How to give the perfect pitch - with TedX speech coach David Beckett - Young Creators Summit 2016

so guys we got a presentation there oh yes we do ladies and gentlemen my name is David Beckett I'm a pitch coach Matic speech coach and I'm here to ensure your ideas have a voice and I've been doing this with over 260 startups between them they've raised over $65 million I never say that they did that because of me not at all but every single raise starts with a pitch every single person that joins your journey it all starts with a pitch and that's what I'm here to help you do we're going to have some practical tools and you're also going to practice one little bit of your personal pitch so get ready for that now let me just quickly introduce myself yes this is me in 1992 I suspect before most of you were born um yes this is in black and white because that tie in 1992 it was not a pretty sight it actually looked like the result of a bad Friday night but what you see is the brand Canon now I worked for Canon for 16 years big company and I was extremely lucky the first weeks that I joined Canon I worked with a guy called Lance Miller he'd been advertising for 20 years he was the guy a guy who could make a mouse look like an elephant and so he was Mr hayw and he forced me to learn how to present he made me get on stage at every opportunity even before I had the tools to do it and then I went on a lot of courses and in those first weeks it was really intensive he somehow instinctively knew it would be great for me to be able to present now I worked there for 16 years and in that 16year period I saw what happened to people who could present well they were overrated by a grade the people who couldn't present well they were underrated by a grade now what that did is it created a big gap between the people who could and couldn't you could almost say an unfair Gap but I simply saw what a massive impact it made on people's careers on of course the salary and responsibility most of all it made a massive difference to their feeling of self-worth what they actually felt that they were valued by their company now in a big company you can survive if you can't present well but if you're a startup you simply can't survive if you can't pitch because you have to pitch an incredible number of times to all kinds of people we'll find out in just a moment how many pitches you make every day so over these 24 years you know many things have changed thank God I'm not wearing that green suit anymore but uh hairstyle has changed a little bit in the words of Meatloaf the cracks on my face the lines on my face are looking more like cracks but one thing has never changed technology has changed business has changed everything has changed in 24 years except one thing and that is one person in front of an audience and the impact that that can have now I believe that talented people with great ideas you know that could change lives they might never be heard have you ever had an idea and nobody listened it's a horrible feeling I've had it myself I don't want anybody to have that feeling it burns you inside when people don't listen to your idea so I'm here to ensure that great ideas which need a voice that your ideas have a voice and I've decided to give you some practical tools to help you do that now why do we need great pitches if you're looking to be part of a startup it's a bit like this kind of moments you know probably most of you haven't experienced it I have my pitch wasn't great but she did say yes so that's all that matters and uh but there's certain moments in your life that really matter what you don't want to do is be the person that says yeah you know I just didn't have time to prepare there's always time to prepare for the important stuff so make the big pitches your big moments put everything aside and go for it get to the stage where you're preparing for this 2 minute 3 minute pitch you think why am I doing so much work for this short pitch if you do that you're on the right track now what makes a pitch great that's what I'm here to share with you I've got four principles for you and a bunch of tools here's the first four principles first one is communication is what the listener does it's not about the story I want to tell the story I want to tell is relevant only if it connects with the listener and with my objective what do I actually want them to do you always want them to to do something as a result if your pitch so communication is what the listener does the next point is it's all about Simplicity Clarity and focus it's about what you take out of your pitch not what you put in I coach people to make one minute pitches 2 minute pitches 3 minute 5 minute 7 minute and no longer than 7 minutes you know recently had a major big company in uh nence I asked them what's the average length of presentation in this company they said about an hour I said really you mean people listen for an hour I he said well I don't say they listen but we make presentations for an hour so a lot of companies are completely wasting time startups I notice that even after three or four minutes of a pitch I'm starting to get edgy so you have to shrink it right down and get to the essence of the story Simplicity Clarity Focus next thing is about making conscious decisions being a professional from the first second in terms of what you're going to say and what you're going to do so very from the very first second that you stand in front of your audience you want to have a sentence that you're going to say not well yeah it's nice to be here and thanks so much and great opportunity and really happy that you're