What To Research When Pitching For New Business

In Researching For A Purpose- Pitching For New Business, I mentioned that without any data information, the connections will be much harder to make. We need to gather raw materials, a critical step in the preparation phase. It seems like such an essential and obvious step, yet it is a stage that many ignore. They all want to jump straight to the solution before they have considered the facts, in order to save time.  So what’s the secret?

In Presenting To Win, Weissman expresses that no presenters should ever data dump on their audience. However, he said that performing one is vital to the success of any type of pitch. It must be part of your preparation not the presentation. Organize it as soon as possible after the client has provided you the brief. So what are the types of information that needs to be collected? Specific and general in nature. 

Specific information:  product, brand, market size, categories, competitors and target audience.

General information: social, economic, trends and cultural background

Collecting specific material for a presentation or pitch is a job for now. Collecting general information to give your pitch depth is a job for life.

Black beauty- A powerful presentation design concept

Whether you use Keynote or Powerpoint, try using a black background. It’s simple yet it adds elegance and impact to your message. With black, your main point is your point, not the color, logo or illustration. You may want to add a photo from istockphoto as a visual support. White fonts over black slide is so powerful. I use it in my client presentations, like research findings. One or two liners plus a graph or high res photo over black easily connects to your audience. Here are the other benefits.

1. Your audience will listen to you once they get your main point. Just make sure you know your stuff well.

2. Black slides will make you more visible even if you walk across the projector.

3. You can move around, and ‘own the entire room’ like a rockstar rather than being stuck on one side.

Check out this two designers Garr Reynolds and Nancy Duarte to find out more about the power of black.