On Thursday the 29th of September, Jonathan Talbott, founder of Talbott International Presentations, held a very insightful workshop on Pitching.
Pitching is way more than “Elevator” pitch or the “1-minute” pitch. There are many different ways to pitch and we need another kind of pitch for every person we talk to. In order to make it “a memorable opener for discussion that eventually leads to an appealing outcome for both parties” (Jonathan Talbott), why not open with a story, a metaphor, an alliteration, a rhyme, an active verb or a shocking statistic etc.?
During this workshop we all got to work on several ways of pitching and it was much more than finding the right metaphoe and wordings. The whole exercice lead us to look at our brands from many other perspectives. We discussed about the problem we are solving, what solutions and benefits we offer to our customer or client, and what kind of clients’ needs we fulfill.
Jonathan guided us through the variety of approaches and helped us to find the right angle by asking specific and detailed questions, and pointing out the many perspectives one can have on a single product, because “if we sell a drill, we don’t talk about the drill, we sell the hole”. With a very powerful formula: Hook, [Job (Problem), Solution, Benefit], Need, we all experienced what it takes to make our pitches memorable, interesting, with the intent to find a balance between information and “absence of information that draws (the client/customer) in”, and make people say “That’s interesting, tell me more!”…
This workshop was the first one of a series of Professional Development Workshops organized by the WBII.
The next one will take place on the 10th of November, and Jacinta Noonan from Platform B will hold a workshop on “Podcasts, Webinars & Live Streaming”. Sign up for Podcasts, Webinars & Live Streaming:
Ute is a lifelong expat and a professional Consultant, Coach and Trainer for Internationals, mainly accompanying partners, and their families.
Her expertise lies in verbal and non-verbal communication, bilingualism and intercultural communication (i.e. the interaction between people from different cultures).