all here and to listen to my St blah you know I've seen a lot of people start pictures that way but when you start hi this is who I am this is what I do this is what we're going to cover let's get into it you take them straight into the story and tell them I'm a professional I'm a person that does my job properly and don't finish in a kind of uh well that's it and um yeah any questions and you want to finish with a big bang you know this is who we are this is what we'd love you to do and a big resounding thank you so they know when to clap because thank you at the end says I finished you can clap now so conscious decisions about what you will say and do from the very first second to the very last that positions you as a highly professional entrepreneur and then there's certainty so I think most people in the room will recognize you and KRA you know if you watch this man talk about football this is certainty you know he never said a word that he didn't believe in now half of what he said was nonsense but he did believe it and so he he pulled people along with him you know and I'm not saying you should put nonsense in your pitches and just do it with certainty put great stuff in your pitches but do it with that kind of certainty so you stand by every single word that you ever tell in a pitch get your story straight and tell it like you mean it because you mean it so it's certainty and it's about confidence it's not about you being super confident it's about them having confidence in you so generating confidence in the audience comes from a certainty being sure of what you're telling now I'm going to give you some quick highlights of a model that I use for my workshops it's called open three close it's been tested for the last two years and it looks like this which is pretty frightening but I'm just going to tell you that it's based on script design deliver and a checklist get your story straight build your slides and your graphics get the the uh the body language clear and full of commitment and make sure that you have a call to action finish on time because nobody does and practice like hell now by the way if you want this you can just have it it's not on my website but if you connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter then I can send it to you directly you're very welcome I have one other thing which you can get from me called the pitch canvas later but what I'm going to show you is the quick version of this just for the scripting part and to get your story straight you know I believe that if you get your story straight the other things will happen almost automatically so the first thing is who is your audience identify who are they what are they interested in what are they driven by and next is get clear what your objective is brainstorm with Post-it notes get the pitch out of your head have a clear opening power three to break things down and a closing that's about getting your script straight your story straight so let me just quickly run you through this and then we're going to do one little exercise to practice one of these things okay so who is your audience now I often say you know it's not about the the story you want to tell it's what you what you want them to do so how can you know what you want them to do if you don't know who they are so what I recommend is that you focus on their needs what drives them are they people interested in money or sustainability are they theoretical or are they doers if you're pitching to Engineers show them under the hood if you're pitching to marketing people tell them the outcomes and anything in between you know are they young or old now my personal view on young is about 49 which happens to be my age you might have a different view but you know you've met old 20-year olds and young 70y olds it's about the mentality are they aggressive are they Innovative or are they more conservative they're sticking to what they've got and they want to just improve a bit so that Tunes your story if you spend one minute writing down these six or seven things about your audience before any pitch this takes your pitch even further than you can imagine just that one minute of thinking who they are you might think it's obvious but 90% of people think about their story and not the audience so if you put yourself in that top 10% you're already taking a step ahead next thing is your objective it might seem obvious what your objective is people think it is but quite often I ask why are you pitching this what do you want to get out of this and quite often people say well I just want them to support me so what would that look like would it be an introduction to a potential customer would it be uh a meeting a follow-up meeting would it be uh be a mentor what what do you actually want them to do cuz support is just a mentality it's a thinking but action is what you're looking for so think about what you actually want them to do sometimes a startup says okay say what do you want from this three-minute pitch they say I want them to invest 500,000 in me and I say well that's fine you're you're trying to get on the path there but they're not going to come up to you after this 3 minute pitch and say Here's a bag of money so what would you like them to do well I want a 1-hour follow-up meeting okay then tell them that tell them that's what you're looking for so that that's taking you on the path towards your bigger objective so be clear what you really want them to do as a result of your pitch now the next bit I'm going to spend a little bit of time on it's called brainstorm with Post-it notes the reason I spend time on this