Page 142 - The Presentation Secrets of Steve Jobs How to Be Insanely Great in Front of Any Audience by Carmine Gallo

USE “AMAZINGLY ZIPPY” WORDS 123

A Cure for Bad Pitches

Don’t sell solutions; create stories instead. The New York Times
columnist David Pogue loves a good pitch. He says the major-
ity of his columns come from pitches. What he doesn’t want
to hear is jargon. Surprisingly, PR professionals are among the
worst offenders (surpassed only by bureaucrats, senior man-
agers, and IBM consultants). Pogue argues that buzzwords
(terminology such as “integrated,” “best of breed,” “B2B,” and
“consumer-centric”) are unnecessary. The ideal pitch is a short
paragraph telling Pogue exactly what the product is and does.
For example, one company wrote Pogue and said it had a new
laptop that could be dropped from six feet, could be dunked
in water, and could survive three-hundred-degree heat and
still work. This clever description was enough to grab Pogue’s
attention.
The Bad Pitch blog is a must-read for PR, marketing, and
sales professionals. The site carries actual pitches from PR pro-
fessionals who should know better than to issue impenetrable
jargon masking as a press release.
Here’s an example: “Hope you’re well. I’d like to introduce
you to , a new, place-based out-of-home digi-
tal network that delivers relevant, localized media within
the rhythm of consumers’ daily rituals, like afternoon coffee
or sandwiches at lunch.” This particular pitch came from a
company that puts video billboards in delis. Why couldn’t they
just say that? It’s too simple, that’s why. People are afraid of
simplicity. This is not an isolated example. The site is updated
daily with pitches from large and small PR agencies as well
as small and large corporations. Apple pitches rarely make
the site, because the company’s press releases tell a story
in the same conversational language that Jobs uses in his
presentations.
As the site’s mantra explains, “A good pitch disappears and
turns into the story; a bad pitch becomes the story.” Follow the
blog posts at http://badpitch.blogspot.com.