Hi Everyone,
I’ve done my share of pitches throughout the past three years and I would like to share with you some of the tips and tricks that I’ve learned during my experience.
1- KISS “keep it stupid simple”
Simplify your presentation as much as you can, its sole purpose to organize your idea not to show everything, you and your work are the presentations, not the slides.
2- No Animations, no effects don’t waste your and others’ time waiting for an animation to run.
3- Keep the slides clean to keep the people focus on you and not the slide show and waste time reading words or looking into unnecessary photos.
4- The design is important but not at first, complete your whole presentation and then go back and find a suitable design. don’t get dragged down by the design from the start.
and as above choose something minimalistic and easy for the eye.
(LinkedIn Slideshare is an amazing place to check out for examples)
5- You are the presentation so body language is very important don’t try to create fake accents and don’t try so hard. Be yourself and show that confidence in your project and how happy you are in building it. Because that energy is what matters the most.
(I was talking an awesome lady in today’s session and she was worried about smiling or laughing in the middle of the pitch, and it’s simple if you’re project is making you laugh from joy and happiness then show it to the world) PS: her intro was cute too.
6- Respect the people who are listening to you, they don’t know you and your project. So in that short amount of time 3min, you have to be clear and tell them in short words about yourself and your project.
important presentation areas:
1- What is your project?
2- Who are you?
3- Why is your team the best for the job?
4- What have you done so far? and what is the project future?
5- What are you doing that no one else does?
6- Your target audience.
7- Financial and Budget stuff (maybe here you don’t have to include it because you have the next section for it, but you need to check with Bilal on this)
7- Practice Practice Practice, you can’t have enough practice but and this is a big BUT when you’re really passionate about the project and what you do, this is the easiest part.
8- the best way to practice is to find someone who doesn’t know anything about your project and pitch it to him, then let him tell you back everything he understood about you and your project and use his feedback to see if your pitch is good or not and what areas you need to modify.
9- Breath and have fun.
Good Luck everyone and if you needed any help with your presentation list them in the comments or shoot me an e-mail (fadi.a.ashy@gmail.com) and I’ll make sure to check them out.
