WHY DO AUSTRALIANS SUCK AT PITCHING?
Anthill helped put together Pitch Club’s third event, held in Melbourne late last month.
I had a great time, watching nine eager business builders pitch their cunning concepts to an audience of supportive fellow entrepreneurs and investors.
But one aspect of the night stood out as memorable above all else.
The most ill-prepared, disorganised, unpracticed pitcher, a ring-in, who raised his hand at the last-minute to fill an unforeseen scratching, took home the coveted Pitch Club Crown (an Anthill cap, a bottle of Moet and the admiration of the Pitch Club crowd).
Some of the more experienced pitchers on the night were perplexed. And for good reason. At Pitch Club Melbourne, the concise, articulate and very, very smooth were left for dead by the stuttering, self-deprecating, albeit endearing, banter of our winner.
To check out the video teaser, click here.
So, how did this happen?
My unscientific opinion is that most Australians don’t like their mates to skite. They don’t like tall-poppies and they hate anyone too fond of the word “I”.
Attend any Australian rock concert and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.
Silverchair will begin a set by politely making small talk with the audience. Crowded House will explain the meaning of a song in quiet, purposeful tones.
However, attend an American rock concert… and… well… you wouldn’t be surprised to hear those famous five words brayed at you with the force of a Marshall amplifier:
“Are you ready to rock!”
I’ve wondered this for years. While US teens are being taught in the school of positive self-assertion (sometimes a little too much, me thinks), Australian kids are being told to tuck their shirts in and speak when spoken to (unless your name is Corey and you like to party).
Let’s face it. Australians have their own way of getting a message across.
But here’s the question: Is our way the better way?
When given the chance, do our tall-poppies shine or do they quickly turn into wall-flowers when put under the international sun-lamp?
March 13th, 2008 at 9:56 am
Whether one considers modesty or self promotion appealing is not the issue. The only way a person can most effectively communicate is by being themselves. The key to pitching in this context is to know what it is you are tying to communicate.
Bad pitching is largely a reflection of a poorly constructed message and far less a reflection of poor delivery (although clearly quality at both levels is desirable).
In pitchig a business one must focus on the value proposition of the business. To do this one has to understand what a value proposition is…in my experience many would be entrepreneurs (and, indeed many successful business people) don’t actually have this understanding. It is particularly difficult for those attempting to commercialise technology based innovation.
In simple terms a value proposition defines why one believes that the target market will feel compelled to purchase. Put another way, why the target market will consider the value they receive as greater than the amount they have to pay.
This may sound simple but it isn’t. There are all sorts of quantitative and qualitaive motivators associated with buying decisions and the better they are understood, the richer one’s value proposition becomes. Often it’s equally difficult to properly identify the target market !
Identify and develop your value proposition and refine its expression. This needs to be central to your pitch. The balance of your pitch should focus on why you (and your team) are best placed to execute.
Remember, the pitch is about starting a conversation (not ending it). Once the conversation is underway, you will need the detail to back up your prima facie claims.
March 13th, 2008 at 10:09 am
It’s not a question of better or worse re: Us vs USA - it’s knowing how to frame the pitch to our respective cultures. A brief example of the cultural difference - say an IT professional turns up to your organisation driving a Ferrari - an American would think “Wow! This guy’s a success - I want him to work with me” - and Australian would think (amongst other things) “This guy’s gonna to rip me off!”. To generalise, it’s about the substance behind the selling for Australians. An adage a previous manager told me is that “Australians love to buy, but hate being sold to.” I hope this generates some interest.
Regards,
- Steve
March 13th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Three cheers for your previous manager Steve.
Sounds like he really had an understanding of his market.
It is more about the way the story is told and building a relationship in those first 10 seconds of meeting a person. I have found this equally true of those I have met and sold to all over the world. I am writing this from Vanuatu (tough job, but somebody had to do it), where exactly the same process holds true. If you are open and honest about what you are trying to achieve - the sky is the limit.
