• Tweet

  • Postal service

  • Share

  • Save

  • Get PDF

  • Purchase Copies

  • Print
Eric Dreyer/Getty Images

Pitching for new business is a brand-or-break moment for many teams. You lot want to win the pitch, and and then you develop a detailed slide deck, tout your credentials, capabilities and successes (case studies), and select your strongest presenter – perhaps the leader of your team or visitor — to practise all the talking. Right? Incorrect.

A good pitch is a balancing act that can exist adjusted to the currents in the room. A recent survey of HBR readers found — at to the lowest degree in this community — how important it is to sympathise non simply what you are pitching, but who you are pitching to. This was relatively unsurprising until we dug into the reasons why: The more senior your audience, we learned, the less yous should rely on your deck and the more you should await your pitch to be a chat, showing your team's authentic passion for the challenge or trouble and their resilience for solving it creatively, together.

Our Survey

In January of this year, nosotros published an online survey seeking insights from managers who hear a lot of pitches. We asked them what they value nearly — and least — in a pitch. We also asked them to self-identify their gender as well as whether they are entry-level, mid-level or executive conclusion-makers. We received more than 1,800 responses. Of the respondents who provided their gender, 75 percent identified every bit male and 25 pct identified as female. Of the respondents who provided their seniority, 12 percent were entry-level, 37 percent were mid-level and 51 percent executives. In full over the last twelvemonth, respondents accept the cumulative experience of hearing upwards to ten,000 pitches.

Hither's what they told us.

Lesson 1: Be a chief of the facts, but know that for an executive audience, your relevant experience matters nigh.

The more senior the audience yous are pitching to, the sooner you must annals your relevant experience and how it solves their claiming in unscripted conversation. Heed well, and map your noesis and experience to what you hear. But for less senior audiences, it's more important to show mastery of facts. Practise your research and evidence it.

Lesson 2: Avert pitches where only one person speaks.

Respondents of all levels told us that a pitch squad with skilful chemistry together is much more trustworthy than ane senior person who does all the talking. Reconsider the wisdom of bringing people to a pitch who say nil or take no articulate expertise. Use your squad to amplify your expertise in a pitch, not dilute it. Of course, one senior person who is practiced in all the relevant areas, listens well to the audience, and can build (or already has) their trust, will defeat a team that does not mind and is unable to apply their collective expertise to the contours of the audition'south objective.

Lesson 3: Be passionate about the problem, non merely your product.

Beyond experience and facts, passion for the pitch was a top trait that our respondents highlighted as of import. "I want to feel their energy for the pitch. The other key aspect is their mastery of the detail. Is it really in their blood … or but skin deep?" wrote 1 executive-level respondent.

But passion should go beyond your own product. Said some other respondent, "I want to hear about me not nearly them." The lesson here is that if you're pitching, be passionate near who you lot are pitching too as much every bit y'all are almost your own product.

Lesson four: Listen closely and answer carefully.

Few decision-makers want to be "pitched." They want you to heed to them, enquire questions, and understand their point of view on their problem before hearing your solution. And the more senior the audience, the more they desire to take a conversation, to be heard and to hear what yous retrieve of their claiming. "I wish they listened more and spoke less," wrote i executive respondent. Shared another, "Listen and enquire questions about my goals."

Fifty-fifty for seasoned pitch teams, it can exist difficult to exist in a room with someone or a group who tin determine the quality of your immediate future, and not abet difficult for it. It is only natural to desire to lead, explain and prove why you should win. And because employers, investors, and innovators alike desire the full story of their greatness to be understood past a decision-maker, it is abomination to stop speaking. Simply that is what your audience wants; not to learn more near you, but for you to hear (in the pitch) more than about them and to brand your greatness direct applicative and relevant to their goals, unscripted and live.

Winning the Pitch

In most significant competitive pitches, your feel and mastery of facts are certainly essential and must be demonstrated (quickly), because determination-makers of class want an skilful to win the pitch. However, and I can say from personal experience, nigh everyone who pitches oftentimes has an example of a pitch they should accept won, on paper, but did not. The reason is often that all those pitching have probably achieved the expertise and mastery of facts needed to solve the audience's problems. That'south why they were invited to pitch in the start identify; information technology is the price of entry, the low-hanging fruit, a mutual denominator. Information technology'southward paying attention to these other factors, so, that makes the difference.

The difference, then, between pitch winners and losers, is your chemical science — both as a squad pitching and with your audience. It is your empathy for your audition, your passion for meeting a challenge together with them, your ability to heed, speak directly and apply your expertise, in the pitch. It is also the tone y'all tin create in the room — presenting yourselves as a club your audition wants to join, knowing how to surprise, delight and engage your audience with your unique version of relevant expertise and problem-solving, live.

At that place are no absolute truths — pitching is not a science. But this survey backs upward how important it is to learn to read the room when you lot first walk in. Is your audience, junior, mid-level or senior executive? What y'all see may propose you adapt your pitch to what your audience wants and values.