By now you should have written the line under your logo on your website, that establishes your expertise in the mind of the potential client. You should have buttressed that expertise with White Papers and articles, and made yourself approachable and seem empathetic with plenty of contact with the prospective client. If all is going well, the client should’ve tipped you the wink that you are the most favoured candidate in the pitch.

Only now are you are ready to put together your pitch presentation. I am now going to focus on helping you build a winning pitch deck.

The first thing to be clear on, is that the pitch deck will not win the pitch for you. It is merely confirmation of your advantage in this pitch process. Ideally you would not need it, but some firms insist on this kind of process. The job of the deck then is not to win, but not to lose your advantage.

First assemble a team. Every effective creative team I have ever worked in, took the form of a family. At its head were a Mum and Dad, two creatives with different but complementary skill sets. A designer and a writer for instance. A screen writer and a director. The creative world is full of such team ups. Sometimes one is a creative and the other is an editor who recognizes genius in the the chuff. This is sometimes called “one to spout and one to spot.”

You will need a clear view on what the real brief is. You should have a pretty good idea what this is after talking to the client so often before the pitch began. Similarly you should understand your prospective client’s audience, what you are offering them (benefits) and the tone of voice you are going to use.

I am often asked how long a presentation should be. The answer is 20 minutes. That is roughly how long it took Watson and Crick to explain DNA, the building block of life. If they can do it in 20 mins, so can you.

The truth is people’s attention spans are very very short. After twenty minutes, no one in that pitch is listening to a word you are saying. Some think it is more like ten, Dave Hepworth, one time editor of Smash Hits and presenter of the Old Grey Whistle Test told me it was more like two minutes.

For this reason it is vital all your good stuff comes at the start. If it is really good, you can repeat it at the end. It is my certain belief that the decision is made on your presentation three slides in. (And if I am brutally honest, I suspect it is made on the opening slide.)

So make sure you start with your conclusion, your big idea, the takeaway. The opening slide is the one where everyone is paying a attention, so give it everything.

Here are some examples.

 

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