing that your story cannot be perfect from the very first day. It takes time and it needs adjustment, you need to tailor it, and also understanding that it's for your audience, it's not for yourself.
How to practice your pitch, so you deliver it effectively
Poornima: That's great Marie. So how do you know when it's ready to go?
Marie Perruchet: How do you know if your pitch is ready to go? Don't wait. You have to do it right now, and start practicing with your friends, with a colleague. Great way to say is, "I have an idea, I have to present it to the management, to a partner, I'd love to get your feedback." Make sure that the person is qualified to give your feedback, not everybody is able to do that. But, "Hey, can I have a few minutes of your time? I'd like to run a few ideas." And then, take notes, or videotape or record with your phone what they've just told you. You have to be able to listen. Integrate that feedback, and then replace it in your next pitch. But don't wait, you know, the previous night before your presentation, to pitch. You have to practice beforehand, because also what's important, is that you will see the journey, and it will give you a lot of confidence.
Poornima: Yeah, I think that's valuable. And as you record yourself, you do see that progression. So, I know for a lot of people that I coach, they then realize they have made a lot of progress, because it's been captured.
Marie Perruchet: Absolutely.
Poornima: Well thank you so much Marie, for joining us, and I know our audience out there is gonna get a lot out of these segments. And be sure, audience, to check out Marie's book, *One Perfect Pitch*. And for people who wanna get in touch with you, what's the best way?
Marie Perruchet: To me what's important, is impact. I'd love to hear from you guys, you know, check the book, dive into the exercises, learn how to work around a method, and get back to me, tell me how it impacted your work. Whether it helped you refresh your ideas, your communication, pushed you to pitch more. I'd love to hear you, so you can connect with me on LinkedIn, Marie Perruchet. You can follow me on Twitter, send me messages through Instagram as well. You know, I love text messages, so please get in touch, I'd love to hear from you.
Poornima: That's it for our episode on pitching. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive the next *Build* episode, and special thanks to our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker, for their help in producing this episode. Ciao for now.
This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker.
One of the reasons people don’t like pitching is because they feel like they have to be someone else. They have to abandon their personality, get into character, and speak in a way they normally wouldn’t in order to impress a colleague, customer, or investor.
However, people on the receiving end of the pitch are going to see through and disengage quickly. A sales-y pitch is one that isn’t rehearsed and the person pitching hasn’t taken the time to figure out how to engage their audience.
What we don’t realize is that we don’t need to change who we are or how we speak to engage audiences. Many of us are already practicing a powerful pitching technique in our everyday lives, storytelling. And when we deliver stories in a conversational approach we come off as clear and authentic.
But we may still be opposed to starting a pitch with a story. We worry about it being too long or short, and the theme and details resonating with the audience.
Well in today’s Build episode, Marie Perruchet author of One Perfect Pitch: How to Sell Your Idea, Your Product, Your Business or Yourself is back.
You’ll learn the following from Marie:
- Why storytelling is a powerful technique for pitching
- How you can tell a great story in a business setting
- How to condense a long story so that it is short and to the point
- How to weave your credibility into a story
- Why most demos fail – hint: it’s because they fail to walk an audience through a story
- How to incorporate an ASK into your pitch
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Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.
Episode Transcript
Poornima: Hey, guys. I'm back today talking about pitching. In the last segment, I covered a lot of the mistakes that people make when pitching. If you missed out, I highly recommend you check it out. The link to the video is below this one. Today I'm gonna dive into how to pitch in a way that resonates with your personality.
Welcome back to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker. Each *Build* episode consists of a series of conversations I host with innovators, and together we debunk myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech. Today we're gonna continue the conversation around pitching, and I'm joined by Marie Perruchet, who is the author of the latest book, *One Perfect Pitch*. Thanks again for joining us today, Marie.
Marie: Great to be here.
Why storytelling is a powerful technique for pitching
Poornima: Last week we were talking about a number of mistakes people make when it comes to pitching. Now I want to shift gears and talk about how we can pitch in a way that resonates with our personality so that we feel effective as people who are pitching. I know one of the techniques that you talk about in your book is storytelling. But a lot of people have an aversion to starting a pitch with a story, because they're not sure how to craft one. They worry about whether it's too long or too short, and they want to make sure that it really resonates with the audience. So let's just start by talking about why storytelling is an effective technique to start your pitch with.
