TJ Walker answers an online student who must present a new business pitch in a university setting. He advises using storytelling to make the idea memorable, but tailoring evidence (e.g., statistics) to the academic audience; if the presenter lacks firsthand experience, collect second-hand stories and concrete results from practitioners to illustrate key points.
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So what do you do if you have to give a new business pitch but it's in an academic environment? That is the question that comes from one of my online students. Hussain writes in dj Enjoying your new business pitch presentation course? I have a presentation July 25th on an idea that can improve sales of chain stores. This is a new idea in my country and I have planned to make money with this idea. But I have a problem because I will present the idea in a university first in front of three professors. In an academic environment it's a little hard to tell stories and I have no experience about my idea. What kind of stories should I tell them? Well, I think you're on exactly the right approach thinking about stories because stories are the ultimate example that helps people remember. Now you mentioned it's an academic environment and you are right. Most academics don't tell stories to make their point. But keep in mind, anytime you do something different, there's the chance that you fail to meet expectations and people don't like it. But there's also a chance that you exceed expectations if you have stories and they seem to be 100% relevant to the issue at hand. In my experience, every academic likes that. You're not going to be overly emotional and hokey and talking about on bended knee proposing to a spouse. It's not that. But if you're trying to tell people on how to sell chain stores more effectively, you need to pick up the phone or Skype, call people, whether it's in the US or Great Britain or wherever, talk to people who've actually done it, talk about how much money they made, how they did it, the efficiencies gained and how this business was transformative. You need to talk to people who have done it. You said you haven't done it, fine. But you've got to talk to people who've really done it. Share their experiences, share what they said to you, how they said it, what they were feeling to illustrate every key point. Now you've got to know your audience and if the three academics are all statistics, well then let's give them more statistics. But let's still give the most powerful memorable device there is, the power of the story. So please, just because you haven't experienced it doesn't mean you can't pick up the phone call and get second hand stories to illustrate your point. Good luck with the new business pitch.
