This last week I was travelling back from the US on the long haul 15-hour flight from Newark airport to Mumbai, direct. I had decided beforehand itself, that I would get my computer out and spend the time watching an old television series called 'Studio 60.' I like Aaron Sorkin and his writings and this was one of his old television shows. In that show, there was one episode, which caught my attention in terms of a thought to look ahead for Corporate Capsules. It was a scene with the network President, also the Chairman and a couple of executives. They were listening to two guys who were pitching a new sketch, or a show that they wanted the network to run.
I listened, fascinated, because they wrapped it up in just under five minutes. It was very succinct; they came right to the point. They handled the main thought behind the new show, how it would run, how they would get the program done in the right time frame, the audience that they were targeting and the potential viewership that would go up – all of that captured within a space of five minutes.
Reflecting on that, I thought: we pitch so many ideas all the time. Very often we have interesting responses to it. Either we find that as we are pitching the idea, people have already lost interest in the first 30 seconds, or at the end of 2 or 3 minutes we realize that we are rambling. Or we realize that when a question was asked, we were unprepared with an answer. Pitching any idea, or a sales pitch, happens all the time. It could be getting your spouse to go out to a restaurant. You have a particular restaurant in mind, but you're trying to see what's the best way to pitch so that he/she says "Yes" and trying to gauge what their concern is. Is it the ambiance or the price consideration or the proximity? You know these inside things because that's your spouse, and you pitch it in that particular way.
But very often we find that we come up short when pitching ideas. I was reading this book entitled "The Art of Woo" by Richard Shell and Mario Moussa. In it, they talk about how the name Walmart came to be and the way that it was pitched to Sam Walton. It was pitched by Bob Bogle. At that time, Sam Walton was moving on from the small stores that he had to the large discount stores in Rogers, Arkansas. It needed a name because the previous name was Walton's Five and Dime Store. Bogle knew that one of the things that Sam Walton considered very close to him was price, value. He also knew that Sam Walton didn't like to parade his ego. The word Walmart had half of Walton's name in it and the other half was market, put together.
In his book, "Made in America", Sam Walton actually talks about this. He says that Bogle came to him and just scribbled 'Walmart' on the bottom of a card and said to Sam, "To begin with, there's not as many letters to buy. Really saying – all there is, is just 7 letters." And you know the amount of money that we spend trying to get a signage that said 'Walton's Five and Dime' and the neon sign that had to go with it and lighting it and so on. All of that cost a lot of money. This is just 7 letters. He pitched it just like that and a few days later, he walked past the store and they were putting up W-a-l. he just smiled because he knew that he had pitched it right.
Pitching it right is so very important. We don't pitch it right if we're not connecting with the person in the first couple of seconds or minutes – we're losing it. Kimberley Elsbach quotes some research that says that humans categorize others in less than 150 milliseconds. Within 30 minutes, they've made lasting judgments about your character. She added, "We need to move away from that because that's being quite judgmental." But that's the way we're wired and in 150 milliseconds we categorize. So when somebody is pitching something, we've got just a few seconds to come through on exactly what it is that we need to be saying.
In an article that I read by Matt Symonds writing in Forbes, he says, "There are 4 different presentations that a potential investor needs to have:
1. Business plan of no more than 50 pages.
2. Business plan condensed into PowerPoint presentation of no more than 20 slides
3. This PowerPoint should be condensed down to a 2-page brief
4. A 5-minute elevator pitch.
Interesting! We're pitching ideas and other things right through our day. We're constantly trying to sell something to other people. It pays to pay a little bit more attention to how we are doing it. If you don't do it well, then you face the option of being disregarded at the very first couple of minutes itself. So I thought about whether it would be of interest to you because life is all about pitching. We're pitching things left, right and center to people all around us. It might be a good idea to understand how to do it well.
But, here's the thing that I really came away with. I thought to myself that I am going to pitch this idea to somebody and I have done my homework. But the person who really knows me best and that person best is our Heavenly Father, God Almighty. It makes sense to invite Him into the equation to form the third point in this triangle because He is able to tell you exactly what it is that you ought to be focusing on to be able to connect with the other person. That's a wonderful thought to go out on today, to know that God is in our corner whether we are pitching going for a movie, to a restaurant or a huge deal as a part of your sales or marketing or something in your corporate sphere. Wherever you are, you need to be able to do it well and to also be able to know that God can give us more wisdom than we can ever have ourselves.
My prayer is that this will stimulate and inspire you. May I pray with you?
Almighty God, thank You for this assurance that You are willing to give us inside information on the kind of people we deal with. Lord, You know us so well because you made us. I pray that even as we think about these areas, that You would help us to be good pitchers of ideas that will see the light of day. We ask this in Jesus' precious name. Amen.
• G. Richard Shell & Mario Moussa, "The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas." Penguin Books, Pages 10-11.
• Kimberly D. Elsbach, "How To Pitch A Brilliant Idea." https://hbr.org/2003/09/how-to-pitch-a-brilliant-idea
• Matt Symonds, "7 Tips for Pitching Your Entrepreneurial Idea Whether To Angels Or Sharks." http://www.forbes.com/sites/mattsymonds/2013/10/24/7-tips-for-pitching-your-entrepreneurial-idea-whether-to-angels-or-sharks/#72aa38834c0c
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