Minute to Win It
Transcript: Many marketing gurus often advise people to use a tool called AIDA in their presentations If you're reading this, chances are you know all about AIDA: (Get) Attention (Spark) Interest (Generate) Desire (Call to) Action However, for 1-2 minute pitches, a more reliable tool would be AIA (Attention, Interest, Action)! 1-2 minutes isn't enough time to generate desire, but just enough to spark enough interest to leave them wanting more! Think of it this way: You're not going for the relationship yet, you just want a second date! With that in mind, let's take a look at the 3 steps! The first step is to generate attention If you can't get them to listen at the beginning, you probably won't get them to listen at all... A good way to start would be to pose the problem that your idea resolves Make sure your audience can relate: Use questions, quotes, listener's interests, etc. Once you have their attention, it's time to spark their interest This should be the bulk of your pitch The main purpose of your pitch is to spark enough interest to reach the next level (call back, next round of interviews or tournaments, etc.) Avoid presenting too much information or going for a sales pitch, if you do well enough you'll have plenty of time for both of those in the future A good idea would be to explain how your idea can solve the problem you mentioned (avoid saying what your idea or product can do, details like this can be explained in the future) For example, saying "This presentation will help you get to Round 2 of your product design tournament " is better than saying "This presentation teaches you how to do a short pitch" Avoid technical talk and buzzwords, go for simple analogies and clear, concise descriptions instead After sparking their interest, move on to the final step: A Call to Action Action End your pitch by calling your listeners to action As I've mentioned, this isn't a sales pitch so don't mention any numbers! Hopefully, they'll have enough interest by now to want to find out more! Call them to action appealing to this interest You can ask them to call you, email you or even meet up some other time and offer to share more information then Other good ideas would be handing out a business card, small pamphlet or even ask them to vote you through to Round 2 in exchange for more info! If you do everything right, then you'll have set the stage for a successful sales pitch in the near future! Hopefully, your 1-2 minute presentation was a good enough bait to hook your audience to your idea. Now, you have to deal with the hard part: reeling them in with your sales pitch... ... but that's a talk for another time Just use the ideas I've mentioned as guidelines for your 1-2 minute pitch and you should get that "second date" with no trouble! Oh before I forget! Good! Now go out there and get cracking! With only 1-2 minutes, you cannot spare time for even the slightest mistake! So make sure you know your stuff back and forth! Attention Preparing a "bite-sized" pitch Get their Attention Bite Practice, practice, practice! Call them to Action! Spark their Interest Interest Minute to Win It So... just to recap: