Pitch, please: repelling stupidity in meetings
Sir John Hegarty
Co-founder and Creative Director at The Garage Soho & The Business of Creativity
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Creative entrepreneurs know the feeling. You’re assembled with a group of decision-makers in a boardroom. They could be potential clients, investors, or members of your own management. But whoever they are, the onus is on you to deliver a pitch that lands them on your side of the argument – and secure buy in. It seems to be going well. Your address is gathering momentum. There’s eye-contact, affirmative mumblings and – yes – even a bit of nodding going on. Then, as you are about to make your thematic crescendo, an idiotic (and uninvited) question ruins your rhythm.
It doesn’t matter what the question is, the purpose of it is always the same. The person the query originates from has taken a dislike to your plan – or more likely, to you. They mean to unseat your idea with a canny observation, which they’ve – cleverly, they think – posed as a question. I faced this scenario so frequently in the course of my advertising career, that I developed a quick method of repelling such incursions. It has three steps. And it’s easy to remember because each step is the same.
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Step one: ask your assailant to repeat their objection.
Step two: say – politely – that you still don’t quite understand their point. Could they repeat it?
Step three: apologise and explain that you really don’t know what they mean. Might they try a final time?
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The effect of this is as follows: Each time your adversary repeats their grievance, they will shorten its phrasing. Most foolish statements at work are hidden within jargon and excess words. Strip these out, and you’re left with condensed idiocy. When this happens, it’s impossible for anyone around the table to concur with them. It’s at this point that they realise how daft they’ve been in the first place – and agree with your initial idea.
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Try it and let me know how you get on.
Co-founder of The Pack: a B2B marketing consultancy. Marketing professional in the financial services industry. Co-owner at Nineteen Eighty Studios. Bass player for There Be Wolves.
4 周I've tried this a few times. "Why don't you understand what I am saying?" invariably comes in by the second pass, which is great - if anyone loses their cool first it shouldn't be you. One man's "aloof" is another's "unflappable".
Qualitative Researcher
4 周Sir John Remember Haagen Dazs. I think you had already secured the business but the OK for the creative work hadn’t taken place. I did the Qual research and still have a vivid memory of the meeting where theH?agen-Dazs creative proposition was presented. The work was built on product truths, such as ‘ we don’t use beetroot to colour our ice cream’ … the copy delivered with irreverent, even subversive visuals The young adult target market loved it. After hearing of the the strength, difference and enthusiasm for this approach, the most senior client, who had flown across the Atlantic for this meeting, stunned us all with a comment that nobody saw coming!! Do you recall the objection??
Internal and External Assessment and Moderation
1 个月Conceptually clever, of course. However, if this person is the one in the position of final approval might this not just reaffirm their anti-pitch position, confirming that this isn’t the company for them/their business, as you didn’t endeavour to answer their question? My tactic would always be to say, if you bear with me, we will be answering that shortly in the presentation, even if we’re not. At the end of the session, when general questions are answered, often it will have been forgotten or if asked again, answer it or get a colleague too. The approach of saying the question hasn’t been understood appears to belittle the asker and make the person deflecting it look a little daft.
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Managing Director New Era Communications, founder Incubator Ventures "backing great ideas" & Henley Jazz & Blues Week
1 个月I remember many years ago doing a pitch to a client board for a very large and prestigeous, globally, uk public Millenium exhibition. The well known designer consultant they'd appointed to their advisory board decided to bring his post that day and, 20 minutes into our pitch while I was presenting with my team, he proceeded to take no notice and open his mail. Dilemma, should I just carry on or stop and make my point that we've spent a lot of our own time and money on the pitch and can he therefore please respect that and watch and listen. I chose the latter. The chairman agreed, apologised to me and the team and asked him to leave. We won the pitch. Moral? Follow your convictions.