Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal (3 page)

Third, if your pitch is complicated—if it contains abstract language and lacks visual cues—then it is perceived as a threat. Not a threat in the sense that the person listening to your pitch fears he is going to be attacked, but a threat because without cues and context, the croc brain concludes that your pitch has the potential to absorb massive amounts of brain power to comprehend. And that is a major threat because there just isn’t enough brain power to handle survival needs, the problems of day-to-day life, and existing work problems plus whatever unclear thing you are asking it to do. Presented with this kind of situation, a circuit breaker in your brain is tripped. The result? A neurotoxin gets attached to the potential y threatening message (your pitch). This is like a FedEx tracking number, which, in turn, routes your message to the amygdala for processing—and destruction.

Now, if there is one place in the brain you do not want your pitch to end up, it is the amygdala. This is the fear circuitry of the brain. The amygdala turns messages into physical sensations like a faster heart rate, sweating, increased breathing, and increased anxiety. And it produces a feeling that makes the person want to escape from the presentation.

Pitches are sent from the modern—and smart—part of the brain: the neocortex. But they are received by a part of the brain that is 5 mil ion years older (and not as bright.)

This is a serious problem if you are trying to pitch anything.

Again, this is part of the hardwiring that has al owed us to survive. A lion is chasing you, and without needing to kick it up to your highly evolved neocortex (which would spend a lot of time trying to solve the problem), the
danger
switch in the amygdala is flipped
on
, and it sends the alarm to the rest of the brain to start spitting out chemical and electrical messages that get you to
Run!
before you even have a chance to think. And while we don’t live in the wild any longer, our brains are stil wired to work this way.

Everything in the recent research points to the same conclusion: Nine out of 10 messages that enter the crocodile brain—and remember, every single pitch starts by going through the crocodile brain—end up being coded.

Boring: Ignore it.

Dangerous: Fight/run.

Complicated: Radical y summarize (invariably causing a lot to be lost in the process) and pass it in severely truncated form.

We’ve been thinking about this al wrong for years. Clearly, we need a new way of pitching.

Rules of Engagement

There are the two questions we always ask ourselves after we have made a presentation or pitch: 1. Did I get through?

2. Was my message wel received?

We assume that our audience wil do what we want them to do if our idea is good, if we didn’t stumble through the pitch, and if we showed a winning personality. Turns out, it doesn’t work that way. What is vital y important is making sure your message fulfil s two objectives: First, you don’t want your message to trigger fear alarms. And second, you want to make sure it gets recognized as something positive, unexpected, and out of the ordinary—a pleasant novelty.

Bypassing those fear alarm sensors can be extremely difficult. Creating novelty in the message can be tricky, too. But it is the only way our pitch stands any chance whatsoever because the crocodile brain wants information a certain way—simple, clear, nonthreatening, and above al , intriguing and novel. You need to communicate in these ways, or you are never going to capture people’s attention.

The croc brain is picky and a cognitive miser whose primary interest is survival. It doesn’t like to do a lot of work and is high maintenance when it is forced to perform. It requires concrete evidence—presented simply in black and white—to make a decision. Minor points of differentiation don’t interest it. And this is the brain to which you are pitching.

As the principal gateway to the mind, the croc brain doesn’t have a lot of time to devote to new projects. It’s overseeing a big, complex operation (taking care of survival) and can’t get bogged down in nuance and details. It likes facts clearly explained. It wants to choose between just two clearly explained options. And it needs you to get to the point fast. It goes to sleep during PowerPoint presentations, and it needs strong summarizing points to keep its attention.

If it gets real y excited about some new project you have presented, then it approves it. Otherwise, it gives up on it, doesn’t give it another thought, and goes on to the next issue.

The harsh but true reality is that the croc brain—the source of your target’s first reaction to your pitch—is Going to ignore you if possible.

Only focused on the big picture (and needs high-contrast and wel -differentiated options to choose between).

Emotional, in the sense it wil respond emotional y to what it sees and hears, but most of the time that emotional response is fear.

Focused on the here and now with a short attention span that craves novelty.

In need of concrete facts—it looks for verified evidence and doesn’t like abstract concepts.

When I learned these rules of engagement for dealing with the crocodile brain, I had my big “Aha” moment. I understood two very important things: First, I final y
got
the fundamental problem you and I have when we pitch something: We have our highly evolved neocortex, which is ful of details and abstract concepts, trying to persuade the crocodile brain, which is afraid of almost everything and needs very simple, clear, direct, and nonthreatening ideas to decide in our favor. Second, I realized that when my pitches had gone wel , I had inadvertently adhered to the five rules of engagement contained in the bul et points above. I had made the crocodile brain feel safe; I was feeding it short vignettes of clear, visual, and novel information; and I wasn’t making it do much work. (I also understood that when I didn’t stick to those rules of engagement, I usual y failed.) Why do these rules of engagement matter for pitching? Sometimes they don’t. If you’re pitching the Google Android phone, 3D television, or a Ferrari coupe, the brain becomes so flooded with dopamine—a chemical in your brain that sends messages about pleasure and rewards—that any old pitch wil work. But short of having a product that’s so sexy it’s irresistible—you have to observe the rules about how the brain works. How to do this makes up the heart of this book.

What Comes Next

What became clear to me after my big “Aha” moment was that I needed to bridge the gap between the way the neocortex and crocodile brain see the world. More specifical y, if I wanted my pitch to get through, I needed to be able to translate al the complex ideas coming out of my neocortex and present them in a way that the crocodile brain of the person I was pitching could easily accept and pay attention to.