Marie Perruchet: I love storytelling. You're born and then your parents, your family, reads you stories. I grew up with stories from Charles Perrault, from Brothers Grimm. You know Cinderella...the first story of Cinderella was found in the fifth century in China. And since then you have more than 1,400 versions of Cinderella. Take Japan, the Japanese telling stories using animation. Think about in China there was this guy who would hang around and sell candies and actually would tell stories to sell more candies. And so if you're thinking about the story of immigration in the U.S., the show and tell that kids learn how to do at school, the kids would talk about their fluffy toy. That was a great way to have kids from immigrants who wouldn't speak the same language unite around a story. And when you think of what storytelling is today for technology companies, which is the main industry here in Silicon Valley but also blossoming in other countries, storytelling talks about transformation, and that's what technology companies are doing, transforming a certain industry.
How you can tell a great story in a business setting
So storytelling is a very powerful technique because it's something that people know already, they grew up with that. Every weekend you're telling your friends stories, how you got away from a parking ticket, or how, in my case, I have lost my passports, or how the toast you did for your friend's wedding didn't go so well. So we all know how to tell stories, except in a business perspective, in a business setting, it has to be very short because we can not spend hours telling stories.
So how do you tell a great story? First, think of the pitch meet being a mini story that creates emotion. So stories are a way to start and that's the method I describe in my book. You start with the problem, talk about the solution, and then finish with an ask that is the transformation.
A great image to remember is the image of the rainbow. There's the rainbow, there's the storm, that's the problem. The rainbow, talk about the solution, and then supposedly there's a pot of gold, which is the transformation. So whenever you want to tell a story, there should be a beginning, a middle, and an end. And you know the James Bond movies, they all start with something that grips you to your seat. Think about the Cinderella story, at the end there's a transformation. That's what storytelling is about. There's a problem, there's tension in the beginning, there's a resolution. That's what we want to hear because it creates a tension, it creates an emotion, and we want to follow up.
Poornima: OK, so for our audience out there, start with the problem, and that will present a good tension point to hook the audience right from the beginning.
Marie Perruchet: Absolutely.
Poornima: Now, I know another concern is having the story be too long or too short. How do you recommend it being just the right length for the pitch that you're doing?
Marie Perruchet: People shouldn't worry so much because a story takes time to craft and to refine. Anyone is able to tell a story for an hour, for two hours, but it takes a lot of practice to chop it to maybe a minute. And there's so much you can tell in a minute. The radio pieces I used to tell would be a minute long, and there's so much you can tell in structure. So people shouldn't be worried about that because the story changes over time and you should practice it.
How to condense a long story so that it is short and to the point
Poornima: So how do you condense that hour-long story down to a minute? Do you have an example?
Marie Perruchet: I advise founders, engineers, and designers to take a page, write their story, look at it, and then eliminate two thirds. And those two thirds should be anything that's not relevant or that's not gonna interest their audience. Anything that's not precise, that doesn't have data or numbers, you should get rid of it. Any personal opinions shouldn't be there. That's the first step.
The second step, when you want to know about your story you should focus on different parts like they're LEGO parts, because each part should be breakable. Imagine yourself at a cocktail party, you start pitching and somebody comes and interrupts you. So you should be able to tell those parts very separately and if you put them together they work very well. So think about what's your hook, how do you start your story? How do you differentiate yourself? How do you bring up the solution? Talk about your team.
So each segment should be a minute long. And it's very easy. If you're taking your Word document, there's a word count. It should be between, I believe, 150 words per minute. You can use your calculator in the toolkit for the Word document to calculate it. And then you practice it and you should be very slow, very articulate, especially if, like me, you're non-native English speakers, so that people can get used to your accent.
How to weave your credibility into a story
Poornima: Nice. Now, I know another thing you talk about is credibility and leading with it. How do you recommend people lead with that credibility?
