You did the research for your pitch, you wrote your text, designed your slides and you even practiced your pitch. You are almost ready to perform your pitch.

At this point you should know your text by heart and you should have practiced it many times.

Unfortunately, even if your preparation was perfect, there is still a chance that your pitch doesn’t go well. This could have to do with nerves or external factors such as the environment.

By preparing yourself with a few small tricks you can minimize the risk of a blackout.

These small things can make or break your entire pitch, so please take your time to follow these steps. Underneath you will find 5 things you should prepare before you go on stage.

1. Be on time

On the day of your pitch you will probably be a little bit nervous. Even though this isn’t necessary, as you prepared your pitch well, this might still happen.

As a high stress level damages the success of your pitch, you should do anything to prevent this.

In order to reduce the amount of stress and nerves on this day make sure to be on the location on time.

2. Get used to the environment

Whenever you arrive at the location of your pitch, try to enter the room where you will be pitching early. By getting used to the environment you will feel more calm during your pitch. Spend at least 30 minutes in this room and make this room yours.

3. Position yourself

The position a person takes during his pitch tells a lot about his level of confidence. When a pitcher stands all the way in back of the stage, this usually is a tell that he or she is nervous.

Not only does this hurt the credibility of the pitcher, it simply also causes that people in the back of the room can’t see you.

4. Control your nerves

If you took steps 1-3 you should have a minimized stress level at this point. However, the lower your stress level the better.

Control your nerves and reduce your stress by doing one of the following things:

• Meditate a few minutes before you start your pitch
• Listen to your favourite song before you start your pitch
• Do some quick exercising before your start your pitch
• Practice a few more times in the bathroom before your start your pitch

What works best is different for every person. Try a few of them during your practice rounds and find out what works best for you.

5. Keep control of the conversation

Depending on the size of the room it could be that some people want to ask questions during your pitch.

Usually the smaller the room, the more likely people are to ask questions.

Whenever you find yourself in the situation where you are pitching in front of 1-10 people there is a chance that people (try to) interrupt you.

This should never happen.

If you see that somebody tries to ask a question during your pitch, acknowledge his question with a slight hand movement. This way you let him know that you saw his question and that you will be answering later.

In the case that somebody interrupts your pitch with a comment or a question, you should quickly take back control of the situation. You simply say:

‘Thank you, I will come back to that later’

After saying this you directly continue with the rest of your pitch. This way you don’t give him the opportunity to continue with his interruption.

Conclusion

All your preparations have built a steady foundation for your pitch.

By using these 5 steps you leave no room for blackouts, interruptions or other external errors.

Practice these 5 steps during your rehearsal pitch in front of friends or family. This way you are prepared for every situation, which results into the perfect pitch!

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When it comes to practicing there is a big misconception going on. Many people say: ‘you shouldn’t practice your pitch too often, this makes your pitch sound unnatural’.

It’s quite often the same group of people who use lots of bullet points in their slides, as they are scared for a blackout. Summarizing, these people don’t practice their pitch and their slides are full of distractions.

This is a real pity, since they honestly believe they are doing the right thing.

Are you one of these people? Don’t worry, you are about to learn why and how you should practice your pitch.

Why practicing doesn’t make your pitch sound unnatural

If you practice your pitch a lot, you will have no trouble recalling the text of your pitch. In fact, you should have studied it so thorough that if somebody wakes you up in the middle of the night, you wouldn’t have trouble doing your pitch.

The reason why you should study your pitch text so thoroughly has to do with your focus. A good pitch is always a combination of two things:

The Perfect Pitch = Saying the right things + Saying it the right way

If you studied your text thoroughly, your brain doesn’t need to focus on that part during the pitch. Since your brain has focus left over, it can focus on the way you present it.

Now your brain has time to focus on your body language and the way you speak. If you didn’t study your text, your brain is working on all these things at the same time. You probably understand that doesn’t yield the best results.

Studying your script

Studying your script looks a lot like studying for your exams when you were on high school. It starts with simply reading your text over and over again. At some point you can try to cover up your text and see if you can replicate it.

When you mastered this, it’s time to practice out loud. Use the voice recorder of your phone to check if you are able to replicate the text of your pitch for the full 100%.

When you are done, it’s time to add your speaking legend to it. Practice your pitch with the right intonation, volume and silences.

