Your Biggest Enemy in any Pitch or Presentation

Whenever you prepare a startup pitch or presentation, I’m sure you do it very well. You put all the numbers in, all the facts and all the arguments why people should follow the path you put forward.

But when you do all that, do you also think about your biggest enemy in the room?

When you step on the stage there is not only one of them but possibly dozens of them in the room. They are all ready to distract your audience and to turn your presentation into wasted time for everyone.

I’m not at all talking about your audience or mean bystanders who happen to be there. I’m talking about a much smaller but yet powerful member in the room:

Smartphones.

They come with text messages from girlfriends, breaking news from events and calls from managers. Even worse, all those smartphones can vibrate. Something you probably can’t do on stage.

Now, why does it matter to you and your pitch?

Before you can get someone interested in your idea, product, or startup, you need one of the scarcest resources of our times: Attention.

We are now in any minute connected to the entire globe and that has been a blessing in many regards. When it comes to attention, though, it has become a curse.

Just because your audience is sitting there does not mean that they are with you. In the end, their smartphone and all its interesting content is only a tiny move away.

Unless you engage people bytelling them a story they can relate to, an impressive fact they didn’t know about, or even just a joke that actually worksyou don’t deserve their attention.

Every media company and every app developer think hard about how to be interesting. Your audience can expect the same effort from you.

So when you sit in front of your next presentation and ponder over the intro to choose, ask yourself:

Is it more interesting than the last message from my best friend?

And whenever you get stuck, I’m here to help.