and explaining the pitch canas is because of course I think everything that I coach is just brilliant and wonderful but there's if this is this is the one thing pretty much everybody has said this is really useful so if you go away with nothing else except this one thing get the pitch out of your head and brainstorm with Post-it notes I want to make sure that you get that and that you do it cuz if you do you will dramatically improve the quality of your pitches let me explain why your mind is a great place for having ideas not for holding them now if anybody's read the book by David Allen he's built a multi-million business about productivity sold millions of books all based on this idea he even trademarked this phrase you are not equipped to organize none of us are to organize more than six things in your head as soon as you get to six items you have to get them out and write them down and then organize them now that works for productivity but it works for pitch you need to get the pitch out of your head what most people do they think I've got a pitch I've got a presentation let's start making slides and they try to jam their thoughts straight into the software and it doesn't work we're not designed for it what we are designed for is having a lot of ideas so get those ideas out on Post-it notes and then organize those Post-it notes and create a story line let me show you how so the key is get the story straight first then create your visuals you might think this is a longer process but I can tell you if you do it three or four times it will shrink the amount of time you need for pitching uh to prepare your pitch by about 40% guaranteed or I'll give you your money back okay so here it is pitch canvas you can download it free at best3 minutes.com and uh I'm incredibly bad at all the growth hacking things that David mentioned so you'll sign up you can always unsubscribe and you'll probably never hear from me again you might hear something useful so if you do sign up you'll get the updates because it's inv version 7.7 I'm constantly updating the pitch canvas now it's made up it's being used by all these organizations and more actually just a second I'm going to get some water hang on I keep this here just in case excuse me so it's being used by all these organizations and uh it's been downloaded about 10,000 times about 40,000 people have access to it and it's uh it's an entrepreneurial storytelling tool that helps you visualize and structure your pitch on one page probably you've seen the business model canvas actually there's canvases popping up everywhere um but this is the one for pitching and I'm going to just run you through it in about one to two sentences per block for 11 blocks you want one simple statement that everybody can understand about the change you're bringing in the world describing who it is you're solving it for not we've got an app that does this but more these people have got a pay in and we solve it and make it easier cheaper faster whatever it is next thing if you want one thing that you have to get absolutely clear in your pitch it's the pain if the pain isn't clear then investors are not interested and having a product basically has no context unless you've got a problem so a problem gives a product context why does it exist so make clear what the problem is and there's a few elements you can focus on is that does that problem exist yes or no is it big so that's about the market size will people pay to have this problem fixed and have you validated that these four questions are the first questions that investors want to know the answers to how do I I know cuz I've interviewed loads of them and I've asked a lot what do you want to hear and they all say I want to see the pain I want to find out what the problem is that they are fixing next thing is of course the product with the product you be uh aware you're not pitching your business your product you're pitching your business and the people who are going to execute against the problem that you've identified so product is important but getting them onto the product demo is really critical so get them onto the demo as quickly as possible so they see hey you're people that can execute you can create stuff you can build stuff they're also looking this is the second thing that investors are really looking for they want to know what's unique what's different about you compared to competition doesn't mean you have to say competition is terrible and we're brilliant but it sort of does you know you need to highlight what stuff is out there as an alternative to what you do now and how are you way better than what is out there next thing is customer TR C is anybody using this thing are they already downloading it have you got users have you got any Brands buying there is a theory that pitches fall into two categories ones with traction and ones without the ones with traction are businesses the ones without are Concepts so you need to identify where you are and if it's a concept talk about the the uh validation that you've done with potential customers that's also highly relevant and put you on the map for investors for the future next thing is business model keep it short if you make a 10% transaction on every a 10% Commission on every transaction that's all you need to say don't tell them too much detail they they don't need much detail but they do need to hear at least one line and when it comes to investment if you're making investment pitch you want to tell them have you invested any money yourself unfortunately it's only cash they don't value time so if You' spent two years building this it's