Marie Perruchet: I'm gonna give you an example. When I meet people and they don't know me or they want to question my expertise, I tell them that I'm an award-winning journalist, worked for the BBC in three countries. I've also written a book at McGraw-Hill on the art of writing your pitch called *One Perfect Pitch*. You are establishing credibility giving examples or giving awards or giving achievements to people about what you've been doing in the past so that you can create trust.
Poornima: Right. Now, I meet a lot of people who often will tell me their credibility and they'll mention things that maybe happened 5 or 10 years ago that may not be relevant to the work that they're doing now. So how do you create credibility when you're just getting something off the ground?
Marie Perruchet: I worked with engineers, with founders and designers to create credibility from the ground, and when you think that nothing happened in the past 10 years, yes, something did happen. But you need to really look into it and work and find out, what you're doing today, you didn't get up in the morning and start it. It comes from somewhere and I want to know that. I want to know why you and why not somebody else. One great way to do it is ask your friends, "Why do you think I'm so passionate? Why do you think I'm working every day for 12 hours a day and building and developing my product or my startup?" Ask people you've met with or you've worked with, "This is what I'm doing right now, but I'm unsure, I have doubts. What would be the reason why I should pursue it? Could you help me and shed some light?" Understanding what is your path, your passion, for me, writing a book has been very transformative because I could find out why I was so passionate about storytelling and that storytelling has been with me my entire life.
Why most product demos given during pitches fail
Poornima: Now, I know another technique is the proof is in the product. Especially for those of us who are engineers and designers, we like to have something tangible to show. Can you talk about demoing a product? I'll admit, I've done a lot of terrible demos in my past. How would you recommend people have an effective demo of their product?
Marie Perruchet: Yes, people tend to overlook their demo. They work on their questions, they work at telling what they're good at, sometimes telling about the problem if it's great, but they think, "OK, I'm just gonna do the demo on the fly." But the demo should be extremely prepared because if you need Wi-Fi, you don't know any technical issues. I lived in India, I know about electricity cuts happening all the time. So you never know and you want to be prepared. So don't depend first on your demo to explain your product.
The second thing would be have somebody else handling all the technicalities so that you don't have to worry about that. And the third thing would be, of course, practicing your demo. We worked with a client who was presenting a product to Samsung, and what we did is that we took it from...it's like a journey or taking a trip from A to Z. From the moment you have to click on the button to get into the software to the moment you have to scroll down the menu, you have to show all that. Maybe you have to spend 20 minutes or 30 minutes, keep it maybe under 10 minutes. A couple of minutes is great, but you have to go step by step so that the person understands from their user's perspective what they have to do to get to the product.
Poornima: Yeah, I like what you said about the user's perspective, and I know in your book you talk about even presenting a scenario. Not just like, "Oh, let me show you my product, and here's how you sign up, and here's how you get started," but having a very directed workflow maybe based on a specific use case.
Marie Perruchet: Yes, so you can also do that. If you can show the product, people always like to see something tangible. When you're bargaining in certain countries, you want to show the dollars, the euros, the money that you have. What you can do if you don't have the product with you, you can pick a name. This is Kate, this is Andrew, this is Jane. Jane starts her morning that way. This is what her journey looks like. This is her problem, this is the problem she faced, and this is how our solution helps her transform her day.
Poornima: Nice, so yeah, that's very relatable and that comes back to incorporating storytelling into your demo.
Marie Perruchet: Yes, because behind every product there's a team, there's a leader, and we want to know the struggles your team are going through to give birth to that product.
How to incorporate an ASK into your pitch
Poornima: And finally, there's the ask, which you talk about incorporating into your pitch. But again, depending on backgrounds, you both feel like that can be really sales-y or sleazy. So walk us through why it's important to have an ask at the end of your pitch and how to craft one.
Marie Perruchet: To me, a sales-y pitch is a pitch where people have it rehearsed, and they don't really connect and they only talk about themselves. So an ask at the end of the pitch is another great way to reconnect with the person if by any chance you've lost her or him during your presentation.
So why finishing by an ask? Because every story has an end. And you're telling this story, imagine you've created a tension, you've got people very excited about the problem because they felt, "Oh, they're relating to my own problem, they brought us a solution." But then, nothing happens at the end of your story. You leave them in a state of anxiety. So people, if they've been seduced and excited by your idea, they want to help. So you have to give them clear directions.
