Perfecting Your Pitch

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When preparing to deliver a pitch, you may assume that your audience are rational, logical thinkers, who will carefully assess new information and ideas before making decisions. However, research from behavioural scientists suggests otherwise. According to Behavioural Economist Daniel Kahneman, 98% of the time our thinking is fast, automatic and emotional. Only two percent of the time do we engage in deliberative, logical thought. So, what does this mean for those of us tasked with delivering client pitches? This course will explore the things we need to understand in order to prepare and deliver pitches which will engage and influence clients.

Course Content

What are your clients thinking?

The two thinking systems which drive the way an audience thinks:
System one: Fast, automatic and error prone
System two: Rational, slow and reliable
Ways to harness the attention of your audience from the start

Opening the conversation out

The value of a two-way conversation to build rapport and influence
Questions to build understanding on both sides

Telling stories with data

Quick ways to make your key message pop
Gesalt theory; the principles of human perception which can inform how we present and organise data
Finding and communicating compelling narratives

Course Approach

CHALLENGE

Conventional wisdom about what a professional pitch must look and feel like
How well do your current pitches serve you?

CREATE

New ways of communicating information to your client
An understanding of how your client’s attention, memory and decision-making works

CHANGE

The way in which you present data
Move away from a dependency on the traditional pitch book

Embedding Success

Post programme activities to support the transfer of learning and building of habits.

CHALLENGE. Get feedback

Share a pitch with a colleague. Afterwards explore whether they were using system one or system two thinking to evaluate the pitch

CREATE. Legacy slide shake-up

Take a slide which your team has been using for a long time. How can you use Gestalt theory to enhance the understanding of the audience?

CHANGE. Two versions of good

Next time you prepare for a pitch, consider having two versions of the pitch deck. One which can be printed and read at leisure by the client and one which you project and use as a tool to aid engagement during the pitch

100%

of our clients would recommend Alpha to a colleague or peer

90%

of a cohort was promoted within 2 years after participating in an Alpha course.

96%

of participants felt more confident in their role, following an Alpha commercial leadership course.

Why study with Alpha?

Innovation and creativity born from experience

We are thought leaders in instructional and learning journey design and holistic solution architects. We have extensive finance and investments experience combined with skills application to deliver performance improving results. We develop immersive learning environments that maximize time to productivity, support talent retention and added value to improving quality of hires.

Knowledge Exchange Evangelists

We are focused on mining the embedded organisational intellectual capital for the benefit of the next generation. We create and curate best in class practice gathered from our experience with the leading financial institutions. We design our programmes with the end in mind – what results are you trying to achieve with this intervention? What metrics will we set ourselves to achieve that?

Generation Proof

Quality and innovation, using current market and industry best practices, have made us a trusted partner in delivering dynamic and motivating training for the financial and capital markets. Our programmes are generation proof and responsive to evolving learner needs and styles. Our solutions use a multi-stakeholder engagement strategy that expands beyond relationships between the learner and learning provider. We create connections with managers, peers and the wider business to drive impactful return on investment..

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