Ive borrowed this from Scott Berkuns blog. See here for the original article.
Coming up with good ideas is hard enough, but convincing others to do something with them is even harder. Before you can begin the pitch, you have to make sure you’re talking to someone that’s interested in change, or has a clear need that your idea can satisfy.
There are some helpful steps…..
Step 1: Create and refine the idea
The classic mistake of would be idea pitchers is to pitch the idea well before it’s ready. By definition, an interesting idea takes a novel or creative approach to doing something, whereas a good idea is not just creative, but actually improves on a meaningful quality or attribute, in a way that can be practically applied to the world (or the project).
Good ideas include some thinking about execution and delivery.
If people can dismiss it quickly just by asking 2 or 3 basic questions then it needs work.
3 critical testing questions:
- What problem does this solve? What evidence is there that the problem is real, and important enough to solve (or in the corporate world, solve profitably?)
- What are the toughest logistical challenges implied by the idea, and how will (or would) you solve them? Do you have a prototype, sample or demonstration of an implementation of the idea (aka proof of concept)?
- Why are you the right person to solve it? Why should this problem be solved now? Why should our organization solve this problem?
Step 2: What is the scope of the idea
The bigger the idea, the more involved the pitch. Big ideas require more change to take place on someone’s part, and all things being equal, this means the pitch must be more thorough (or your approach more bold & risky). As a rough guide, here’s how to assess the scope of an idea, from narrow to grand:
- Tiny tweak to something already in existence
- New feature or enhancement to existing product / website / company
- A major new area of an existing product / website / company
- An entirely new, but small and simple, project
- An entirely new, but large and possibly complex, project
- An organizational, directional, or philosophical, change to an existing organization
- A new organization
You’re probably not the first person to pitch something of the scope you’re pitching, so go find out what other people did, and what kind of success they had. Learn from their mistakes.
Step 3: Who has the power to green light the idea
Make a list of the people that are potential recipients of your pitch. Base this list on two criteria: who has the power needed to implement the idea, and who you might have access to.
If you have no idea who to pitch your idea to, ask around. There’s no sense developing your pitch if there’s no one to catch. If you don’t have access to the person with the power you need, make a list of who has access to them, working backwards until you can list people you actually know. You may need to work through this network of people, and make several pitches, to achieve the results you want.
Step 4: Start with their perspective
Perhaps the most important aspect in any sales situation. Know your audience and your value proposition to them. The better your pitch fits into their needs, perspectives, and desires, the greater your odds of being successful. This just means you have to be aware of how your perspective is different from theirs, and improve your ideas, and how you communicate them, based on that awareness.
Step 5: The structure of the pitch
Always formulate 3 levels of depth to pitching your idea: 5 seconds, 30 seconds, 5 minutes.
The 5 second version, also known as the elevator pitch, is the most concise single sentence formulation of whatever your idea is. Refine, refine, refine your thinking until you can say something intelligent and interesting in a short sentence.
In 30 seconds, there’s enough time to talk about how you’ll achieve what you described in 5 seconds. Provide the next level of detail down, adding in just enough interesting detail that the listener can get a clearer picture of your idea. If you can’t distill down what you’re doing in 5 and 30 second versions, don’t worry too much about the 5 minute version: odds are you won’t get many people to listen to you for that long.
You won’t always have all of your materials with you when pitching ideas and consider how you’d deal with the following different kinds of situations, and with the different asset limitations you’d have in each case.
- The elevator pitch – you.
- The slow elevator – you, maybe something to show from your pockets.
- The lunch – (you , maybe something to show, napkins to draw on, alcohol)
- The conference room meeting – (laptop / slides / handout)
- The executive review – (laptop / slides / handout / yes-men / splunge-men)
Step 6: Test the pitch
The longer you spend with an idea, the more vulnerable you are to your own ego. Go find smart people you know to give you feedback.Then go through your pitch, responding to their questions. You won’t always get the feedback you want, but you’ll sharpen both your idea, and the way you talk about it.
Develop a list of questions you expect to be asked during the pitch, and be prepared to answer them.
Step 7: Deliver
No silver bullets here. Be calm, be direct, state your case, and then listen. Like any kind of public speaking type situation, the more often you do it, the more comfortable it will become.
Prepare for a positive response. What happens if they say “That’s an interesting idea. What do you want from me?” Do you want money? Other resources? A change in the project plan? A feature added to the feature list? Know what the sequence of steps are after they agree you have a good idea and be ready to ask for them.
Step 8: What to do when the pitch fails
Always leave failed pitches with an understanding of what went wrong. In short, get as much learning out of completed pitches as you can. Recoup your investment in the failed pitch by mining any lessons out of it that you can apply next time.
From a tactical perspective: who else can you give this pitch to? Would any of them be interested? Consider compromising on how much power is needed to make your idea happen, or how to split your idea into smaller ideas.
Step 9: Do it yourself
Don’t ever allow yourself to believe that there is only one way to make ideas real: if you’re truly creative, you can apply the same talent used to come with your idea, to the problem of how to make your idea real.
Further inspiration can be found in he post Selling ideas to BIG company
