Pitching to a time limit? Speak slower and say less

Speed dating for business people!

That was the idea behind the event organised by Sussex and Uckfield Chambers of Commerce last week. 90 business people from Chambers around Sussex gathered at Uckfield Civic Centre to network, have a bit of fun and post business cards on the Networking Wall.

So how did it work?

Sitting in groups of 3, each member had one minute to pitch their business before a whistle signalled it was time to rotate out to another group.

This is a really great concept and similar to something I love doing with public speaking clients.

The beauty of a one-minute presentation is that you can practise it many times in one hour, so this event gave participants a dozen opportunities to immediately iron out any kinks in their pitch and play around with different ideas.

Pitch. Refine Pitch. Pitch again. Refine pitch. Pitch again . . .

It’s amazing how polished a pitch can become with this kind of intensive practice.

And there’s one other thing that makes a one-minute pitch even better – finishing early.

Less is more

This might seem counter-intuitive. Shouldn’t you use the whole 60 seconds to get across as much information as possible?

Well, no.

Speaking in a rush and overloading listeners with too much information detracts from your message. Focus instead on simply saying who you are and how you help people.

Stick to a maximum of 3 main points/services/benefits and aim to come in at around 50 seconds. That gives your audience time to react or even ask a question. And time for you to gauge the impact of your pitch.

If this seems a bit minimalist for you check out this video by Clay Hebert about The Perfect Intro. He does his pitch in 6 seconds!