126: How to Be Interesting When Pitching an Idea

Here’s some advice that many of us have heard when we starting giving presentations or speeches for the first time:

“Tell ’em what you’re going to tell ’em, tell ’em, tell ’em what you told ’em.”

That’s lousy advice. Here’s how to do better.

Four great and interesting speeches, with varying levels of importance:

• Honoring the dead – The Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln
• Civil rights – I Have A Dream by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• A successful product launch – The iPhone Announcement by Steve Jobs
• Human personality – The Power of Introverts by Susan Cain

Three commonalities that these four very different “pitches” share. They all:

• Tell a story of the problem
• Articulate a vision
• Inspire action

Resources you may wish to investigate:

• The Quick and Easy Way To Effective Speaking* by Dale Carnegie
• Resonate: Present Visual Stories That Transform Audiences* by Nancy Duarte
• SPIN Selling* by Neil Rackham

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