If you want to win pitches for new business I would encourage you to be a constant student of public speaking.
Recently I wrote an article that received a lot of attention, “Steve Jobs: 10 Presentation Tactics for Ad Agency New Business.”
Every new business pitch should do three things: inform, educate and entertain.
This week my resource is a bit dated but can be just as helpful. I’d like to go back in time to the 1930’s, “Monroe’s motivated sequence,” is a technique for organizing persuasive speeches that is still in use today. It was developed by Alan H. Monroe at Purdue University.
Monroe’s helpful technique for organizing speeches consists of the following five steps:
- Attention. Get the attention of your audience that they have a PROBLEM using a detailed story, shocking example, dramatic statistic, quotations, etc.
- Need. Concisely EXPLAIN the problem, that it is significant, won’t go away by itself and convince your audience that there needs is a need for action. Use examples, statistics, research, etc.
- Satisfy. You need to let them know that you have the SOLUTION. Provide specific solutions that can be implemented to solve the problem.
- Visualization. Tell the audience what will happen your solution is IMPLEMENTED or what happens if it does not take place. Be visual and detailed.
- Action. Tell the audience what action they can take personally to solve the problem.
Additional presentation resources that you may find helpful:
- Six Lessons on Ad Agency Pitches from Lorraine Rojek
- If you are not winning over 60% of New Business Pitches – be prepared to change your approach, your team, you or all of the above!
- Nationally recognized political speechwriter Robert Lehrman shares speechwriting lessons in new book
- 10 Ad Agency Pitch KILLERS
- 10 Tips to Get Speaking Opportunities for Ad Agency New Business
- 20 Tips for Account Winning Pitches