Monthly Archives: August 2015

5 Rules for Telling Stories with Your Pitch

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5 Rules for Telling Stories with Your Pitch

A while back, I attended a pitch event for young entrepreneurs seeking funding for their start-ups.  The room was packed with over 200 business people and there was a buzz in the air.  But two minutes into the first power point presentation, things began to shift.  Spectators started to squirm.  A few of the panelists sank back in their chairs and checked their watches.  Within ten minutes, eyes were glazing over as the unlucky presenter droned on.

Does this situation sound familiar?

Luckily, there’s an easy fix for a dull pitch: tell a story.

To help you pitch a product or sell an idea more effectively, here are “5 Rules for Telling Stories with Your Pitch”.  Follow these guidelines and you’ll have investors throwing money at you before you know it.

1.  Make Your Opening Count.  It’s important to start your presentation off with a a bang, so make your first few lines memorable.  Your first lines should establish (a) the problem you intend to address with your idea or product; (b) the characters, or players, in your world; and (c) a hint at the solution, or where you’re going. Paint a picture for your audience!

2.  Be Vulnerable.  Investors are not expecting everything to be perfect – if everything was perfect, you wouldn’t need help – so be open to sharing challenges.  The easiest way to do this is to talk about what happened in the process of growing your business.  What obstacles did you face? Remember: don’t pass judgement on yourself or your customers.  It’s better to open up about that something didn’t work during your pitch than have it come out in a Q&A.  Your audience will thank you for it.

3.  Build Tension.  As I’ve discussed before, the way to build tension in a pitch is by identifying the emotional arc of the talk. Pitches, like stories, are about the subtle changes in one of the five essential emotions (fear, love, anger, sadness and joy).  What happened to you along the way?  Did you start the business confused and wind up feeling excited?  Maybe you felt confident and now feel frustrated?  Once you know the emotional arc of the pitch, your job is to take the audience on the journey.  Show us what happened and your audience will begin to care about you and the product or idea.

4.  Revisit Your Value Proposition.  The best pitches are organized around a central idea, or theme.  In business, the central idea is known as the value proposition.   One quick way to identify the value proposition is the answer to the question: why should a customer buy this product or service? Use the answer to this question (i.e. to have easy access to the world’s information online), to segue into your vision for the future.Show people how things will change in the world you’re creating with your product or idea.

5.  Have a Clear Call To Action.  Once you’ve taken your audience on an emotional journey and they know your value proposition, the last piece is having a call to action.  A good call to action will give your audience something to do with the information you’re imparting.  Do you need $1.725 million for capital equipment?  Six additional staffers for a new team? The key here is to be specific about what you want and ask for it.  The more specific you are, the easier it will be for investors to understand your needs and give you what you want.

Not so bad after all, right?  Now you’ll just have to figure out how to deal with Aaron Sorkin when he wants to make a movie about your life.

 

5 Rules for Telling Stories with Your Pitch

Follow Me: 5 Steps for Telling Stories on Social Media

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Tell Stories on Social Media - infographicA few months ago, I read an amazing story about Megan Amram, a comedian who tweeted her way into a job as a writer for the hit NBC show Parks and Recreation.  I opened up her Twitter feed to see what the buzz was about and started reading.  That’s when something unusual happened.

I couldn’t stop laughing.

Most of the posts I read were irreverent (ex: “I hardly buy things, but when I do it’s PRODUCTS ™ (SPONSORED TWEET)”) –  pretty standard stuff for a comedian.  But a few dozen tweets in, I noticed something unusual: a series of tongue-in-cheek posts about a lost roll of masking tape (Spoiler Alert: The tape was on her wrist the entire time).  I found myself looking at photos,reading her blog entries about the tape, and even retweeting from her feed.

This got me thinking: apart from funny one-liners, how does Amram engage so effectively with her 370K followers?

The answer, once again, is storytelling.

To help you tell great stories on Twitter and social media in general, here are “5 Tips for Telling Stories on Social Media”.  You may not gain millions of followers overnight, but you’ll at least be able to find the masking tape on your wrist.

1.  Start with a problem.  I’ve mentioned this before on this blog, but it bares repeating: all good stories need a problem.  The problem doesn’t have to be life or death, but it should be specific and easy to understand.  Maybe you were stuck on a train home from the beach with a preacher who wouldn’t leave you alone.  Maybe you couldn’t find an open restaurant in midtown at 10 PM.  Maybe you lost your masking tape.  Whatever the issue, just remember that you only have a limited amount of space on social media, so keep the post short and simple.  If you absolutely need more space, one workaround is to link to a blog that illuminates the problem in more detail.

2.  Find your character.  Amram is so successful on Twitter because she tweets and responds completely in character.  Whether you’re telling a personal story or using social media to tell a larger company saga, it’s important to maintain a consistent voice.  One way to find your voice on social media is to answer the question: What does your character want in this situation?  Once you know what the character wants (i.e. a good meal late at night), play around with the tone of the posts until it feels honest.

3.  Build tension.  After you’ve discovered the character’s voice, heighten the tension with each successive post.  Use short posts to keep your audience on their toes.  Introduce new pieces of information. In Amram’s case, she uses photos of her posters and daily entries to keep people updated on the tape saga.  Photos are an easy way to build tension and add specificity without losing your audience.

4.  Provide a resolution.  Once you’ve built the tension to it’s highest point, provide some resolution.  This could be a tweet or Facebook post that references a blog entry, a video or even a series of photos.  It’s important to resolve the problem definitively.  If you don’t satisfy your followers, they may turn on you and you’ll find yourself in the middle of a Twiiter war.

5. Hint at a future problem.  One way to keep the conversation after the story is resolved is to hint at a future problem with a final joke or suggestive line.  In comedy, this is known as a tag.  This is a chance for your followers to continue the conversation with you, so make sure to keep it brief.  You’ll followers will thank you for it.

Feeling a little more social?