Pitching In 3D

Every professional will have to pitch something during their career. If you are in sales or are an entrepreneur you might be doing it often, but even if you have a job that is not related to sales, it is likely that you will have to pitch your ideas for projects to get approved and funded, and you will also have to pitch to your boss when you are looking for a promotion or a raise.

At some point, you might get invited to speak at important events within your company or even at conferences or other organizations that want to hear about your experience and expertise.

In any of these situations, it is key that you are prepared to capture attention so that people actually listen to what you have to say.

How many times have you been to a company-wide meeting or a conference related to your industry, and there is a speaker that puts everyone to sleep? Or a speaker that has a presentation that it’s not up to par with the level of professionalism that you were expecting?

When was the last time that you had to sit through a presentation with an almost unlimited number of slides and all of these had a bunch of text in them which made you wonder… “If everything is written in the slides why are they doing a presentation”?

We’ve all been there and we can agree that it is a painful situation. Sometimes as painful to the speaker as it is to the audience. 

Also, it is not an efficient use of time. If it’s a company-wide presentation that lasts 20 minutes, it’s not just 20 minutes that are being wasted. If you have a company with at least 100 employees, it’s actually 2000 minutes that are being wasted. That’s almost 34 hours that could’ve been invested in a more productive way. 

What’s worse is that it can often happen that one of the introverts in your team has an idea that could create value for the company but it is never implemented because it is not communicated in the right way. The communication can be more challenging when there are diverse and multicultural groups because some aspects of communication are unique to different cultures. 

Now, these challenges are there for a reason. Being a good communicator is almost like a superpower. It is for that reason that Plato warned the people of Athens that they should not allow the poets and storytellers inside the city, because he knew how they could easily create a revolt or just disturb the peace they had created (more on the power of stories in this book).

In modern times, you can think about people like Steve Jobs. It is said that he had a force field and once you were in it there was nothing you could do to not believe in his vision and the ideas that he was sharing. And with that superpower alone is how he revolutionized several industries, by getting people behind his ideas and working hard to make these a reality (more on Steve Jobs in this book).

It is often said as a joke that Steve Jobs didn’t know how to design or how to write a single line of code. Yet, because he had mastered one of the most valuable skills in the world, he didn’t need much else.

Most likely, you’ve experienced something similar in your professional career. You’ve probably seen someone who is a bit more extroverted get the praise. In many cases, you are sure that you have better technical skills and that you are more of an expert, but that person got the promotion or the praise because they are more outspoken and know how to get along with most people at the office.

You can get ahead without needing to work on your communication skills but that’s a steep climb. Not all leaders are great communicators, but all great communicators are leaders. Which odds do you like best?

Taking Your Pitch Skills To The Next Level

About five years ago I moved to Houston to attend the MBA Program at the C.T. Bauer College of Business. Initially, I struggled a lot with communication because English is my second language. Even a regular conversation at the grocery store or at the gym was a challenge.

Mostly, I just listened. That was my natural tendency because I am an introvert, and the language barrier intensified this. If you’ve had to learn a second language as an adult you might know what I’m talking about. It’s like being forced to use your off-hand for all your normal tasks. Imagine having to write, brush your teeth, and do all your regular activities with your left hand (right hand if you are a lefty). How frustrating would that be? Especially knowing that if you could only use your strong hand it would be so much easier.

The reality is that nobody cares that I’m an immigrant and an introvert. The marketplace is not going to make it easier for me and most people are not going to try to listen with more focus to understand what I’m saying. I couldn’t control what other people did but I could definitely take ownership of this challenge and do something about it. 

For that reason, I decided to volunteer for every presentation and leadership position that was available during my MBA program. Also, I decided to attend at least a couple of networking events every week to practice my communication skills in one of the most uncomfortable ways known to humans, talking to strangers. And I also read every single book that I could find on the topic of effective communication and networking.

It wasn’t easy, and at many times I felt inadequate and frustrated, but I focused on doing the work and staying consistent. Part of those efforts was attending the Improv comedy class program at Station Theater which consisted of 5 levels and a total of 50 2-hour sessions, including 5 performances in front of an audience.