For example, "Hey, I'd like to have an intro to that person to support my project. I need more resources. What can you do to help me fund that project?" Be extremely clear, and I know in American English it's much easier. In certain countries, you don't want to be so direct, but find a way to have your team or the person or your subject act on something. Just don't leave it like this because people want to help. They want you to be successful, so what can you give them so that they can help you?
Poornima: That's fantastic. Thank you, Marie. This has been really helpful.
Now Marie and I want to learn from you. What additional techniques have you tried that have worked as you've been pitching your ideas? Let us know in the comments below and the first three people to respond are gonna receive an autographed copy of *One Perfect Pitch* from Marie.
That's it for this segment. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive the next and final segment on this topic of pitching, where we'll talk about the various types of pitches you need to prepare. Ciao for now!
This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker.
Have you ever had an idea for something, like a process or product that you wanted to improve? But instead of sharing your idea with others like your friends or co-workers, you just kept it to yourself because the thought of having to “pitch it” felt icky and salesy?
Many of us who are creative problem solvers feel this way.
Since pitching doesn’t come naturally to us, we just leave it up to CEOs, founders, and sales people.
However, pitching is a really valuable skill that all of us need to hone, because only if we pitch our ideas will people hear us out, adopt them, and believe in our solutions.
In today’s episode of Build, we’re going to tackle a number of misconceptions people have about pitching as well as the common mistakes people make while delivering them.
In future episodes, we’ll talk about how you can pitch in a way that resonates with your personality and the various types of pitches you need to prepare because it turns out that an elevator pitch isn’t enough!
To help us out, I've invited Marie Perruchet (http://www.oneperfectpitch.com/about-us), who is the author of the latest book, One Perfect Pitch: How to Sell Your Idea, Your Product, Your Business or Yourself (https://www.amazon.com/One-Perfect-Pitch-Business-Yourself/dp/0071837590).
Even if you don’t plan on pitching anything in the near future, chances are someone is going to pitch something to you: a project or a product, and you need to be able to filter the best from the worst!
So I highly recommend you watch this episode to learn:
- Why no one is a natural when it comes to pitching
- How to get over the discomfort of pitching
- Why you can’t stop at the first NO
You’ll also learn the 3 most common mistakes people make while pitching and how to avoid them such as:
- Not taking the time to make people care enough about your idea.
- Not realizing that most pitches are shared.
- Overwhelming people with data.
--
Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer ((http://femgineer.com/) and Pivotal Tracker (http://www.pivotaltracker.com/). San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA (http://www.startmotionmedia.com/design/).
Episode Transcript
Poornima: Pitching an idea feels icky and salesy and for those of us who are creative problem solvers; it doesn't come naturally to us. So, we just end up not doing it all together, leaving it up instead to founders, CEOs, and sales people. However, pitching is a really valuable skill that all of us need to hone, because only if we pitch our ideas will people hear us out, adopt them, and believe in our solutions. Today, we're going to tackle a number of misconceptions and mistakes that people make when it comes to pitching and in future segments, we're going to talk about how you can pitch in a way that resonates with your personality and the various types of pitches you need to have prepared.
Welcome to *Build*, brought to you by Pivotal Tracker. I'm your host, Poornima Vijayashanker. Each *Build* episode consists of a series of conversations I host with innovators and together we debunk a number of myths and misconceptions related to building products, companies, and your career in tech. Today we're going to be diving into the misconceptions around pitching and to help us out, I've invited Marie Perruchet, who is the author of the latest book, *One Perfect Pitch: How to Sell Your Idea, Your Product, Your Business or Yourself*. Thanks for joining us, Marie.
Marie Perruchet: Thanks for having me, Poornima.
Poornima: We met at a conference earlier this year, and as I recall it, your background is not in tech. So, walk us through your background and what lured you into tech.
Marie Perruchet: My name's Marie. I grew up in Normandy, originally from South Korea, born there and was adopted to French parents. Because I always loved traveling, my first career was actually being a journalist.
Poornima: OK.