A quick summary:
1. Read your text
2. Cover your text and replicate it in your head
3. Practice your text out loud. Use a voice recorder to see how you are doing
4. Add your speaking legend. Practice your pitch with the right intonation, volume and silences

Full Practice
When you are done studying your pitch text with the right intonation, volume and silences it’s time to focus on the body language.

Start off by practicing in front of a mirror and pay attention to your body language. When you did this a few times it’s time to practice in front of a camera. For some people this might be intimidating and a bit confronting, but this is the only way to master your pitch.

Use the camera of your phone and record yourself during your pitch. After you completed your pitch, play back the video and focus on your body language. If you really want to excel at this part, try watching your video without the sound on.

Do you notice any differences? Do you seem happy? Do you seem confident? Do you get a pleasant feeling while looking at this video?

If you are not satisfied with the results of your practice, show the video to some friends or colleagues and ask them for their feedback.

A quick summary:
5. Practice in front of a mirror
6. Practice in front of the camera of your phone
7. Watch the video to see where you can improve
8. Watch the video without sound on to see where you can improve
9. Show the video to a friend or colleague

Conclusion
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who believe in the misconception that they should not practice their pitch. They believe this makes your pitch seem unnatural.

Now you’ve read why this is not the case and you should to the opposite. Take the time to practice and keep on practicing until you are satisfied.

The best pitchers worldwide practice up to 200 times before they perform a pitch.

What you learned
– How to study your pitch
– How to practice your pitch alone
– How to practice your pitch with others

FREE CHEAT SHEET

Do you want to kickstart your pitch with 40 actionable pitch tips?

Bullet Points In Your Pitch Slides?

Many people who pitch back their story up with a presentation. This presentation usually consists of slides which summarize the points they are trying to make.

If you are one of those people, please stop.

The reason why a lot of pitchers put their presentation text in bullet form on their slides is to have a backup. They think ‘if I forget my text, I can always check my slides’.

And although that’s a fair point, it ruins your entire pitch.

When your slides are full of bullet points and other symbols, you bring the attention of the listener to your slides. He doesn’t listen to your pitch; he studies your slides.

This is what happens in the mind of your listener when your slides are full of distractions: ‘What a nice pitch. Oh hey I see some text on the slides, let me read that.

Oh but he keeps on talking while I’m reading the slides, let’s pay attention to pitch’. And this goes on and on.

By having distractions in your slides your listener is in a constant confusion and therefore isn’t able to listen to your pitch. Therefore, always have your slides as minimalistic as possible.

PS: Have a look at these amazing web design tips 

Slides or no slides?

After reading this, you might be wondering: ‘should I use any slides at all’? And to be honest, that’s a fair question.

Several of the best pitchers worldwide argue that you shouldn’t be using any slides at all. There is a lot to say for this, since this enables you to grab the full attention of your listener.

At the other hand you miss out on the opportunity to bring some extra life into your pitch. Therefore, it’s recommended to use some slides unless you are a truly experienced pitcher.

Designing your slides

You just read to bring your pitch alive with some slides. However, you also read that you should be really careful with the designs of your slides.

As too much distraction on your slides can kill your pitch, you have to be minimalistic.

So what do the perfect slides look like? The answer to this question is very simple.

Pictures.

Nice high definition pictures without any text on it are the key to a visual attractive pitch. Simply use one picture on full screen size per slide and you will be good to go.

Since a regular pitch consists of 6 building blocks, you should have 6 slides and therefore you will need 6 pictures.

There are numerous websites you can use to find beautiful royalty free stock photos to include in your pitch. A few examples:

1. Unsplash (free) https://www.unsplash.com
2. Pexels (free) https://www.pexels.com
3. Shutterstock https://shutterstock.com

Attributes?

If you are pitching a physical product, it’s possible to bring an example or a prototype of it on stage. Depending on the looks of your product this works really well.

This way your listener as an easier time understanding what you are pitching about.There are a few exceptions in which case you should not bring the physical product in your pitch:

• If the product doesn’t look visually attractive (yet).

• If the product is really small. In this case it’s better to take a good picture of your product and have it as one of the slides.

Conclusion

Creating the visuals for your pitch isn’t hard. Unfortunately, many people make the mistake of including (too much) text in their slides, which makes their listener confused.

The best thing to do is to use a few slides which are full screen picture. Going minimalistic on your pitch slides is the way to go.

When you are done creating your slides, it’s time to start practicing your pitch with these 9 steps.

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