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It may seem like splitting hairs, the difference between pitching and presenting, that improving your presentation skills will win pitches. That is simply not the case, and it is important for people new to pitching to understand. Anyone who has invested in their presentation skills, but not yet in pitching practice is in for a ride when they compete as a team to persuade a senior audience.  To go one step further, you can be an awkward presenter and still win the pitch – it can even help you.

Presenters present. Typically a 1-way conversation, a presenter stands apart from a seated audience and relays information. Great presentations can be like great performances - the audience listens, learns something, feels something, maybe asks questions.  But the implicit understanding is that presenter tells a story, and the audience will hear it as planned, uninterrupted.

Presenters educate, entertain, inform, introduce and/or argue a POV to a respectful audience. Lawyers present to the jury, Alicia Keys presents at the Grammy’s, executives present vision, plans and results. 

Pitching on the other hand is a competition to persuade decision-makers to accept you and reject others, in a finite time and place.  The implicit understanding is there is something worth winning and the best team and idea will win it.

Though there are many flavors of pitching in business, all have a common trait:  they end in a decision, win or lose. PR agencies pitch stories to journalists, marketing agencies pitch campaigns to clients, and entrepreneurs pitch investors. It may take a few iterations, but all are in the service of an imminent favorable decision.

Pitching is a competition to win.
Presenting is a communication of information.

If your objective is to win a pitch, confusing pitching and presenting will end you.

An audience of decision-makers appreciates the value of knowledge, of course.  But their job is to decide. Present too much information to a decision-maker without a clear path to a decision, and you run into a buzz saw no matter how polished your presentation. By the same token, ask an audience to decide in your favor before building a persuasive rationale (the ‘no-brainer’) -- and you lose.

That is why it is so important to “feel your audience” when pitching.  Endeavor to do this through communication and research in advance of a pitch so you can construct your narrative to be a winning balance between evidence and persuasion.

No matter how well you present, misread at your peril the chemistry, authority and evidence your audience expects in a pitch.

Want to win more new business pitches and make better presentations of your great ideas to a c-suite audience? Consider my SuperProf class >