The Afternoon Report, October 20, 2008

This information, called The Afternoon Report, is provided by a daily email blast from the publicity firm of Boneau Bryan-Brown, which maintains this blog.

All the World’s a Stage: The Role of Pitch Theater
Gen>Next – Posted by Michael Girts
“Earlier this month, I had my first chance to sit in on a new-business pitch. I was certainly interested in watching our people pitch our agency credentials, the thinking behind our strategy and our proposed creative executions. After all, that's what we had been working on for weeks and weeks. But I was much more interested, however, in watching the prospective client react to our presentation. It was fascinating to watch their body language. When did they nod? When did they lean and whisper to each other? Whose attention had we captured? Whose head was down in his laptop the entire time? – In the world of sketch comedy, they call it knowing your "beats." You don't memorize a script word-for-word. But you know the beats -- the major points -- that you need to hit in order for the comedy to work. A well-rehearsed presentation is far more likely to hit the right beats and to make your one or two major points more clearly and more succinctly. This lets your audience know that you're a confident and credible source who (1) values their time and (2) believes what you're saying. I agree with the pitch consultant who's wary of too much flash or too much fluff. The best and brightest people can whittle down complicated ideas to a simple statement (says the blogger near the end of his long post). Still, a little bit of pitch theater can go a long way toward winning the people in the room. And you've got to win the people to win the business.”
Love this. It's not unlike what has to happen to have a successive job interview.

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