The most interesting session I attended during Global Entrepreneurship Week, was the one led online by Guy Kawasaki entrepreneur and chief evangelist of Canva, he provided a great session about how to improve entrepreneurship pitch, how to develop it and present it smoothly and successfully.
Here are the 6 tips Guy Kawasaki mentioned:
1- Resist the temptation to send the pitch in advance: Some entrepreneurs think that sending the pitch in advance will make them gain points, Guy says that sending it in advance, will actually decrease your point, because they will look at it without any emotions or eye contact, and they might decide on the pitch before even you go there to present it, so the best thing to do is to perform it yourself in place.
2- “Guy Golden Touch”: It is not the pitch that makes the pitch great but it is the product, you can have a very bad pitch with a poor presentation, but if the product is valuable, you do not need to pitch it at all, So Kawasaki says, it is not about the document, finishing the prototype is better than just finishing the pitch, The best option is to let the product speaks about itself.
3- The 10-20-30 rule: The pitch has to contain 10 slides, be presented in 20 minutes and summarized in 30 points, The less text you have on your presentation, the better the pitch will be and make sure that the background is black, it shows seriousness, gravitas, and professionalism.
4- Airplane analogy: People tend to start their presentation by introducing themselves, the other members of the group, how they came up with the idea and so forth, avoid to do that, do not spend a long time on presentation, what the sponsors want to hear is the product you are selling, make them understand how important it is that your product exists, impress them
5- Avoid the NO: the purpose of the pitch is not to get a YES, but to avoid the NO, to get to the next stage, make them want to know more about the product, to know about the opinion of people using the product, your goal here is not be thrown out.
6- Take Notes: Write the notes down when people are asking questions, or giving remarks about your pitch/Products, and that for two reasons, the first is that will make them feel flattered, special, that what they are saying is important to you, and that you are listening, the second reason is to be capable to follow up on the questions/Remarks afterward, make sure to follow through within 24 hours.
Guy Kawasaki says: if you are using these tips, your pitch is going to be better than 95% in the world