Marie Perruchet: I was a radio journalist and I started out from Brussels, then I decided to move further and I worked for the French National Radio from New Delhi in India covering politics, earthquake, and two years later I thought it would be great to also work from one of larger clients in Asia, so I moved to Shanghai where I worked for the BBC. And then after, that was my big turning point, because I moved to Silicon Valley. In the beginning, I was covering some tech, but mainly it was for the Presidential elections for former President Obama, end of 2008. You know, when you arrive here, you realize that first you don't have to use VPN to get access to information coming from China. But also that everybody is embracing entrepreneurship and that means that you have a laptop, you have a Wifi connection, and you have an idea, and you want to see if you can put it through and then push it to the market.
I thought it was very exciting, so I thought, "OK, what's going on here? What can I do?" I always loved helping people tell their own story through the media, but at the time, it was a big explosion about the platforms. How do you communicate your company's story, how you can communicate about yourself, how do you go for funding? And I started helping entrepreneurs and startup founders communicate that story to the world and also to investors here, but also users and partners. I mentored at different incubators, including 500 startups, mentored at Japanese, Korean, Chinese incubators here and then starting having my own clients helping them communicate their idea for funding, but also on their website, on social media. And I'm going to corporate training where I brought these large companies here, because you know internally you also need to be able to present your ideas effectively in very short formats, because people they have very short attention spans.
Poornima: Yeah. That's a lot of great work that you've done around pitching. What then inspired you to go from doing that work to writing the book, *One Perfect Pitch*?
Marie Perruchet: So, you know when you're a journalist, you think that down the road you're going to write a book at some point.
Poornima: OK.
Marie Perruchet: But I was not a journalist anymore. And what happened is that I was featured in the *Wall Street Journal* for my work and McGraw-Hill they actually pitched the book idea to me.
Poornima: Oh, that's great.
Marie Perruchet: Yes. And I said yes, even without knowing what it means to write a book.
Why People Find Pitching Uncomfortable
Poornima: So, I know a lot of people don't enjoy pitching, they don't feel like they're good at it, they're not a natural, they might be shy or introverted. How do you help people get over those situations?
Marie Perruchet: First of all, people should think about why they're so uncomfortable pitching. And it has to do with...you know, think about your business ahead. So, it takes a lot of time to think about it and it takes a lot of preparation knowing your user, what your business does, your brand identity, your identity. So, that's why it's very important to think ahead about what you're trying to convey. And then when you're confident about your idea, it makes it much easier to be able to pitch your idea. The second thing is also practice. Don't wait for the last minute for people to feed you questions to pitch, because here it's very competitive. People are coming from all over the world to go for funding, look for funding, but also trying to get and acquire users and customers. And I would say the sort of thing that I tell people who feel shy, “OK, maybe you're doing this presentation, maybe you're pitching, maybe it doesn't go so well as you think, but you have to keep going back to the stage in the room and keep pitching until your idea goes through.” So, you can't stop at the first “no.” You have to keep doing it.
Poornima: Yeah. Yeah, that's a really good point.
Marie Perruchet: Of course, if you're looking on the internet, if you're looking at great speakers, think about in 1988 at the Democratic Convention, there was the Arkansas governor called Bill Clinton. He was a very, very bad presenter at the time, but you know how much money he makes today while speaking. So, nobody's ever a natural. There are techniques and you need to acquire those techniques to feel more comfortable and manage your anxiety.
Pitching Mistake #1: Not taking the time to make people care about your idea.
Poornima: There's also a number of mistakes that people make when they are pitching and you cover some of them in your book. The first one is not taking the time to make people care about what it is you're talking about. So, what exactly does that mean, and how do you make people care?
Marie Perruchet: How do you make people care when you're trying to convey an idea? You have to put yourself in the shoes of your audience. So it means that you have to have empathy because maybe you got that idea from the closet of your room or from your garage or from your basement if you're living on the East Coast or in any other countries, but you know you have to understand how your product, your service is solving a problem for the person who may buy that product from you. And that's why when you're a founder because you're so entrenched in the work, you need to take some perspective and really put yourself in the shoes of your audience.
Pitching Mistake #2: Not realizing that pitches are shared.
Poornima: We also have people in our audience who are very technical, and a lot of times when they are presenting an idea, the get really bogged down in that jargon, which may not be comprehendible by somebody who is not technical or on the business side or has some other expertise. So, how would you explain to them how to manage that?
