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.
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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:
- Unsplash (free) https://www.unsplash.com
- Pexels (free) https://www.pexels.com
- Shutterstock https://shutterstock.com
Is your startup ready to pitch?
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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