For last week,
the main objective was learning how to effectively pitch/present your idea to
the right people. Professor Zak discussed that grabbing the attention of your
audience is imperative within the first couple of milliseconds. This concept is
reinforced in Kimberly D. Elsbach’s Harvard Business Review article, “How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea”, where it talks about how the social entrepreneur’s ability to
communicate his/her idea is just as crucial, if not more important, than the
idea itself. The article goes into depth about how a $50 billion, 6-year long
U.S. film and television study showed that people who hear pitches conclude the
validity/viability for a proposed idea on irrelevant information. For example,
the research shows that if listeners notice any level of dullness or an
unoriginal characteristic in the idea (or in the presentation), they will have
already dismissed the prospective idea within seconds of its introduction.
To counter this
potential problem, we can implement a concept like the “Six U’s”. One of the other
assigned readings was Mihir Patkar’s “Master the ‘Six U’s’ to Perfectly Pitch an Idea”.
In this article, Patkar discusses James Altucher (renowned investor, author,
social entrepreneur, etc.) six specific attributes that allow an idea to be
heard and accepted by important stakeholders: Urgency, Unique, Useful,
Ultra-Specific, User-friendly, and Unquestionable Proof. With this and the
research presented in Elsbach’s article in mind, it is crucial to present the Six-U’s
as quickly as possible when pitching an idea. However, it can be distracting to
present all six at once, so we come to the dilemma of choosing the most
important characteristics to share first. Even looking at external academic
sources, I came across UC Davis’, "The 30 Second Elevator Speech", where they presented best practices in grabbing the listener's attention. Without surprise, it reiterated a lot
of what we have already discovered in the required readings: get to the point
about what the solution can offer, explain vividly, explain the advantages of
your original idea, etc.
Applying all of
this to my social venture project, Impact Youth (an organization dedicated to
providing creative programs and community service opportunities for at-risk
youth in urban settings), I’ve come to the conclusion that I need to work
mostly on the Urgency, Uniqueness and Ultra-Specific U attributes. If these
features are not clear and compelling from the get-go, the other U’s and the
entire idea will have been presented in vain. For instance, the Urgency factor
describes why the problem you are tackling needs to be solved effective
immediately. With my venture, I need to frame why helping youth in poor urban
areas is absolutely necessary right now in this point in time. I am polishing
the phrasing, but the reasoning is that studies have shown the amount of
unproductive, idle at-risk youth is at an all time high in history. With more
verified statistics, this can prove to be a convincing argument for the need of
Impact Youth’s service. As for the Uniqueness and Specificity factors, we have
to acknowledge that they are very similar and highly essential characteristics
that go hand-in-hand. A pitch has to be unique and ultra-specific because most
audiences desire concise precision when it comes to considering a proposal. For
Impact Youth, I could compose a sentence describing specific programs like
creative writing, sports, and art, and explaining the positive psychological
benefits of these leisurely hobbies for kids. Sharon Verner Chappell, renowned
author and associate professor of Education and Curriculum Design, covers this
in her publication, “Children ‘At Risk’: Constructions of Childhood in the 21st Century, Community Learning Centers Federal After-School Program". The empirical evidence from her research suggests that recreational and artistic outlets promote
the building of stronger social skills, interpersonal relationship building,
and conflict resolution/management skills for the children. Not only would this
be a persuasive supporting fact, but it would also act as a practical and
immediate solution for the problem of unproductive at-risk youth.
As we begin to lay
the foundation of our social venture ideas, we must consider the following
questions for each of our ventures: Is the flow and order of my pitch logical
and coherent? Is it strategic? Will it come across as natural and organic? And
most importantly, will it grab the attention of the listener(s) and convince
them within the first couple of seconds of my presentation? If we have not
said yes to each of these questions, we may have already lost our supporters.
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