Working methods: PITCHING

I really don’t know much about this subject. That’s why I signed on for a seminar recently, about pitching your ideas. Unfortunately all I learned was how NOT to do it.

The speaker was a young, beautiful woman who had worked in ad agencies in New York and L.A. and had worked with major clients throughout the years. While her resumé was very convincing, her PowerPoint presentation was not. She took more than an hour of our time, going through all the different projects she had worked on, and barely gave us any info on how to pitch. Our pens remained poised over our notebooks, waiting for nuggets of wisdom, and nothing came. And I was consistently aware of the typos that appeared on almost every slide, even misspelling the name of a client.

The final message was presented on one slide, in giant bold letters:

“Only sell to people who is listening”

I’ll let that sink in.

And yes, that is a correct quote.

So; what I did get out of it was two things:

• When you’re pitching something, keep it short.
• Check for spelling or leave your PowerPoint slides at home.

For a much better run-down of pitching, check out this article on makingcomics.com.