The Edinburgh pitch fest!

“The world’s oldest Jewish Comedian is still standing!”

This, on a flier for Sol Bernstein, was just one of hundreds of claims competing for attention in what must be one of the world’s most engaging pitch experiences, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

Seemingly, every single one of countless performances -edgy comedy, dark drama, quirky circus, political polemic- was pitched individually, and constantly, on the High Street and at venues like Underbelly and the Gilded Balloon.

Each pitch came from surprisingly engaging supporters, or, better still the performers themselves, handing out their ubiquitous fliers. All of these emblazoned with a minimum of three stars from critics from publications ranging from the Guardian and Time Out to the oft quoted Chortle through to Weight Loss Weekly..

Any pitch calls for performance, the putting on of a show and creating an experience that is memorable, likeable and engaging. Edinburgh an outright winner!

And many of the shows were winners too. My favourite was Woody Sez-the words, music and spirit of Woody Gutherie. “Perfect”(The Scotsman). “Sublime” (Pitchcoach).

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Lessons from the interview.

“More than half of PR interviewees put off jobs by personality of the interviewers”.

This is the surprising conclusion of a survey carried out by recruiter The Works and featured on www.gorkanapr.co.uk. Surprising, because in my experience with PR firms their people skills, as you would expect of ‘relations’ businesses, are good.

The high negative may be a factor of the research sample. If the majority failed the interview, then human nature steps in. We tend not to like those who don’t like us! However, given that a ‘job interview’ is the less threatening way of describing a ‘job pitch’, here are some reported criticisms that also relate to the business pitch.

“75% of interviewers had not read the CV”. True of many pitches! Junior people may have read your document, procurement certainly will, but senior management often not. Prepare your pitch assuming no-one has read your brilliant proposal.

“Good cop,tough cop routine/uncomfortable questions”. In the pitch Q&A, challenging questioning is legitimate and to be expected. This is when the prospect can best assess the character and likeability of the people in front of them. It is usually the least rehearsed element, a big mistake.

“Showing direspect”. In a pitch this can be evidenced by the attitude of the decision takers, or at its worst, by some of those due to attend failing to show-up. With the benefit of hindsight, this is a pitch you are not likely to win. The decision has already been taken!

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“THE TRUST CRISIS”

”From the implosion of household-name banks to the firestorm of condemnation over MPs’ expences, events over the past year have made confidence a scarce commodity”. This is the sub-heading of an article by Nicola Clark in Marketing Magazine.

The quoted research shows, not surprisingly, that consumers trust even the strongest brands less now than a year ago. Cornflake brands like Kellogg are okay, but even the crusading Daily Telegraph is trusted less than it was a year ago by 14% of consumers.

How is this crisis of trust hitting us as experts in our chosen field when pitching?

Perhaps we should take note of these words from Lord Salisbury,the several times Prime Minister who claimed that Disraeli was ‘too clever by half’. He wrote:

“No lesson seems to be so deeply inculcated by the experience of life as that you never should trust experts. If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome: if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent : if you believe the soldiers, nothing is safe. They all require to have their strong wine diluted bya very large admixture of insipid common sense”.

Insipid or not, some common sense suggestions for experts:

Be ready for the pitch that isn’t. Some will hold a pitch with no intent to switch as they are caught in a ‘better the devil you know’ mode in these mistrusting times. The pitch may simply be a means of reducing fees.

Be sure you do not over-claim in what you can deliver in a future that nobody can be certain about. Rather, listen, as you may never have listened before, to what are the underlying issues and concerns of the potential clients, individually as well as corporately.

Be more prepared, more rehearsed, than ever so that your own confidence is unforced but unshakeable.

These insipid suggestions will help. Trust me!

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The “aura war”

One remark last week by England’s Test captain, Andrew Strauss, has lead to several thousand mentions on google, with extensive coverage in every newspaper and on radio and television.

” The Australian side no longer carries an aura of invincibility”

Various headlines developed this. A favourite was, “Australians poorer with no aura”. A few journalists gave their definitions of the word. These ranged from “a sort of all round halo” to, from Simon Barnes in the Times, “a subtle, luminous emanation”.

Most agreed with Ricky Ponting, that however you define it, “an aura is created over a long period of sustained excellence and that this has the ability to scare opposition.” People expect to lose against teams or individuals with aura.

A few companies and/or their leaders do have an aura that will help them in pitch situations. It will derive from the virtuous circle of success breeding confidence breeding success. How do you break the circle to compete?

Taking a leaf out of the Strauss handbook, the antidote is to recognise that an aura is ephemeral and to focus singlemindedly on playing to your own unique strengths, not worrying about theirs. Develop your own virtuous circle of preparation and rehearsal breeding confidence-the first step to creating an aura of your own!

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How to slay dragons.

Today Reggae Reggae sauce enjoys national distribution and is advertised on television. None of this would have happened without one Levi Roots giving the pitch of a lifetime on Dragon’s Den.

Last week, on channel Dave, they showed some highlights of the original January 2007 show, together with a recent interview with Levi. As he says on his website, “the deal was to pitch, barter and sell your business to five multimillionaires……..if they choose to invest in your ting, you get the money”.

It was a superb pitch and scored brilliantly in three areas.

1. An unexpected opening. Levi understood that ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression’ when he entered the Den playing his guitar and singing his sauce song. This included the verse “Hot Reggae Reggae sauce , it’s so nice I had to name it twice”. The Dragons were almost slain at the outset.

2. Audience participation. Instead of presenting at them, he engaged with them through a product tasting, apparently of the hottest version of his sauce by mistake, or not. By now Dragons, or some of them, succumbing.

3. The likeability factor. In any pitch people buy people and here the charm of the man was irresistible, such that he was forgiven for some dreadful content errors. For example, mistakenly claiming orders 1000 times the actual!

No wonder that he can claim “I slayed dem dragons”.

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