I went through my semi-annual review yesterday and got some very good feedback. I need to learn when pitching concepts to executives to get to the point faster. As some of us that work at larger corporations know, it is nearly impossible to get face time with our high level execs. But these are also the people that hold the power to say Yes or No to our ideas, so when we do get that time, we need to nail it. I always find the challenge with social media concepts is that I tend to pitch the backstory before the actual concept, like my setup for a joke. Not because they dont understand, but because I am trying to give more context to why I am pitching is this way. People must understand the challenges and why before we pitch the “How to”.

The analogy used, which I think is a good one was: think of the time you spend pitching to an exec as a cash register, every minute that passes, money is spent (ching-ching), because their time is so limited that every minute is money not being made somewhere else. (or something to that effect, you get the point). I guess for whatever reason I never really thought of it that way. I get the whole “they are tight for time” thing, but I always thought that when you finally got your time, you used it to the max because you dont get second chances to pitch first ideas. But when you work in a sales environment and those execs are the ones helping close deals, I get it.

This had me thinking, how can I self teach myself better to get to the point faster? Less bullets on a slide (pull out the deets)? Talk faster (speed talking is fun)? Go high level and leave the details for later (whats this idea for again)? … OR reward myself for being rewarded? By that I mean, turn that timer around and give the $$ to myself. Now I know, paying myself out of my own pocket for doing my job doesn’t even begin to make sense, but if I can figure out a reward system for myself, this might work.

I have 5 slides. I start off with $25 and start going backwards. Not sure what a good goal is, but am thinking each solid slide should take me 1 minute. For every minute I go over on each slide I lose $5. So 5 slides in under 5 minutes, for every minute saved, I double the dollar amount (4 mins=$50, 3mins=$75) and put it towards a gift for myself. 5 slides in 5 minutes, it is a wash. Now here is the fun part… 5 slides in 6 minutes means I keep $20 and give $5 to my wife. 5 slides in 8 minutes means I keep $10 and $15 goes to my wife. And to top it off, if I hit 10 minutes (double time) on 5 slides, she gets all $25 and I have learned a valuable lesson: “make sure next time I don’t go over my time anymore.” (maybe I need to start with quarters)