Tuesday 23 February 2021

My Top Ten Tips For Pitching In The Remote World

What was the last memorable pitch you experienced since we’ve all been working remotely? Exactly.

I’ve been working this month with global clients in healthcare, professional services and telecoms where our focus has been the topic of pitching in the remote world.

Most pitches are entirely forgettable. They were when we could meet face-to-face; but it’s getting worse now that we’re all working at distance.

The reasons for this are many and varied, but fundamentally the inability of the presenter to adapt to the needs of the remote environment is the number one cause. McKinsey reported that 67% of B2B professionals are ostensibly using the same pitch decks that they used when they could be on site.

That’s mistake number 1. The second is to fail to recognize that the goal is to create a memorable and engaging experience for the audience. The behavioural science behind this is clear. If we don’t adapt; they won’t call back.

So how do we do this now? How do we create a fantastic customer experience, where we are memorable, persuasive and effective as we orchestrate a compelling interaction with our clients remotely? And how do we avoid the utterly tedious information overload with an accompanying sense of dread as complicated slides flash past in a blur, as we run out of time and our audience runs out of patience and interest?

Here are my top ten tips:

  1. Get the right tools for the job. We are now almost 12 months in to a global pandemic and too many professionals still don't know have the right kit. I’m not talking about spending a lot of money at all. This is about professional remote presence, which means, a decent camera, microphone, headphones and second screen.
  2. ‘All the gear; no idea’….having the right kit doesn’t mean that professionals know how to use it properly. So learn how to set the correct angle for the camera, organize the lighting effectively, decide on your background, turn off notifications and manage WIFI/broadband speeds to enable cameras to stay turned on.
  3. Understand that it’s our responsibility to create an engaging experience versus ‘present slides in a remote meeting’. These two activities are completely different and we don’t understand this fundamentally, then we will fail.
  4. Plan interaction with the audience – early and often – and plan the time needed for this properly. Forget the ‘questions at the end’ strategy. The group won’t be listening by that time if we don't get them involved regularly. Use technology properly: so polling, annotation, whiteboards, quizzes, breakout rooms, gamification with purpose and poise.
  5. Keep learning about how to make the platform work for you. All major platforms are going through warp speed upgrades; so regularly make time to explore the nuances. A simple one on MS Teams which is spectacular is the ‘spotlight’ function, which allows for a far more engaging way to engage and introduce the audience than using a slide with stretched, old photos of the group. It’s also fantastic for discussion activities to maximize the contributor on the screen.
  6. Understand the behavioural science which drives our memory of experience. Daniel Kahneman’s ‘Peak End’ rule says that we’ll reflect on a memory based on the intensity of feeling (‘peak’), whether positive or negative, and how we felt at the end. If we don’t demonstrate that we understand this; we will be forgettable.
  7. Whatever the number of slides you have (a) there are probably too many (b) reduce their density…we can’t read and listen at the same time.
  8. Videos are great – in small doses and as long as we’ve done the technology check. Too many videos have died on the altar of ‘hey Bob, I’ve just got a spinning wheel here…..’. The best audio in the room should be us.
  9. Technology regularly fails; we need a back-up plan to seamlessly switch to at a moment’s notice.
  10. Ditch the dense slides….think of the concept of ‘glance media’…in other words, we can read the slide in 3 seconds or less.