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The Art of Pitching (The Art of the Start chapter 3, by Guy Kawasaki)

"Forget, 'I think, therefore I am.' For entrepreneurs, the salient phrase is, 'I pitch therefore I am.' Pitching isn't only useful for raising money- it's an essential tool for reaching agreement on any subject...." You've got to know who you are, what you want, and how to communicate that to people, to sell it to people.

Question: How can you tell if an entrepreneur is pitching?
Answer: His lips are moving.

In this chapter, Guy goes into detail on some ways that we can improve in this area. I found these to be some of the most practical for myself:

-Explain yourself in the first minute.
-The foundation of a great pitch is the research that you do before the meeting starts.
-A pitch can't be too short because a good one will motivate people to ask questions that extend it.
-Communicate "enough" not everything.
-You should be able to give your pitch in 10 slides and 20 minutes.
-Pitch constantly.

I want to spend a little bit of time elaborating on that last point, pitch constantly. Guys says, "Familiarity breeds content. It's when you are totally familiar with your pitch that you will be able to give it most effectively."

For instance, Mark Burnett, creator of Survivor, relates in his book Jump In how he practiced his "Survivor" pitch on his unsuspecting friends:

First I had to convince a network to pay the production costs (for Survivor) which would run into millions of dollars. I would only get one chance to pitch it to a network or cable channel, and I didn't want to blow it. As practice, I pitched the idea to friends and aquaintances at dinner parties. I didn't tell them they were guinea pigs- but at some point during dinner, someone would invariably ask what I was working on next. I would smile, take a deep breath, raise my voice just a notch for greater emphasis, then explain Survivor as brilliantly and boldly and seductively as I possibly could.

At first the pitch came out long-winded and overcomplicated. My dinner companions would lean back in their chairs, heads nodding vacantly as if listening, even as their eyes glazed over and their thoughts wandered. They would hear me out, but then the conversation would diplomatically shift to another topic.

As I perfected the pitch, however, making it faster and more fluid and always exciting, I noticed my dinner companions leaning in to hear each syllable. Their eyes sparkled. They peppered me with questions, all of which I learned to answer with the same polish I used to deliver the pitch itself. By the time I walked into the Discovery Channel's headquarters in 1999 to pitch the show for the first for real, I was capable of selling it to anyone anywhere.

I am not just going through this book for fun, I am actually working on my next business venture. I want to know how many of you may also be working on a start up or wanting to start your own business? If anyone would like to share what you are working on or perhaps an idea of a business you'd like to start, send me an email. I'll choose one I really like, feature it on NLL, along with a link to your site (if you'd like) and send you a brand new copy of The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki. I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

More from The Art of the Start tomorrow...

For more about Guy Kawasaki, check out Art of the Start.com (his site) as well as Guy's blog