The opening is one of the most important aspects of your pitch. It determines whether people will be listening to your pitch. There are 3 ways you can use to start a pitch.

1. A personal story

When you start your pitch with a short personal story, you build a relationship with your audience within a minute. A personal story helps them to get to know you better. At the same time, they feel sympathy for you because you opened up and put yourself in a vulnerable position.

2. A question for the audience

This one works especially well with large audiences as it forces everybody to listen and put their phones away. A question stimulates your audience to actively participate in your pitch.

Very important: this question should always be a yes or no question, as you don’t want to start a long conversation with your audience during your pitch. A few examples:

3. A bold statement

This is my personal favourite. Starting off your pitch with a bold statement usually has a big impact on your audience. A good bold statement has a small shocking effect, which will ‘wake them up’ and have them listen to you for the rest of your pitch. A few examples of bold statements:

• ‘95% of the pitches suck, well actually maybe even 99%.’

• ‘Every day 52,000 people are pitching to an investor. Almost all of them do a horrible job’

Want to know more about opening a pitch? Check out the Ultimate Pitch Guide.

The perfect structure for a pitch looks like this:

1. The opening
2. The problem
3. The solution
4. The market
5. The team
6. Call to action

This is quite a fixed structure, which I use for almost all of my pitches. So how to use storytelling in my pitch?

I usually blend the storyline in the first 3 parts of my pitch.

1. During the opening of a pitch I will start with a bold statement such as: ‘45% of the restaurant is bankrupt within 3 years’
2. During the problem part I will introduce Johnny, the owner of an Italian restaurant who struggles to fill his tables. I will tell the audience that he works 80 hours a week but can barely pay the bills.
3. During the solution part I will tell them how my app solved all Johnny’s problems and how he just opened his second restaurant a few blocks away.

Since you usually don’t have a lot of time to pitch your company, you can’t go too much into detail. However, simple using an example of a happy customer does the trick.

For more concrete tips on designing a killer pitch, check out the Ultimate Pitch Guide.

Whenever I coach entrepreneurs on their pitch, one of the first questions I ask them is: ‘to whom are you pitching’. The type and amount of person(s) listening to you pitch, has a great influence on the way you should prepare your pitch.

Is your audience full of tech IT professionals? Tell them a little bit about your IT structure.

Is your audience full of financial experts? Don’t forget your financial overview.

Is your audience small? Make your pitch engaging, open your pitch with a question to the audience.

Every audience demands a different approach.

For more concrete tips on designing a killer pitch, check out the Ultimate Pitch Guide.

Analyzing your audience before you pitch is really important.

Whenever I coach entrepreneurs on their pitch, one of the first questions I ask them is: ‘to whom are you pitching’. The type and amount of person(s) listening to you pitch, has a great influence on the way you should prepare your pitch.

Is your audience full of tech IT professionals? Tell them a little bit about your IT structure.

Is your audience full of financial experts? Don’t forget your financial overview.

Is your audience small? Make your pitch engaging, open your pitch with a question to the audience.

Every audience demands a different approach.

So how to analyze the audience before a pitch?

There are a few ways to analyze the audience before a pitch:

1. Ask the host of the event how many and what type of people will be attending
2. Research the people who rsvp’d yes on Facebook or Meetup
3. Research reports or videos of the previous editions of the event you are pitching.

 Before you prepare your pitch, do some research about who will be listening to your pitch and use that to your advantage.

Analyzing your audience before you pitch is really important.

Whenever I coach entrepreneurs on their pitch, one of the first questions I ask them is: ‘to whom are you pitching’. The type and amount of person(s) listening to you pitch, has a great influence on the way you should prepare your pitch.

Is your audience full of tech IT professionals? Tell them a little bit about your IT structure.

Is your audience full of financial experts? Don’t forget your financial overview.

Is your audience small? Make your pitch engaging, open your pitch with a question to the audience.

Every audience demands a different approach.

So how to analyze the audience before a pitch?

There are a few ways to analyze the audience before a pitch:

1. Ask the host of the event how many and what type of people will be attending
2. Research the people who rsvp’d yes on Facebook or Meetup
3. Research reports or videos of the previous editions of the event you are pitching.

Before you prepare your pitch, do some research about who will be listening to your pitch and use that to your advantage.

For more concrete tips on designing a killer pitch, check out the Ultimate Pitch Guide.