If you are loud and brash, with substance to what you say, that is ok too.
If you are loud and brash and full of hot air, you will quickly be seen for exactly what you are.
Lukim yu,
::Jay::
March 13th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
The discussion the group I was in had was that the pitchers have probably spent so much time on their ideas that they go straight to the technical good bits (to them). As the audience we are brand new to their idea so we need it simple. Most of the time the pitch had finished and we were still asking what did they say? And what is their product exactly?
The bloke that won was very clear with his message and we understood exactly how it worked. He was fantastic.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:44 pm
Throughout my travels (thanks james never heard that one before :p) I have seen and heard a lot of pitches.
Presenters pitching are selling, and I guess to appreciate the art of the sale and the value of a good salesperson is an appreciation that is lost on many Australians, and yes that is converse to American values.
So that leaves only one thing, perception of value.
The thing that presenter must have done was to capture the attention, engage the interest, and create a desire, to create an action from the audience (I wasnt there but he must have to get that result no?) and that is the AIDA art of selling / presenting.
So based on that, and my personal experience I dont belive we suck (as a culture) at pitching, 3 out of my 4 key salespeople are Australian, and they rock.
They are my pride and joy.
Through bitter personal experience I must agree though, Aussies are culturally opposed to being pitched.
There IS a real antipathy to sales as an art in this country, I believe because few really understand the dynamics of a sale well enought to appreciate the quality of a well crafted pitch.
Perhaps because they think that to be pitched is to be “bullshitted”.
Perhaps because sadly this is sometimes true.
The exposure they have had to salespeople or presenters pitching them has been limited by a bad past experience which has forever coloured their views on sales people.
I have employed (and had to unemploy) many sales people who felt they had to lie or trick, or smooth talk thier prospects into buying.
It doesnt suit my product, I dont need liars in my sales team, our clients are too valuable to lie to.
And I believe it is this small part of the culture in sales generally, which perpetuates the perception which some people in sales work hard to change, that salespeople are all shonky fly by night desperadoes.
Which makes it harder for those of us trying to earn an honest quid.
Gilesy
March 13th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
I spoke to a US-imported CEO of an Australian company who summed up the cultural difference this way: “when I walked into a all-staff meeting in the US the whole room would stand up and clap; when I walk into a room here a guy up the back says ‘who the f@# is that guy?”
March 17th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
A few reasons (buried within some massive generalisations …:
We are not trained to present. Few Austalian highschools make a habit of putting their students out in front of a group to speak. Hence we are much more comfortable sitting in the audience.
We are shy. Be it fear of the tall poppy syndrome, or some cultural retardation, we are reticent to say that we are actually good at what we do, or prove it. It’s something we need to get over quickly. If we aren’t prepared to say and demonstrate that our products and services are the best in the world, no one else is going to do it for us.
We do not do enough research on the audience. A one-size-fits all presentation does not exist. Each presentation and pitch needs to be tailored to who is in the room, and getting across your message in such a way that it fits to their needs.
We forget what we are doing. I’ve witnessed many pitches where the point of the pitch has been totally buried under useless facts. People do not care who your founder was - they care about what you can do to make them more profitable or improve their lives. Everything else is fluff.
We do not understand brevity. Most Australian entrepreneurs baulk at the idea of a five minute presentation, but that’s about all the attention most of us can really secure anyway. Then we kill that attention with a bunch of slides that only serve to reinforce the meaningless information we were serving up verbally. Brevity is the key - keep the audience intrigued, and let them form the questions that will keep them milling around afterwards.
We have no idea what we are doing anyway. When asked to sum up their company in a few words, most entrepreneurs struggle, and cannot articulate their value in a compelling way. Pare it all back and find the core reason for your existence, then move forward from there.
The value of every company can be summed up in one sentence. That one sentence can be used to generate a question, which in turn generates the next statement. It really is that simple.
August 20th, 2008 at 7:57 am
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