Know your audience and do your research

Duhhh. Seems pretty straightforward, right? But we still see a lot of people making the same mistake. If you don’t know who your audience is going to be, just suppose none of them have a single clue what you are going to talk about. If you do know your audience, try to make your talk as recognisable as possible for them. Your audience has certain expectations, try to meet them. And above all, try not to bore them to death.

For Fit4Start we received a list of the jury members that were attending. Of course we googled every single one of them and checked their LinkedIn profiles. This gives you insight in their prior experience, what their goals in life might be and what they are looking for. The more personally appealing you can make your pitch, the better.

Next to that we asked previous participants for advice on their experience pitching for the programme, which provided invaluable feedback.

Types of pitches

Before actually starting to write your pitch, try and figure out in what contexts or environments you will be delivering your pitch. Is it during a formal presentation? Can you show slides? Do you have one minute, five minutes or thirty minutes to give your pitch?

What is your main message for a:

One sentence pitch

One minute pitch

Five minute pitch with pitchdeck

Five minute pitch without pitchdeck

Fifteen minute pitch with pitchdeck

…

In our case, we first started out by creating a really long textfile with bits and pieces of our value proposition, businessmodel, etc… We first started with ‘the end’: what do we want to achieve with our pitch? What’s our goal? How can our audience help us reach that goal.

We then started turning that information into an easy to understand story. The word ‘story’ is really important here, we are all hardwired to love stories. Stories have a very natural and logical flow to them and evoke all kinds of emotions.

Only after finishing our longest possible pitch, we started boiling down information into smaller pitches. Some argue you should start the other way round. We do not claim to hold the truth, just find a way that works for you!

Once you have your perfect story, start focussing on your delivery. Where do you create a pause? Where do you put emphasis on?

Did they really get what I said?

So you think you have a really great pitch and a billion dollar idea and you start pitching it to every breathing soul out there. But how do you really know that people clearly understand what you are telling them?

Easy. Ask them to explain back to you what your startup is doing right after you pitched. You’d be surprised about the answers.

When we first started pitching we initially used way too complicated industry-specific words. We started asking people to repeat back what we just told them and we noticed we were using way too much real estate mumbo jumbo. Most people do not want to come across as idiots so of course they smile and nod and act like they understood everything. We learned the hard way that people in fact did not completely get what we were trying to convey.

Ethos — Pathos — Logos

We are huge fans of the Ethos-Pathos-Logos triangle and we keep it in mind every time we write a pitch or a speech.

Like mentioned earlier, everything starts with Pathos: telling a good story. Use easy to understand language and tell an emotional story. Know when to lighten up parts with a well placed joke or wordplay, which parts to accentuate, or where to leave silences. For me, Pathos is also closely linked to body language. Be aware of how you are standing, engage with your audience, look them in the eyes. Do not cross your arms but use them to emphasize certain concepts.

Stories are great, but they should be told in a logical manner so your complete presentation makes sense. You need to add Logos to your pitch. All good stories have an introduction, a main story and an ending. Unfortunately I see way too many pitches without a clear ending or conclusion. What are you expecting of your audience after the pitch? What are you looking for? What might be next actionable steps? Make sure to activate and engage with your audience during the ending part of your pitch. Logos also provides proof for what you are saying. The problem with stories is that most of them may sound like fairytales. Debunk possible assumptions by providing proof. You did x-amount of customer interviews or surveys to back up your claims? Good! Mention it.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, we come to the last piece of the triangle: Ethos. For me, this basically boils down to one question: why are you the only one in the world best suited to give this pitch? Show your experience, show why you are the right person to be delivering this pitch. Show signs of confidence. Don’t ever read of a paper, if you are worried about what to do with your hands, hold a presentation pointer. But never, ever, read your pitch of a piece of paper. And above all, know your industry/business/topic you are talking about by heart. You should be able to answer every single question after your pitch without hesitation with crystal clear answers.

Stand out of the crowd

This one is especially important when you are entering a competition. We process insane amounts of information every day. It has become easier to forget things than ever before. If I look back at pitches I’ve seen during demo days, graduation days or application entries for contests or incubators, the best pitches usually have a certain aspect that is really difficult to describe but that leaves a surprising ‘hook’ in your mind. Could be a powerful image or example they used, could be a really funny story or insight they shared. Just ask yourself which special ingredient could spice up your pitch so that your audience doesn’t instantly forget you.

When we were pitching for Fit4Start we were one of the first startups to present in the morning out of a total of 20 companies. Of course, we wanted to be top of mind at the end of the day when the jury was discussing their final decision.

So we decided to make small, beautifully designed booklets where we outlined survey results (Logos, remember?) and the essence of our pitch. At the end of our pitch, we distributed them among the jurymembers so they could flip through it during the rest of the day.

Icing on the cake

Fugly PowerPoint presentation. My head is spinning due to information overload. Compare this with a Steve Jobs Keynote and you get the point.

Perhaps we are a bit biased on this topic because we have design backgrounds but we pay a lot of attention to how our pitch decks look like. First of all, this doesn’t mean you should neglect your content or try to cover up holes in your story with nice graphics. A good looking pie that tastes like sh*t, well… still tastes like sh*t. But even worse is a delicious tasting pie that looks like sh*t, because some people will judge it based on its looks rather than its taste. But boy, if you make the best tasting cake in the world, and you dress it up with sexy black lingerie… magic happens. To use the words of michelinstar chef Sergio Herman: “It’s like sex on a plate.”