Practice your pitch for maximum impact

Now, you have all the parts of a solid pitch to go into a meeting and crush it. While pitches aren’t always in person, they can be over email, it’s the in-person ones that are the most challenging. And the only way you’re going to get good at delivering your in-person pitches is by practicing your delivery. 

Mo has a few struggles he’s been working through recently:

• He tends to speak too quickly and trips over his words, so he practices speaking slowly and with intention, using the audio recording to playback how he sounds.

• He also sometimes goes blank in the middle of pitch meetings, especially when they go off on a tangent. He makes sure that he always has notes in the form of short bullet-pointed to bring himself back into the flow of his pitch, without looking like he’s reading off a document.

Recommendations to crush your pitch

Here are some recommendations for ways to practice verbal pitches. This is by no means all-inclusive, so feel free to do whatever works best for you:

• Read your pitch off a piece of paper until you have it memorized.

• Read your pitch to yourself in a mirror.

• Practice with friends or family.

• Practice with industry peers, a mentor, or someone else in your industry.

• Record a video or audio of yourself and play it back.

The benefit of seeing yourself in action

Practicing a verbal pitch might feel awkward at first, but being able to see and hear yourself pitch has huge benefits. By practicing your pitch, you’ll know what is working and where you need to make changes.

For example, you might notice that you fidget a lot when you speak. The solution could be as simple as getting a fidget spinner to remove that energy, or having a pen and paper for doodling.

Perhaps you find that you speak too quickly. Recording yourself on audio might encourage you to practice speaking slowly and intentionally.

Other ways to feel prepared

• Practice talking through the FAQs you prepared earlier.

• When sharing your pitch with someone, make sure that it’s a person you trust to provide genuine constructive feedback.

• Your environment can impact how confident and prepared you feel, so adjust your surroundings for online meetings.

• Find a discreet object you can channel your nervous energy into, like a fidget toy or even just a pen.

• Don’t forget to breathe.

You should always try to take calls from a comfortable space, most notably in a comfortable chair, and make sure the lighting is good. We also find it’s helpful to try and create a pre-pitch ritual like taking a quick stretch, walking around the block, or making a cup of tea. This will help you get the right mindset and set you up for success.

Recap

• Determined why practicing verbal pitches is important.

• Decided which practice methods suit you best.

• Outlined what else you can do to feel prepared.