Marie Perruchet: So, they should think about how to make their pitch simple, because whoever they're going to pitch it to, that person is going to pitch the idea to somebody else. So that's why they have to make it simple. For many founders, their biggest problem is knowing where to start their pitch. And in my book, I describe three ways to start your pitch. The first one is telling how you're solving your tech problem. No, the first one is telling about the problem that you're trying to solve. So putting yourself in the shoes of the person. Another way to start your technical pitch is talking about the breaking news. What's the latest about your product or your idea? Maybe you've just debugged something in your software or you've just released a new product. Something that makes it exciting for people. And the third way to start your pitch, when it's a technical pitch as well, is talking about all the achievements that your team has achieved in the past week or in the past month, so that's a great way to grab the attention of your audience.
Poornima: Yeah. Now, I know another thing you mention in the book is having a universal story, right? And this is something you can start your pitch with. So, walk us through, what exactly is a universal story?
Marie Perruchet: I recommend founders to start with a universal story, because that's how they find something that they can have related to what they're doing, meaning that founders think that what they are doing is very unique and very special, but if you're looking around, you realize that maybe 10 companies are doing the same thing as you're doing.
Poornima: Sure. Yep.
Marie Perruchet: And when you're thinking about the people who are going to buy your product or your service, they cannot just be your family or your close friends. You have to understand that hey, this product could be used in that country in that segment, in that market and make it relevant for everyone.
Poornima: Do you have an example of a reader or somebody that you coached to come up with a universal story that you could share with us?
Marie Perruchet: Yes. I've coached a company that were developing sensors and those sensors were actually bees and those bees were able to detect some substance, illegal substances for example, and what we found out is that the founder, his grandpa was actually the largest exporter of honey from Turkey. And so everybody understand honey, everybody understand bees, so that's where universal, because it's a common in plain English in English language that people can use to convey their ideas.
Poornima: Got it. So you started with that, and then talked about the sensors rather than starting with sensors, which people may or may not understand anyway.
Marie Perruchet: Exactly. Because you always have to think that people are going to pitch for you, as I'm pitching about himself today. I need to be able to understand and the more simple you make it, the easier it travels.
Pitching Mistake #3: Overwhelming people with data.
Poornima: Yep. So simplicity's important, but I know a lot of us in tech love information and data. One of the things that you talk about in your book is sometimes we don't present enough information or the data that we share isn't the most relevant or can be confusing. How do you recommend people decide on how much information is enough and how to present data that's valuable?
Marie Perruchet: Well, I love data. Most of the time, people they tend to overwhelm people with data, so you have to maybe—for example, if you're thinking about a slide presentation—just maybe one data per slide, that's enough. Not 50 data per slide.
Poornima: Yeah.
Marie Perruchet: And also, when they're saying, "Oh, not enough data," what they mean is that they're not precise enough. Sounds like high level or it's too much jargon, but we don't really picture in our mind what it means, so the more precise you are with your data, the better it is. For example, in a span of three weeks, our traffic increased by 50%. So that's very precise, instead of saying that, "We've got great traction in developing our product." That doesn't mean anything.
Poornima: Got it. And so showing kind of the growth trend could be one way of representing it. Are there other techniques that you talk about?
Marie Perruchet: To talk about traction?
Poornima: Mm-hmm.
Marie Perruchet: You can say traction in a short amount of time, saying like in a month, required X number of users. That could be another way to show it, so growth, but also, “Our application has been number one for six consecutive weeks or six consecutive months at the Apple Store in three countries.” And you're not bragging but you're just stating the facts and it gives context to people because imagine what you're pitching, other companies are also pitching. So how do we get the right context to make a decision about should we have the next meeting?
Poornima: Got it. Well, thank you so much Marie. This has been fantastic. Now Marie and I want to know, are there mistakes that we haven't covered in this segment, that you're worried about making? Let us know what they are in the comments below and we'll be sure to address them.
OK, that's it for this segment. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to receive the next segment where we'll continue the conversation and dive into how to create a pitch that resonates with your personality. Ciao for now.
This episode of *Build* is brought to you by our sponsor, Pivotal Tracker.