Tag Archives: Michael Parker

Look up like Kate.

Last week the Duchess of Cambridge gave her first public speech. She was not just pitching to an adoring live audience but to countless viewing critics on television and You Tube. Any gaffe would be replayed endlessly. And the focus would not be on what she said, but how she said it.(Kate Middleton’s first pitch. )

 She said it well.

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She looked poised, she looked confident, she looked up and she smiled. Yes, she used notes but she has already almost mastered the knack of referring to them without reading and speaking at the same time. This irritating habit, adopted by a surprising number of politicians, makes listening almost impossible.

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The knack is surprisingly simple but takes practice. In essence, you look at your notes, take in a few words, then look up and deliver them, then (after finishing them) look down and take in more words, then look up and say them, then… The pause to refer is seen more as a pause for thought than an interruption. Looking up at the audience means you are communicating! 

Kate is not the only member of her family who is a pitching natural. One of the highlights of the wedding was the performance of her brother James.( A Lesson in reading. )The same coach perhaps.

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Kate Middleton’s first pitch.

This week the Duchess of Cambridge gives her first set-piece public speech since the wedding and, no doubt, advisers will have worked long and hard to craft  words suitable for the occasion.  Sad to say much of this effort will in vain.

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Why? As a veteran royal correspondent, reported in the Sunday Times, said: “There is huge interest not so much in the content of what she says but in how she says it.” 

It’s the same for most pitches. While the prospect will never admit it. and may well have score sheets for specific content elements, the assessment they make will biased by their emotional reaction to ‘how’, more than their rational assessment of  ‘what’.

Luckily for Kate she is a natural on the how – as are most who pitch when not pitching! They need to bring their natural selves to the party, and not allow undue focus on content to spoil it.

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“You can’t buy love.”

The entertainingly bizarre Republican presidential race provides easy pickings for commentators. It is hard to imagine a group of individuals who so consistently get it wrong when pitching their cause. The presentation/gesture/body-language /voice coaches,  thick on the political ground in America, must be having a field day.

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Mitt ‘robot theory’ Romney is no pitch role model but his campaign does serve as a vivid reminder that, when it comes to winning hearts and minds, being the biggest is not what matters. He should be leading by a mile, he has much more money, a formidable ‘machine’  and unelectable opponents. And yet, as Gary Younge wrote in the Guardian:

“There are some things even in American politics that money can’t buy. It can get you an organisation, ads and attention. But it can’t make you engaging, compelling or authentic. In short, it can’t buy you love.” 

These three words capture as well as any what you must be if you are to win.

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” The sweet smell of success”.

One of the great films of the late fifties, starring Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis at their best, The Sweet Smell of Success was a gritty drama about  getting to the top.

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In any pitch this sweet smell is an essential  ingredient. Clients want to be associated with success  because that is what they want for themselves! Since they cannot easily assess this on actual performance, they assess instinctively. They sense success from all the people they meet  -in reception, in lifts, on the phone, on line  – responding to all the non-verbal clues that translate to a ‘corporate body language’. Do they like what they ‘smell’?

They sense it from the media where the power of a strong ‘public’ news headline works more emotively than ‘private’ online stories. In its heyday, Saatchi & Saatchi created an astonishing aura of success by getting every win, every story, however insignificant, as a headline in Campaign magazine and from there into national titles. It was seen as successful way ahead of performance- which followed as night follows day.

The ‘smell of success’ gets you on to short lists and gives you an edge in the pitch itself.  But it needs to permeate the entire company. not just the front line troops in the pitch team!

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You are not reading a shopping list!

The superb Skolia choir, out of Notting Hill, are driven to astonishing levels of  performance by a musical director for whom the best is never enough. ( She would make a great pitch coach.) Her latest exhortation to her singers faced with the intricacies of Benjamin Britten was a salutory reminder that, ” You are not singing a shopping list!”

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The same sentiment applies to many presenters. You are not pitching a shopping list!

In an article this week Simon Jenkins was looking forward with misgiving to the Oscar acceptance speeches.  He anticipated that their lists would be long with a gaggle of folk we’ve not heard of being thanked, endlessly. He then made some observations on general levels of speechmaking, many of which are valid in the pitch.

“When eventually the speech ends, no audience ever shouts, “More!” No audience complains that a speech was too short.”… Research shows that most audiences can recall little beyond the first five minutes of any talk.The brain simply shuts up shop..”

“The adjective rhetorical has become a mild term of abuse. Few speakers distinguish between uttering “the living sentence of the working mind” and reading out a text. The cadence of their normal speaking voice is lost in a reading drone.” (Rhetoric: the art of using speech and writing to persuade and influence.)

“The rhythm of words well-deployed is not just music to the ear, it is power projected. To be able to address others with confidence is a fundamental skill. To be inarticulate is to be handicapped.”

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