It took me countless efforts to come up with a formula that worked. Now you are going to learn that formula.

As you wil see, it begins by
setting the frame
for your pitch, putting your big idea into an easily understood context. And then, once the frame is established, you must seize
high social status
so that you have a solid platform from which to pitch. Then you must create messages that are ful of
intrigue
and
novelty
.

To make this process easier to remember, I use the acronym
STRONG
:

S
etting the frame

T
el ing the story

R
evealing the intrigue

O
ffering the prize

G
etting a decision

Over the years, I’ve used this formula—which we wil be exploring in detail—in deal after deal with executives from Bear Stearns, Boeing, Disney, Honda, LinkedIn, Texas Instruments, and Yamaha. Each time I pitched, I learned more about the behaviors of the croc brain, and I eventual y came to the understanding that there are five separate places where you can stumble in a pitch. Each step in the process represents one of these points where missteps can be fatal. When the other person’s croc brain becomes either bored, confused, or threatened, your pitch is in trouble.

In the pages ahead I wil discuss how to avoid those problems and create the perfect pitch, one that gains the ful endorsement of the croc brain and increases your chances of success dramatical y.

It was July 2001, and I stood in front of a towering office in the heart of Beverly Hil s. This was a corridor of power, both in Hol ywood and the financial world, a place where careers were made, a place where deals got done.

And here I was, headed to the office of a guy who control ed close to $1 bil ion in assets. It’s not every day you pitch someone with this level of influence. If you think I was nervous, think again. For once, I wasn’t pitching. Instead, a col eague, Tom Davis, would be pitching to this icon of corporate finance, Bil Belzberg, one of the three bil ionaire Belzberg brothers.

You might have heard of the Belzbergs if you fol ow the business press. They rose to prominence as corporate raiders in the 1980s. Merely observing one of them in the boardroom was a master class in finance, so I was looking forward to what would materialize in the next hour.

Tom was 31, charismatic, a likeable CEO type. He had a nice company in place, but he lacked the money to grow. To get that money, he was wil ing to try the impossible—impress Belzberg.

I smiled to myself. This was going to be interesting. I’d watched Tom rehearse his presentation, and he had good instincts.

“My pitch is total y bul etproof, I have nerves of steel, and I’m bringing my A-game,” he had said while we were waiting in Belzberg’s lobby. His confidence was inspiring.

“We’l see,” I said. “Just relax.”

Soon after that, we were moved to the conference room. After more than 30 minutes of waiting, we watched as the double doors swung open. Bil Belzberg strode through as if entering a saloon. At 69 years old, he was tal and lanky. He waved his arm at Tom, motioning him to get started. Tom looked at me, and I nodded the go-ahead. Belzberg remained standing and almost immediately cut Tom off, “Look, I only want to know two things from you. What are monthly expenses, and how much are you paying yourself?”

Not what Tom wanted to hear. He had a different pitch planned, and now he was looking foolish, searching his bag to find expense charts. Where were the confidence and nerves of hardened titanium? He dropped his papers and stuttered a bit. He was lost.

Belzberg had said only 20 words. As you wil see, it’s possible for a 20-word disruption to control the fate of any deal. Why is that? An analogy, like the one below, might help explain al this.

Imagine for a moment that there is some kind of powerful energy field that surrounds al of us, silently transmitting from the depths of our subconscious. This invisible defense shield is genetical y designed to protect our conscious minds from sudden intrusion by ideas and perspectives that are not our own.

When that energy field is overwhelmed, however, it col apses. Our mental defenses fail, and we become subject to another person’s ideas, desires, and commands. That person can impose his wil .

No one real y knows whether there are human energy fields or not, but perhaps this is the best way to think about the mental structures that shape the way we see the world, which I cal
frames.
And in a moment, you wil begin to understand what happened when Tom’s frame came into contact with—and col apsed under—Bil Belzberg’s power frame.

Imagine looking at the world through a window frame that you hold in your hands. As you move the frame around, the sounds and images you encounter are interpreted by your brain in ways that are consistent with your intel igence, values, and ethics. This is your
point of view
.

Another person can look at the same thing through his own frame, and what he hears and sees may differ—by a little or a lot.

The common label given to this is
perspective
. I might perceive and interpret things differently than you do—which is a good thing. Another perspective is often what we need as we nurture our ideas and values.

Yet, as we interpret the world through our frames, something else happens. Our brains process what our senses tel us and quickly react with a series of questions: Is it dangerous? Should I eat it or mate with it? This is the croc brain at work, doing what it does best—detecting frames, protecting us from threats, and using dominance and aggression to deflect attacking ideas and information.

There are mil ions of people in the business world, and each brings a frame to his or her social encounters. Whenever two or more people come together to communicate in a business setting, their frames square off and then come into contact, but not in a cooperative or friendly manner.

Frames are extremely competitive—remember, they are rooted in our survival instincts—and they seek to sustain dominance.

When frames come together, the first thing they do is col ide. And this isn’t a friendly competition—it’s a
death match
. Frames don’t merge. They don’t blend. And they don’t intermingle.
They collide, and the stronger frame absorbs the weaker.

Only one frame wil dominate after the exchange, and the other frames wil be subordinate to the winner.
This is what happens below the surface
of every business meeting you attend, every sales call you make, and every person-to-person business communication you have.

The moment your frame makes contact with the frame of the person you are cal ing on, they clash, battle, and grapple for dominance. If your frame wins, you wil enjoy
frame control
, where your ideas are accepted (and fol owed) by the others. But if your frame loses, though, you wil be at the mercy of your customer, and your success wil depend on that customer’s charity.