9 Tips to Improve Your Pitch Meeting
by Jaden
The producers like your treatment or screenplay, but now they want to know more about you and if you have any other good projects. Will you have longevity in the business or was this a one-time creative spark? What matters most is that you sell yourself if you want to sell your story.
Smile some.
Smile genuinely with your happy eyes to show that you are amicable, but not too much that you seem silly, giddy, or nervous.
Be confident.
Everyone loves confident people. Confidence is attractive. Accept your flaws as part of your interesting character. Focus on your strengths and why someone else ought to have confidence in you. Do not voice these things, just have them in mind and believe in yourself. You don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to be personable.
Do not brag or boast.
Bragging and boasting are signs of feigned confidence that show you don’t believe in yourself, but you’re trying real hard to convince everyone else in the room how great you are. Be straightforward about your accomplishments, not arrogant, snobby, or long-winded.
Be concise.
Practice all your story pitches and get each pitch down to two sentences. That should be enough to sell it if the story is any good. If they want to hear more about the story, they will say, “Tell me more about that one.” Also, reduce your writing experience and life story to a paragraph or two at most. Write out these things and remember them. Join in on our Sunday Picture Posts to practice brevity and creativity.
Put a lid on it!
Ask questions and listen. Do not babble or you will annoy your prospectors. Even though they want you to sell yourself and your story, they don’t want to hear your personal dramas or complaints. They want to hear how you are going to make them a lot of money and nothing else. When you hear yourself rambling, just stop. If they ask you personal questions, keep your answers positive and short to one sentence.
Show respect.
Appreciate everyone in the room who has taken time out of their day to give you a chance. Shake their hand and thank them for their time and mean it.
Never give up.
As it has been said, each rejection brings you closer to the win. Ask for feedback. Find out what went wrong and why. Learn from your mistakes and change by the next meeting.
You are ‘it’.
Every time you walk into a meeting, everyone wants you to be ‘it’. If you are the person with the talents for which they have been seeking, you just made their day better, possibly even their year and their life. Your great success means their great success. Show them that you are ‘it’ and you have what they want.
Glowing, confident, talented, lovable people have the ‘it’ factor.
If you were going to give someone a million dollars for a story, what would you want to know about that person?
What I would want to know is that he or she is interesting, cool, creative, original, positive, eloquent, articulate, polite, grateful, experienced, and has common sense. This meeting is your chance to prove those things by your behavior, the way you talk, and what you have to say. Would these people want to sit with you in a room ever again?
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Great tips for any meeting! I’ve checked out the recent book “Good in a Room” by Stephanie Palmer — it’s a generous account of how to master these techniques… :-)