Unfortunately they just want you to live in a cardboard box until you've developed the great product that's going to take over the world and get them 10 times back their money so it's a bit of an exaggeration but not much of an exaggeration but cash if you put some cash in tell them that have you raised any money already if yes great if no doesn't matter then being clear how much are you raising now what will that money be used for three big headlines and where will it take you this many users app 2.0 this much money this much something quantify the whole thing and then the team there the third thing that people really want to hear the investors really want to hear is the team they want to know after they've heard the pain and the what's unique and then they want to know who is the team that's going to execute and make this whole thing happen then there's uh an end statement with a call to action wrap it all up with a clear statement not a week ending but a big bang you know this is who we are this is what we do this is what we want you to do thank you and then there's one more thing which which is why you now why you and this can turn up at any stage in the pitch and one thing I should emphasize by the way you don't have to start at the top and finish at the bottom you can mix up the blocks in any shape or form you like but Yu can turn up at any stage often it's in the pain or following on from the team why do you care about fixing this problem if you can connect your passion to your business that is highly relevant to an investor they want to know why you're going to work 24/7 to make this better for your customers now what will it look like after you've done this you can and by the way the pitch canvas you can draw it up on a flip chart brainstorm and just like any kind of brainstorm using Post-it notes of course what we do without Post-it notes we'd invent them and get the ideas out of your head and then take one step back and look and say what are the big issues if I got a three-minute pitch what would be the big things I really want them to remember about our business is it about the problem that you've identified and the special way that you solve it is it about the traction that you've got or is it about the team is there something really special about your team find what are the big issues and then organize around chapter headings the rough version if you go through the pitch canvas will look something like this but out of this following the process the three-step process on the right hand side you might end up with a story line like this some chapter headings with some content the orange ones are the chapter headings this is a say a three- minute pitch about pitching my pitch would be why is pitching important that's the first chapter heading and then some points about it and then what do you need to make a great pitch three things script design deliver that's the three big things in the middle then a quick summary and a call to action and then finally a big ending and that's your story line and then you build the content accordingly and then you build your slides and the slides almost fall into place I've seen it again and again if if you just do this it will be such a value for you just get the thoughts out of your head organize them and then build your graphics you'll have better pitches for the rest of your working life now what about a three minute pitch quite of my compan is called best three minutes anybody got any idea how many words you say and remain understandable in 3 minutes do you want to shout out a number if anybody thinks of something 500 500 I hear 500 over here anybody think more or less you think more than 500 put your hand up if you think less than 500 put your hand up okay A bit more on the less than 500 okay if you think it's less than 400 keep your hand up if you less it's 300 and remain understandable put your hand up okay you guys have got a pretty good estimate 3 minutes is 390 words it's 27 sentences now I've seen it again and again people have a very different idea of time one person thinks 3 minutes is 10 minutes another thing person person thinks 3 minutes it's 2 minutes everyone's got a different view so make sure that you practice against the clock give yourself if you you're going for a competition and you have a 3 minute slot they will cut you off so do it in 255 practice like crazy against the clock and make sure that you can tell your story in those minutes and if you're going to make a script now you know don't make a script for a 3 minute pitch more than 400 words okay so no time to lose on that note we're going to do an exercise the next thing is you need to open your pitch in a strong way now the opening of your pitch is so critical because people whether they know it or not are making subconscious judgments about should I listen to this now there's a whole theory about it there's a bit of science it's about the brain the brain is made up of three parts and the part that listens to pitches is the most primitive it's called the crocodile brain it's about this big and it sits right at the bottom botom of your head top of your neck and bottom of your head and it f filters everything on Survival can I mate with this can I eat this will I be more powerful with this can I survive better with this if you give any indications that you can't help people in any of those four things in the first 20 seconds unfortunately audience attention doesn't drop it checks out it hits zero so for example a nine bullet point agenda slide is an instant guarantee that 95% of the people will switch off to zero attention having