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Pitching for new business is a make-or-break moment for many teams. You lot want to win the pitch, and then y'all develop a detailed slide deck, tout your credentials, capabilities and successes (case studies), and select your strongest presenter – maybe the leader of your team or visitor — to exercise all the talking. Correct? Wrong.

A good pitch is a balancing act that tin can be adjusted to the currents in the room. A recent survey of HBR readers constitute — at to the lowest degree in this community — how of import it is to sympathise not simply what yous are pitching, but who you are pitching to. This was relatively unsurprising until we dug into the reasons why: The more senior your audience, we learned, the less you should rely on your deck and the more than yous should expect your pitch to be a conversation, showing your team's authentic passion for the challenge or trouble and their resilience for solving it creatively, together.

Our Survey

In Jan of this year, nosotros published an online survey seeking insights from managers who hear a lot of pitches. We asked them what they value most — and least — in a pitch. We also asked them to cocky-identify their gender as well as whether they are entry-level, mid-level or executive decision-makers. We received more than than 1,800 responses. Of the respondents who provided their gender, 75 percent identified equally male and 25 percent identified equally female person. Of the respondents who provided their seniority, 12 percent were entry-level, 37 pct were mid-level and 51 percentage executives. In total over the last yr, respondents take the cumulative experience of hearing up to ten,000 pitches.

Here's what they told us.

Lesson 1: Be a master of the facts, but know that for an executive audience, your relevant experience matters most.

The more senior the audition you are pitching to, the sooner y'all must register your relevant experience and how information technology solves their challenge in unscripted conversation. Heed well, and map your noesis and feel to what you hear. Only for less senior audiences, it's more important to testify mastery of facts. Do your enquiry and show it.

Lesson 2: Avoid pitches where only i person speaks.

Respondents of all levels told usa that a pitch team with good chemistry together is much more trustworthy than one senior person who does all the talking. Reconsider the wisdom of bringing people to a pitch who say nothing or accept no clear expertise. Utilise your team to amplify your expertise in a pitch, non dilute it. Of class, one senior person who is skillful in all the relevant areas, listens well to the audience, and can build (or already has) their trust, will defeat a squad that does not heed and is unable to utilise their collective expertise to the contours of the audition's objective.

Lesson three: Exist passionate about the trouble, not only your production.

Beyond experience and facts, passion for the pitch was a top trait that our respondents highlighted as of import. "I want to feel their energy for the pitch. The other key aspect is their mastery of the detail. Is it really in their blood … or simply skin deep?" wrote 1 executive-level respondent.

Simply passion should go beyond your own product. Said another respondent, "I desire to hear near me not about them." The lesson here is that if you lot're pitching, be passionate well-nigh who yous are pitching as well as much as you are nearly your own product.

Lesson 4: Heed closely and respond advisedly.

Few decision-makers want to be "pitched." They desire you lot to listen to them, enquire questions, and empathize their signal of view on their problem before hearing your solution. And the more senior the audience, the more they want to take a conversation, to be heard and to hear what you retrieve of their challenge. "I wish they listened more than and spoke less," wrote one executive respondent. Shared another, "Listen and ask questions about my goals."

Even for seasoned pitch teams, it can be difficult to exist in a room with someone or a group who tin decide the quality of your immediate time to come, and non advocate hard for it. It is only natural to want to lead, explicate and prove why y'all should win. And considering employers, investors, and innovators alike want the full story of their greatness to be understood by a determination-maker, it is abomination to terminate speaking. But that is what your audience wants; not to larn more than about you, but for you to hear (in the pitch) more about them and to make your greatness directly applicable and relevant to their goals, unscripted and alive.

Winning the Pitch

In well-nigh meaning competitive pitches, your experience and mastery of facts are certainly essential and must be demonstrated (chop-chop), because decision-makers of course want an proficient to win the pitch. Yet, and I can say from personal experience, almost everyone who pitches frequently has an instance of a pitch they should have won, on paper, but did non. The reason is often that all those pitching accept probably achieved the expertise and mastery of facts needed to solve the audition'southward bug. That's why they were invited to pitch in the first place; it is the price of entry, the low-hanging fruit, a common denominator. It'south paying attention to these other factors, then, that makes the difference.

The difference, so, between pitch winners and losers, is your chemical science — both as a team pitching and with your audience. It is your empathy for your audition, your passion for meeting a challenge together with them, your ability to listen, speak directly and apply your expertise, in the pitch. It is also the tone y'all tin can create in the room — presenting yourselves as a club your audition wants to bring together, knowing how to surprise, delight and engage your audience with your unique version of relevant expertise and problem-solving, live.

There are no absolute truths — pitching is not a science. Just this survey backs up how of import it is to learn to read the room when you lot starting time walk in. Is your audition, junior, mid-level or senior executive? What you run across may suggest you lot adjust your pitch to what your audition wants and values.