TEN Golden Rules 

To Personal Pitching

 

 

1.) Eye Contact - ALWAYS make eye contact with everyone in the room!

 

2.) Hand Gestures - Whether you keep them near you, or use them to demonstrate your thoughts, just make sure that they are not distracting the audience with overuse.

 

3.) Body Movement - You may need to move around, some people do in order to 'think freely', but if it gets where you are jumping around the place too much, your audience will only focus on that.

 

4.) Vocal Volume - Keep in mind the size of the room, whether you need to project your voice or tone it down a notch. If you are shouting your message (while maybe trying to be enthusiastic), your listeners only hear that you are speaking 'at' them and not 'to' them.

 

5.) Articulation - No one likes a mumbler and if you are in a room where you are jumbling over your words, your audience loses interest very quickly, no matter how shiny, bright and amazing your product is.

 

6.) Pausing - Don't rush through your sentences. Take a pause between important points. If you want to have impact, the best way is to emphasize your buzz or key words and then pause. Let it sit in the silence of your audience and get comfortable in that silence. It shows just how in control you are of your pitch.

 

 

7.) Emphasis - When you get to the part of your pitch where a key part needs to be highlighted, get your voice ready to pause, emphasize and pause again.

 

8.) Vocal Variety - Don't flat line. Work out any monotonous sounds in your voice so that the intonation and variety keeps your audience interested and keen to keep listening to you.  A little bit more emphasis in your buzz words and phrases will help with this.

 

9.) Speed - Relax and don't rush through your pitch. If you increase the rate of your words, those listening will find it hard to keep up with you and you will probably lose their interest, fast!

 

10.) Smile - When you relax your facial expressions and smile, you will deliver more smoothly and it gets a great reception always from your audience.