complexity having seven or 10 things on a slide will cause people the crocodile brain to say whoa hang on I can't handle this I'm checking out so you want to think about being professional from the first second one of the ways to tell the crocodile brain this is interesting for you is be professional from the first second so having a plan of exact sentences you know you stand up and you've got two or three sentences which you know that you will say in those first 20 seconds it's also helpful because it's the most stressy part of any pitch and so this really works for people to reduce their nerves as well knowing exactly what they're going to say so what we're going to do is we're going to practice those first 20 seconds that buy attention this is an action step for you we have a 5 minute exercise going to give you five minutes you need to imagine you're pitching yourself just yourself now you might choose to say okay I'm in a little startup or I'm in a big startup or I'm doing something that I love doing or you can just talk about you whatever you like but imagine you're pitching yourself in a situation and I want you to write down on anything you've got whether that's paper ideally paper but if you haven't got paper do it on your phone uh do it on your hand whatever it Whatever It Takes write down your opening two sentences I'm going to give you one minute to do that and and then you're going to get up find somebody else somebody ideally that you don't know and just test it out say it out loud okay we're going to do this for five minutes and at the end I'm going to tell you what we've been doing so here we go we have five minutes so I'm going to set the clock going please spend one minute to write down what your what your uh opening of the pitch would be okay you have to do it now clock's already running guys so write down what your opening pitch would be ladies and gentlemen take your seats let me just explain what you've been doing here so this is an exercise that you can do at any stage with any pitch what you're doing is you're writing something down so you're thinking it out you're writing it down and then you're testing out loud that process will help you dramatically improve your pitch because I'm sure there were some people who said something and they thought hang on a minute that sounds a bit stupid right because when you write down you don't think in talking language you think in Reading language but as soon as you say it out loud it gains a different life you see a person you see reactions you see something different so test out your stuff write it down think it through write it down say out loud get feedback repeat second thing is maybe you say it it sounds okay but they're going uh and then you find out why you say why are you saying uh and then they tell you and then you've got a better way to tell your story or finally you say it out loud they say uh-huh and you know that that's a part that's of your pitch that works you try that a couple of times if they keep saying uh-huh then you've got it and do that with all your pitch most people put their thoughts straight into the slides and then present it you want to take your thoughts out organize them then make slides then verbalize and then present and then pitch now I'm going to be very quick on these last couple of things power of three the power of three is all about making things simple and focused and three reasons surprise surprise why the power of three is so good the threes are in the air Ready Steady go lights camera action viny VD V how many nephews does Donald Duck have not two not four he's got three the three Musketeers father son Holy Ghost it's all out there second thing is that threes give you a kind of a rhythm you know it's Huey Dewey and Louie or quick quck and quck it's this it's this and it's that most of you know you can tell people our product it's great and it's wonderful but most of all it's coste efficient so think about how you're going to build those threes and break complex things down into threes but strangely enough the good thing about three is it's the smallest number with complexity you don't want to have too much complexity but breaking things down to threes is enough complexity for the crocodile brain to accept giving them four or five the brain starts going whoa I think I got enough here and then there's the final part which is closing with power and passion so as I said don't finish on a low note finish on a high note be clear on what who you are what you do and what you want those people to do because that makes sure that you finish like a true professional and on that note ladies and gentlemen I I'm also going to finish so you can contact me through Twitter it's @ best3 minutes best3 minutes I'd love to get in contact with you also through Linkedin um you can find me David Becket presentation coach or pitch coach you'll find me if you search under that you can download the the pitch canvas at best3 minutes.com and uh I'd love to hear from you and do share the pitch canvas everybody's allowed to use it it's completely free it's under Creative Commons my vision is that 1 million people have access to it ladies and gentlemen my name's David Becket I'm a pitch coach and I'm here to ensure your ideas have a voice thank [Applause] you

Channel: Startup Amsterdam

Views: 843,553

Keywords: perfect pitch, pitch best practices, tedx speech, storytelling, entrepreneurship, startup pitching, pitch canvas, pitch coach, young creators summit, amsterdam, startupamsterdam

Id: Njh3rKoGKBo

Length: 28min 9sec (1689 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 20 2016