Yet, taking action and practicing is not enough. We also have to believe that we can be good communicators.

What we have to realize is that most often, we are the biggest obstacles in our path. There’s a lot of research on this topic which has validated that about 80% of our self-talk is negative, which means that you are your own worst critic (more on this topic in this book).

To this day, I remember when I was even questioning my name. I felt so bad about being a non-native English speaker and an immigrant that I started to question how to introduce myself. I was pondering the idea of introducing myself as Alex or Alejandro (Ah-Lee-Han-Drou) instead of Alejandro (Ah-Leh-Han-Droh) because I thought by doing so people might not catch my accent. 

Think about that for a second, I was so insecure that I was questioning my identity as a Venezuelan.

Later on, I learned something from Marcus Aurelius that helped me overcome this challenge. He’s considered the last of the “Five Good Emperors” and had the challenge of controlling his self-talk as any other human.

Whenever he conquered any new territory they threw a parade when welcoming him in Rome. Before getting there, he would ask one of his servants to whisper in his ear “You are just a man” so that his ego wouldn’t get out of control. He knew his self-talk could go to the positive extreme and then his judgment would be impaired so he had to regulate it by being reminded that he is just a man. 

In our case, we sometimes have to do the opposite and regulate ourselves with positive self-talk. So I decided to tell myself that having an accent was a strength because it means that I can speak two languages. 

This and other techniques and methodologies I developed along the way have allowed me to:

• Be invited to speak at a TEDx event.
• Be invited to speak at several organizations such as the Texas Lyceum and the Houston Interactive Marketing Association
• Be invited to give guest lectures at the Bauer MBA program
• Design and deliver pitches for the board of non-profit organizations to raise funds for projects
• Design and deliver pitches for private companies to raise funds from private equity groups
• Conduct Networking Bootcamps 

And it ultimately led to the creation of the Pitching in 3D methodology. For the past 3 years, I’ve been fortunate to lead this workshop and coaching sessions with stock analysts, portfolio managers, and senior portfolio managers of the Cougar Investment Fund. For ethical and compliance reasons, this workshop was private in those cases. But that has now changed.

Pitching in 3D is a workshop where we go over the 3 most important elements of a pitch: Design, Declutter, and Deliver. And it is now available to the public.

Pitching In 3D

This is a workshop that will give you the tools to communicate your ideas with clarity and passion so that you can get buy in from all stakeholders. The idea can be a project, a product, or a promotion/raise, and the stakeholders can be your board, your boss, your team, or a client.

You will learn how to capture and maintain the attention of an audience, large or small, and deliver your pitch in a way that is easy to follow and there’s a clear path from idea to execution so that people can get behind your vision.

Design

The Design portion will cover basic principles like color theory, contrast, hierarchy, and other elements that will help you create visuals that support your pitch. This is key because we all know that a picture is worth a thousand words and you must learn how to leverage the power of being able to paint a picture for your audience.

Declutter

The Declutter portion will cover the basic principles of storytelling and neuroscience so that you make sure you are speaking your audience’s language. When you are an expert on a topic it can be easy to forget how it felt to be a beginner. You are basically speaking “genius” and this needs to be translated into “human” terminology to achieve comprehension. 

We will also work on how to use data to support your pitch instead of dumping data on your audience which might overload their brains and cause a shutdown. 

Deliver

Finally, the Deliver portion will cover the fundamentals of body language so that you can tap into the power of non-verbal communication. We’ll go over pacing, tonality, movement, and other key elements that will take your presentations to keynote-worthy level. Also, we’ll help you create your pre-speaking routine to be sure you are ready to hit it out of the park every time you speak.

What you get with Pitching In 3D 

This can be a 1-hour talk or expanded as a 3-hour interactive session where we will cover the Design, Declutter, and Deliver principles. 

It can also be extended to include an additional 2-hour session where we will go over a specific upcoming pitch/presentation and you will receive individual feedback on the Design, Declutter, and Deliver elements of your pitch/presentation. 

If you would like to learn more about the Pitching In 3D workshop, please fill in the form below and our team will contact you to learn more about how we can help you achieve your goals.