You could have the most amazing product or idea that a hackathon has ever seen, but if you don’t use your pitch presentation effectively no one is going to take notice.
In this series of videos Nancy Duarte explains the importance of presentations and using them effectively when it comes to pitching an idea or product. Nancy Duarte is a communication expert who has been featured in a number of respectable publications as well as having written five best-selling books of her own. Her firm is a global leader in visual messaging surrounding business and culture. She’s a ‘persuasion expert’ that manages to weave storytelling and story patterns into business communications.
In these videos Nancy Duarte gets right to the heart of what will make our presentations better when we start to work on our pitches.
- Don’t get creative before you understand your idea – Putting together your presentation is creatively telling your story in a linear fashion. If you start to put your idea into a pitch presentation before you fully understand it, it becomes so much easier to miss out on thinking about the finer details. You need to make sure you understand your idea in its messiest form before you can make it look pretty.
- A great pitch doesn’t start with ‘Save As’ – It’s super easy to open up an old pitch deck or presentation and then work your new idea into these old slides, but it isn’t going to be effective. Each new idea will have its own story, its own audience, and your presentation should represent that. Start fresh with a new presentation, give your idea that respect and originality it deserves.
- Are you spending too much time on your presentation? – Obviously having a presentation to accompany your pitch is important, but how much time is too much time when it comes to making your slides? It’s all about proportion as Duarte suggests. The presentation should be proportionate to what is at stake. If you spend the whole hackathon perfecting your presentation you run the risk of not delving deep enough into your idea, the challenges, or any number of things.
These are all great things to remember as you prepare for your next pitch.