Why You Don’t Need To Change How You Speak When You Pitch Your Idea

Interview with Marie Perruchet Author of One Perfect Pitch

This past weekend I celebrated my 35th birthday with my closest friends and family!

As I get older, I realize that I end up attracting the right group of friends, teammates, and partners when I am myself. I’ll admit, it’s a tough lesson that has taken me years to learn. I’ve grown to become more comfortable with things like how I sound and what I look like while balancing it with an awareness of being polished, clear, and kind.

When I was younger, I wasn’t as true to myself. I thought I needed to morph into someone else. I remember sitting in interviews, meetings, and investor pitches. I presented who I thought they wanted to see. I didn’t enjoy the process, and at times just felt like I needed to get through it.

And when things didn’t work out, I thought I needed to work even harder at being someone else, until someone gave me some critical feedback that I just needed to be myself!

Trouble is that I had gotten so used to being someone else that it took me time to figure out who I really was. I learned that my general conversational tone with friends, family, and teammates was my true self.

Maybe you’re in the same boat as I was years ago. You hate doing things like pitching because you feel like you have to be someone else. You have to abandon your personality, get into character, and speak in a way you normally wouldn’t in order to impress a colleague, customer, or investor.

However, know that people on the receiving end of the pitch are going to see through and disengage quickly. A sales-y pitch is one that isn’t rehearsed and the person pitching hasn’t taken the time to figure out how to engage their audience.

What we don’t realize is that we don’t need to change who we are or how we speak to engage audiences. Many of us are already practicing a powerful pitching technique in our everyday lives, storytelling. And when we deliver stories in a conversational approach we come off as clear and authentic.

But we may still be opposed to starting a pitch with a story. We worry about it being too long or short, and the theme and details resonating with the audience.

Well in today’s Build episode, Marie Perruchet author of One Perfect Pitch: How to Sell Your Idea, Your Product, Your Business or Yourself is back.

You’ll learn the following from Marie:

- Why storytelling is a powerful technique for pitching

- How you can tell a great story in a business setting

- How to condense a long story so that it is short and to the point

- How to weave your credibility into a story

- Why most demos fail — hint: it’s because they fail to walk an audience through a story

- How to incorporate an ASK into your pitch

After you’ve watched the episode, tell us some of the additional techniques you have tried that have worked as you’ve been pitching your ideas in the comments below. The first three people to respond are going to receive an autographed copy of One Perfect Pitch from Marie!

Listen to the episode on iTunes!

You can listen to this episode of Build on iTunes.

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Check out these additional resources on pitching:

• Why It’s Important To Pitch Ideas Even If Pitching Doesn’t Come Naturally To You
• Your Pitch Is Missing A Key Ingredient People Are Eager To Hear
• How To Think Like An Executive When Pitching A Sponsor For An Event

Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.