Tips for Making a Successful Pitch

The standard meaning of a pitch is to toss or throw something lightly. So, when you pitch an idea, concept, or product—you are “throwing” your idea to people, and of course, you hope that they catch it or like your idea! In another context, a pitch refers to offering an idea for consideration. A pitch refers to bringing an idea to someone with the power to do something with it. There are several common types of idea pitching, such as the one-word pitch, social media pitch, elevator pitch, cold call pitch, email pitch, follow-up pitch, and business pitch. Do always remember:

Ideas, audience, and time management are the keys to a successful pitch. The pitching ideas from one person to another include software ideas, implementation strategies, movie screenplays, organisational changes, and business plans. It can be a business idea for potential investors or it can be defined as a presentation to sell a product or service. Investors, customers, sales, employees, partners, and competitors are the audience in general. For time management, you must divide your available time to strategise your pitch content. Take a one-minute pitch as an example; you may spend 10 seconds for an introduction, 15 seconds to highlight the problem, 25 seconds to offer a solution, and 10 seconds to ask the audience. Below are the 10 steps on how to make a successful pitch:

Based on the speaking test's evaluation criteria, the ideas must be delivered confidently, effectively, and articulately to the target audience. The overall idea can be delivered clearly if the introduction, body, and conclusion possess certain criteria to reach the target audience effectively. Grabbing the audience's attention and creating a desire for information among the listeners is essential. Hence, a speaker needs to create an absorbing and enthralling attention grabber. Besides, the issue or problem should be clearly explained and well elaborated. After introducing the topic, develop the main ideas (at least three main points), systematically, and fully with well-structured supporting points and relevant examples. These three main points are reiterated interestingly when it is time to conclude. The call to action must be reinforced effectively.

To show confidence in the delivery of ideas, a conversational tone with an excellent rate, pitch, pause, and volume is crucial to ensure the clarity of the message. To strengthen the impact of the pitch, deliver your pitch confidently and fluently in a polished manner without verbal fillers. Additionally, the pronunciation and articulation of words should be appropriate and conversational to enhance the message. The use of appropriate gestures and posture complements the message throughout the pitch. Strong and direct eye contact with the audience is an added value. Besides, the speaker should use visual aids to enhance clarity and interest, including the appropriate number and excellent timing of slides.

A speaker who can deliver ideas very confidently normally has no language errors. Furthermore, persuasive techniques and language choice should be consistent with the topic and the situation throughout the pitch, which displays excellent use of sentences typical of persuasive speech. The pitch also shows a very proficient use of transitions, internal previews, internal summaries, and signposts. Moreover, the speaker should deliver the ideas effectively to the target audience. Below are the 10 most common mistakes made by the speakers:

Below is a sample of a pitch session highlighted in different sections.

Advertising on Coffee Cups

I believe that I have the most effective form of advertising available on the market today. On average, the advertisements can be exposed to customers for 2,220 seconds!

Unless you have a multinational company or a global brand, almost every business goes by on a limited budget, especially for advertising. With the abundance of advertisements everywhere, it is difficult to make your business stand out.

Now, what kind of advertising has that kind of exposure time? Ladies and gentlemen, we advertise on coffee cups. That's right, we put your brand ‘in their hands’.

So, how does coffee cup advertising work? Firstly, we need an advertiser. They pay us money. We produce paper coffee cups with their advertising or brand on them. Then, we give these coffee cups to coffee stands for free. Now, why does someone want to advertise on a coffee cup? According to a study at Washington University in the USA, the average person holds their cup for 53 minutes. They repeatedly look at your brand on the cup and read your message. The study also revealed that an average of 6 people will see each cup. That person will have to look at the cup, drink, look at the cup, drink- 20 times before it is fully consumed. And that person will move around like a mobile billboard, exposing that brand to at least 6 different individuals before the cup is empty.

When people think about coffee, they think of Starbucks. But what about the 250 coffee stands in this town that have plain, white cups like this? They don't have the economies of scale to put their brand on the cup. So, we give them free cups, and they will save thousands of ringgit a year by not buying cups. If we can get 20 coffee stands every month for the next 12 months, we will have 240 coffee stands at the end of the year. With 240 coffee stands and at least 100 coffee cups bought from each stand daily, we can move 720,000 cups a month. And at $0.20 profit, we will make over $144 000 profit every month. And 4 million people will be exposed to the advertisement!

The humble coffee cup is more than meets the eye. Advertising on coffee cups gives your company an excellent opportunity to be different from others. And a message is best delivered in the warmth of a cup of coffee!

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