3 Minute Rule -Part 2

In part 1 I talked about how to persuade a sceptical, savvy and impatient modern audience with your pitch needs to be under three minutes. To create a persuasive pitch that fits into that time frame, it needs to consist of about 25 sentences that answer the following questions: What is it? How does it work? Are you sure? And can you do it?  Now we will delve deeper.

The 4 questions in pitch can be reinterpreted into a wide range of useful questions. 

 

Imagine you’re being profiled by a magazine, and the interviewer asks, “Who are you?” If you interpret the question narrowly, you might just say your name – a pretty boring response. But if you interpret it broadly, you might describe your personality, talk about your values or offer a concise version of your life story – potentially a lot more interesting. 

The same lesson applies to the questions you’re answering in your pitch. To get the most bang for your buck with them, you need to be creative with the way you interpret them. And that means reinterpreting them into other, closely related questions that fit the thing you’re pitching and the audience you’re addressing. 

For example, consider the first question: What is it? You should now consider related questions your audience might have about the nature of what you’re pitching. If it’s a service, they might want you to explain what problems it solves, who it can help or what makes it unique. If it’s a business venture, they might ask about the potential payoff, or why this is a good time to pursue it.

Similarly, the question “How does it work?” should lead you to anticipate other questions about how you’ll deliver on what you’re promising. For example, if you’re pitching a project, how long will it take? How will you accomplish it? What resources do you have at your disposal? 

 The question “Are you sure?” encompasses any concerns your audience might have about whether you can back up your claims. For example, if you said your service was the best in the industry, what do your reviews say about it? What kind of stats do you have? 

 

Finally, the question “Can you do it?” relates more broadly to your ability to deliver on your promises. For instance, if you claim you’re the right person to lead a project, your audience might want to know about your training and background. They may also ask how you’ve dealt with similar challenges in the past. 

So that’s how to think outside the box when you’re interpreting the four main questions to answer in the pitch. 

Pitch needs an opening. 

 

At this point, one should have 25 sentences, packed full of valuable information about the thing that is being pitched. If we were to put them in a logical order and read them out, already have a serviceable three-minute pitch. But to bring your pitch to life and maximize its impact, there are a few more elements that are needed to be in place. 

 

To start a pitch, begin by telling the audience about the reason for being. This is the story of how and why you became interested, invested or involved in the idea, product, service or company you’re pitching to them. Now, you can’t tell the entire story; you’re just looking for a sentence or two here. With that in mind, try to remember your “aha” moment – the moment everything clicked and you realized you were onto something with whatever it is you’re pitching. 

  

The opening needs a callback. 

 

When did you start to believe you had a winning idea, product, service, or company on your hands? And when did you become convinced that your belief was correct? 

The answer to the first question provides the opening to your pitch, where you tell your audience about your reason for being. The answer to the second question provides your pitch with the next element that’s going to push it over the top: the callback. This is a moment in your pitch where you return to your opening and tell an anecdote that helps to illustrate and confirm your reason for being.  

So what was the moment you became convinced you were onto something? When did your belief turn into a conviction? If you dig through your memories, you should be able to find a quick and compelling anecdote to tell your audience. 

 

 Preempt the audience’s scepticism by acknowledging the elephant in the room.  

 

You know that moment in a movie when the protagonists seem to be on the edge of defeat? It’s called an “all is lost” moment. 

 To create your own “all is lost” moment, you simply tell your audience about a problem that jeopardized – or continues to jeopardize – the viability of the thing you’re pitching. Then, you tell your audience the way you overcame or plan on overcoming the problem. For example, if you were pitching an app, you might talk about a major technical issue you encountered during your development phase, and then you’d talk about how you resolved it.  

 The rationale here is that your audience wasn’t born yesterday. They know that every major human endeavour faces challenges and setbacks, and they know that the road to success is a bumpy one. If you tell them that everything has been and will be hunky-dory with the thing you’re pitching, they’ll be sceptical. They’ll start looking for problems. That means they’re going to be approaching your pitch from a critical standpoint, rather than a receptive one. It also means they’re no longer going to be fully listening to you; they’ll be drifting off into their own thoughts, wondering what you’re not telling them.

At the same time, you’re also going to lose credibility with your audience, since it’ll seem like you’re trying to hide something from them. By the time you’re done with your presentation, they might even feel resentful toward you. Meanwhile, they’ll have thought of some problems on their own, and now you’ll be in real trouble. They’re going to ask you questions in a combative spirit, and they’ll be suspicious and critical of your answers. 

So why not preempt all of this by admitting a problem upfront? The advantages are numerous. You set your audience’s sceptical tendencies at ease. You nip their criticality in the bud. You make yourself seem credible. You secure their attention. You focus them on a problem you already have a solution for. And you thus transform the problem from a potential liability into an advantage. After all, the alternative is to wait until they ask about it – and by then, you’ll have already turned them against you. 

To maximize the impact of this element of your pitch, ask yourself the following questions: What problem are you most hoping your audience won’t see? What question are you most fearing they will ask? 

Make that your “all is lost” moment. Get ahead of it; don’t let it come back to bite you.

Finish pitch by making sure it has a correctly placed hook and an edge. 

 

Now that you have your opening, your callback and your “all is lost” moment, there are just two last elements of your pitch to make sure to have in place. The first is your hook and the second is your edge. 

Your hook is simply the element of your pitch that will make your audience think, “Wow, that’s cool!” Your edge then provides your audience with a vivid illustration of your hook.

To find your hook, just look at those 25 sentences you wrote and identify the one that makes you feel the most excited. Then think of a snappy anecdote to illustrate it. That’s your edge. 

Finding your hook and your edge is usually pretty easy. The tricky part is using them effectively. The key is to avoid the temptation to start with your hook. Yes, it’s your strongest piece of material, but you need to wind up to it.  

By the time you’re done walking your audience through the core concept of what you’re pitching them, they should already be on the verge of thinking, “Wow, that’s cool.” With your hook and your edge, you’re just going to hammer down the nail you’ve already set. 

Summary

Start with your opening. Then you convey the basic concept of it by answering the questions “What is it?”, “How does it work?” and “Are you sure?” Then comes your “all is lost” moment. Follow that up by delivering your hook and your edge. Then do a callback. Finally, close your pitch with your answer to the question “Can you do it?” Keep in mind that some of these elements may go hand-in-hand with each other