Week 5 – Pitching Your Services and Products
This week we looked at marketing our products to those in positions of power. We began with a lecture by the brilliant Dr. Teea Palo on the SUCCESs framework. This framework broke down the core points of pitching a product, as ensuring the marketing technique/pitch is:
- Simple. The pitch should be straightforward and accessible. It shouldn’t waste time on points that aren’t entirely essential to understanding the product.
- Unexpected. A pitch should have a hook or a twist which serves to seize your audience’s attention. This should come early on in the pitch.
- Concrete. The use of images and/or sensory information to connect your audience to the relatable. This will help them to recall vital information.
- Credible. The use of statistics, graphs, or testimonies to offer ‘evidence’ of success/effectiveness. Offer the opportunity for them to try it themselves.
- Emotional. Constructing your pitch so that it elicits appropriate emotions. Conveying your message through an emotional response in the audience.
- Story. The creation of a narrative can assist your audience it memorising your pitch. It can also frame your message in a new/different light.
It was super helpful and constructive to adopt this framework when thinking of our own approach in planning/conveying a pitch effectively.
This lecture was swiftly followed by a truly insightful presentation by Dr. Leighanne Higgins, who spoke to us of the importance of utilising marketing/pitching skills as a tool to assist the push for greater accessibility for those impaired, and to hold large companies and organisations accountable for (perhaps) not being inclusive enough. Some key points she made, that stayed with me, are:
- The Reach of Storying… Since 2019, we have exhibited five times most recently at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2022 where we engaged with over 400+ visitors, received a 4* Neurodiverse review and were shortlisted for the neurodiverse Visual Impairment Excellence award & Engaged with over 1500+ stakeholder including, public, companies, academics and policy-makers.
- Demystifying Accessibility: disabled consumers are economically valuable and want to be valued as consumers. Access must go beyond physical access to encompass: A sense of welcome!!!
- How to create an idea that will allow the board of the Fringe to think about disability and accessibility differently – how to make the narrative stick. Make them want change.
- The value of the disabled marketplace/consumer: The Purple Pound. There are 14 million people in the UK who have a disability (approx. 1 in 5). Companies lose around £2 billion a month by ignoring the needs of disabled people. 75% of disabled people and their families have walked away because of poor accessibility etc.
- As we are an ageing demographic, this percentage is set to increase by 14% in the next five years. It’s important to remember that we are all ‘temporarily able-bodied’.
- DART: Direct, Access, Response, Train. Sense of Welcome Cycle: Direct (information, webpages, comms), Access (physical, emotional, sensorial), Response (proactive, reactive), Train (equipment, service, pan-disability).
- The incorporation of alt text when utilising images on websites and on social media.
- The incorporation of ‘quiet zones’ in response to sensorial/emotional access.
- Hoists available in public bathrooms, and alt text/braille available for the impaired.
- Ensure that the disabled person is the one being communicated with and not their carer – which happens a lot.
- It’s a pipe dream to be fully inclusive. You cannot be all things to all people. But what it can be is a trendsetter and proud example of getting things right, and constantly improving itself (through training etc.) as an inclusive and diverse place.
Throughout the presentation, she brought out several wonderful pieces of art which had been created by those with (severe) impairments. For example, there were painted canvases painted by the wheelchair wheels, hand-drawn art representing an autistic person’s experience of marketplaces, and poetry written by those ‘often ignored’ as a result of their disability. It was very hard to maintain dry eyes during this lovely and deeply touching presentation.
The day then moved to the nitty gritty, which was excellently encapsulated by the experienced Ross McLennan who shared some of the following practical tips:
- 1 minute pitch:
- It helps to get people interested.
- Explaining your idea quickly stops you from rambling. If you ramble, people will stop listening…
- Sometimes known as the Elevator Pitch.
- Can be used to pitch to potential co-founders, users, investors, employees, partners, etc.
- About 130 words – every word counts!
- Hook – Problem – Solution – Opportunity – Achievements – Ask
- All the best businesses are built to solve problems in the world – articulation of the current problem (gap in the market) and its subsequent solution is important.
- Why is there that gap in the market? (Problem, solution, opportunity).
- Quantifying information can help people understand how big the problem is.
- Slides for 1-minute pitch: generally one slide, your logo, your name and title, email address or website. A picture paints 1000 words.
- The investor pitch: a bit like the cover of a book (the blurb that informs you enough so that you buy the book and follow-up on the story/narrative/pitch).
- What is their aim? Do you have a credible and likeable management team? Is there an attractive amount of growth potential? Can the business be scaled easily? Are you investible? Team – Traction – Technology. Make sure all points of your story compliment each other, strengthen your argument/pitch, and make sense.
- Guy Kawasaki: ten slides, twenty minutes, thirty point font. Core of the text on your slide to force you to know your presentation – to memorise your material.
He answered several of our questions, and maintained an air of professionalism throughout which was an excellent example for us all.
The next day was very group-based, and included some great information on branding and making our brand recognisable. We were also privileged to have the charismatic Flora Cosquer, a producer in the world of documentaries, share some real-world advice on how we might approach pitching a product to experts in a particular industry:
- Keep it entertaining for them – you’re a storyteller!
- The pitch, the proposal, and the trailer. These elements cannot repeat themselves. These are the basic elements within the process of pitching documentaries.
- Your proposal as a deck or physical element sent to those you are pitching to before the pitch – so that they’re aware of what you’re asking for.
- Think of a pitch as a blueprint that tells you exactly what the end product will look like.
- Always remember to end your pitch on a high note – and not on a flat one! Find the thing that will help your presentation end on a high note (a provocative question, or a suspenseful comment?)
- Sometimes you will rehearse your pitch and it will still be 8 minutes long – be quite strategic, don’t be antagonising. Make sure to use the question time as a time when you can actually gauge the interest – try to be succinct.
- The elephant in the room: the panel will identify whatever it is you’re trying to hide almost immediately. You can’t always have all the answers but you can prepare yourself to respond to this when questioned on it. Make sure to acknowledge it and to have a proposed solution in hand. Showcase future intent.
- A lot of work goes into rehearsing and knowing your presentation/pitch by heart. Your enemy is your conversational tone. Make sure not to be interrupted or to lose your train of thought, and remember to always keep your language clear and professional. If you sense yourself wandering into the conversational tone, stop, gather your thoughts, and pick your presentation back up from there.
All in all, it was a really busy but deeply educational two days of intensives. We successfully completed our preliminary pitches and are now working in groups to finalise our pitches to promote accessibility in the Edinburgh Fringe. Our group is working under the slogan of SAFE not QUIET, and approaching the project from a neurodivergent angle.
We hope to do our best – inspired by the best!
