Pitching, what’s that about?

IMG_3083

I’m off this evening to do run my workshop on pitching and presenting, as part of Echo ++.

So this is not a shameless plug for my workshop.

The point of the workshop is to focus on being different, standing out and realising everything that we do is ‘pitching’.

What I mean by ‘pitching’ is marketing, and marketing is every single thing that we do in our business. The way we speak, how we answer the phone, our blogs, our social media, our website, our invoices and so on.

It is all about demonstrating our values, being different and articulating ‘why’ we do what we do.

It is not about manipulation and sales, unless all you want to do is build a business on short-term tactics, like price, and run the risk of being out-manipulated by others.

It is about inspiration and creating a situation where people want to be part of your journey and become evangelists for your business. They do it for themselves, as your ’cause’, your ‘movement’, your values, all resonate with them, and they want to be on-board.

Loyalty can’t be bought, it comes from something more meaningful than benefits, features, price and motivation.

It comes from creating our very best work, that is has story behind it, based on values, and is different from the bland mass market.

Urgency

IMG_4574

We must have a ‘sense of urgency’ is something that is often said in business, we need to ‘hustle’.

Is the need for ‘urgency’ or to ‘hustle’ more to do with the need to fit in and to be seen to be following the crowd, than any real business need. The people who will sell you the need for money, will tell you that you need to be ‘hustling’, you have ‘no time to waste’.

There is no fire, there is no life/death deadlines, there is no need to behave to a formulaic pattern, laid out by the ‘wise’.

Standard, generic and easily replicable stuff needs urgency, as if you don’t sell it like ‘hot cakes’, then someone else will or can, thus stealing your prize.

If you want to create remarkable things, that takes time, patience, and means sticking to what you truly believe in. You have to be prepared to invest time, as the very best takes practice and takes a commitment to whatever time it takes to happen.

Urgency is created by those who have no time for the remarkable, only for the now and immediate gratification.

Creating is for people who have all the time in the world, and a desire to do the best that they can.

Don’t get sucked into urgency, be bold and spend time to create your own thing and have faith in your way of doing things.