Life's a pitch, and then we die!

I got a book with an intriguing title and design as an early Christmas gift from a friend. It was titled Life’s a Pitch, and co-authored by Stephen Bayley and Roger Mavity. Bayley is a renowned spokesperson on design, and is a consultant of Ford and Coca-Cola, while Mavity is chairman of a large financial PR company in the UK and a former owner of an advertising agency.

The book comes in two parts. Mavity takes the first part, which is lucid, practical and plainspoken on how to improve your pitching skills in a range of encounters with people, events and circumstances. Bayley tackles the second part, which reflects on a variety of topics and issues — first impressions, seduction, malice, tattoos and organized lying, among others. The two blended their ideas well for a truly interesting, inspirational business-cum-self-help tome, combining the power of logic and magic, visual delights, anthropology, consumer research and the authors’ own experiences. Here are 10 thoughts from the book that I would like to share with you:

1. A pitch is a sell. It is a presentation. It is an opportunity, albeit limited in time and space, which can create a helpful disturbance in our current state of affairs. In today’s business, a pitch is its unqualified spirit, where ideas captured, embraced and nurtured by human skills are the most valuable commodity. In the pitching process, both rational and emotional intelligence are necessary, but the latter, more often than not, dominates.

2. Every significant personal and professional transaction in our lives is a pitch. It’s going to be non-stop. It happens in the workplace, in the home or in places we go as we travel from our offices to our residences or vice-versa. We pitch to prospective advertisers if we are ad agency people; we pitch to targeted viewers if we are TV network employees; we pitch to identified buyers if we are sellers, and to marked investors if we work in a bank. We may not consciously realize it, but we are pitching something every day — the eyeball that leads to a passionate affair, the job interview that starts a successful career, the time we ask for a raise or request reassignment. Every new meeting, every new opportunity, involves pitching. We’re at it all the time.

3. The pitch is about decisions. If it is done right, everything follows and we feel victorious. And if we don’t, nothing follows and we feel defeated.

4. The K.I.S.S. principle works. The more complicated, convoluted and elaborated our pitch is, the lower the chances we will get into a meaningful conversation with our targets. It’s always prudent to keep them on the “keep it short and simple” track.

5. A good pitch is not all about good delivery. Content is still king. No amount of polished delivery will save bad content. As the book suggests, “Think playwright, not actor.” Think how well we can write our pitch, not how well we can deliver it.

6. A good listener is a good pitcher. In social meetings, people who intently listen turn out to be the best conversationalists.  We should be receptive listeners, make time to interact with prospects, open our minds to suggestions and, more importantly, encourage input from all areas. All these will bolster our confidence with a positive can-do attitude, and efficiently pitch our conviction that what we say is achievable and that we are capable of extraordinary feats.

7. Charisma gets us remembered in a pitch. It is not inborn, but something we can acquire by having the courage to be different and rise above the clutter. Try behaving as you wish — writing, mentally dictating and owning what you want and not what the norms or other people dictate. Follow your own road and discover your own form of charisma. Pretty soon, we will be magnets for people who are interested in who we are and what we do.

8. Great passion in most, if not all, our involvements, will augur well in our connections. As has been proven in many instances, emotions rule over logic, and that engaging people’s feelings vigorously with our words and actions will work in our favor. As the book says, “A pitch does not take place in the library of the mind, it takes place in the theater of the heart.”

9. Mimicking is bad pitching. Turning into the person that we are not or simply mimicking somebody else’s persona or style can do us more harm than good. It is more advisable to project our own uniqueness. When we pitch, bring to others our real persona. It will bring better results.

10. Preparation is key to successful pitching. Our process will have to give a consistent answer to the following questions:

• What is our pitch all about and how can we make it really work?

• Who are we, and who will be in our team of pitchers? What are the mandatory skills, experiences, and team culture needed to build a homerun?

• Who are we going to pitch to? How do we connect to them effectively and efficiently?

• What makes us different from other pitchers? What unique approach and added value can we bring to the process?

• Why should my prospect give his trust, confidence and partnership to us?

Pitch, pitch, pitch. We do that every day without letup. Indeed, life is a pitch, and then we die.

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E-mail bongosorio@yahoo.com or bong_osorio@abs-cbn.com for comments, questions or suggestions. Thank you for communicating.