Natural born pitchers

You’re pitching ideas for as long as you can remember. You pitched the idea of owning a PlayStation to your parents. You pitched the idea of having your honeymoon in Iceland. You pitched the idea of buying a new coffee machine for the workgroup to your boss.

For sure, you haven’t been successful with all of them but I bet that when you really cared, you succeeded. You wanted it so badly that you gave it your all. You just didn’t give up.

More importantly, you were able to empathise. You were finding the reasons that matter to them. You were, in fact, looking to make it easy for the other person to say yes rather than forcing them (which often wouldn’t even have been possible) or persuading them (which often wouldn’t have worked, anyway).

This is one major aspect of pitching that gets lost when we don’t care as much. Then, we don’t try as hard to make it easy to approve. We don’t try as hard to walk in their shoes. As a result, we expect them to figure out why it’s also great for them. We leave it to them.

At least two take-aways here:

• It’s much easier to pitch when you really care. So, if you don’t care as much, it most likely pays off to work on the idea first before pitching it.
• It’s invaluable to walk in their shoes. They are so much more likely to approve when it’s easy for them to say “yes!”.

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