The only person to do a “proper” study of pitching technique and successes is Kimberley D. Elsbach.
Her findings were published widely in the Harvard Business Review in
2003. Here, below, is her introduction and, if you like the idea,
there’s a link to buy the whole article from the HBR – it costs about
$5.
She lays out the three main stereotypes that are considered
“creative” by the catchers. Take the whole thing with a very big pinch
of salt, in my opinion.
BUT here is a point she makes that we should all take VERY seriously indeed:
“Unfortunately for pitchers, type-based elimination is easy, because
negative impressions tend to be more salient and memorable than positive
ones. To avoid fast elimination, successful pitchers – only 25% of
those I have observed – turn the tables on the catchers by enrolling
them in the creative process. These pitchers exude passion for their
ideas and find ways to give catchers a chance to shine. By doing so,
they induce the catchers to judge them as likable collaborators.
Oscar-winning writer, director and producer Oliver Stone told me that
the invitation to collaborate on an idea is a ‘seduction.’”
So the message is very clear. Hook your catcher as quickly as
possible with your passion for the project and the strength of the
story elements (more on this at a later date) and then make a very clear
invitation to collaborate. Good luck. Steve
“How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea”, by Kimberly D. Elsbach, Harvard Business Review, September, 2003.
To order, go to:
www.hbr.org
How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea
Before you even know it, the stranger across the desk has
decided what kind of person you are. Knowing how you’ll be stereotyped
allows you to play to—and control—the other guy’s expectations.
by Kimberly D. Elsbach
Coming up with creative ideas is easy; selling them to strangers is
hard. All too often, entrepreneurs, sales executives, and marketing
managers go to great lengths to show how their new business plans or
creative concepts are practical and high margin—only to be rejected by
corporate decision makers who don’t seem to understand the real value of
the ideas. Why does this happen?
It turns out that the problem has as much to do with the seller’s
traits as with an idea’s inherent quality. The person on the receiving
end tends to gauge the pitcher’s creativity as well as the proposal
itself. And judgments about the pitcher’s ability to come up with
workable ideas can quickly and permanently overshadow perceptions of the
idea’s worth. We all like to think that people judge us carefully and
objectively on our merits. But the fact is, they rush to place us into
neat little categories—they stereotype us. So the first thing to realize
when you’re preparing to make a pitch to strangers is that your
audience is going to put you into a box. And they’re going to do it
really fast. Research suggests that humans can categorize others in less
than 150 milliseconds. Within 30 minutes, they’ve made lasting
judgments about your character.
These insights emerged from my lengthy study of the $50 billion U.S.
film and television industry. Specifically, I worked with 50 Hollywood
executives involved in assessing pitches from screenwriters. Over the
course of six years, I observed dozens of 30-minute pitches in which the
screenwriters encountered the “catchers” for the first time. In
interviewing and observing the pitchers and catchers, I was able to
discern just how quickly assessments of creative potential are made in
these high-stakes exchanges. (The deals that arise as a result of
successful screenplay pitches are often multimillion-dollar projects,
rivaling in scope the development of new car models by Detroit’s largest
automakers and marketing campaigns by New York’s most successful
advertising agencies.) To determine whether my observations applied to
business settings beyond Hollywood, I attended a variety of
product-design, marketing, and venture-capital pitch sessions and
conducted interviews with executives responsible for judging creative,
high-stakes ideas from pitchers previously unknown to them. In those
environments, the results were remarkably similar to what I had seen in
the movie business.
People on the receiving end of pitches have no formal, verifiable, or
objective measures for assessing that elusive trait, creativity.
Catchers—even the expert ones—therefore apply a set of subjective and
often inaccurate criteria very early in the encounter, and from that
point on, the tone is set. If a catcher detects subtle cues indicating
that the pitcher isn’t creative, the proposal is toast. But that’s not
the whole story. I’ve discovered that catchers tend to respond well if
they are made to feel that they are participating in an idea’s
development.
The pitchers who do this successfully are those who tend to be
categorized by catchers into one of three prototypes. I call them the
showrunner, the
artist, and the
neophyte.
Showrunners come off as professionals who combine creative inspiration
with production know-how. Artists appear to be quirky and unpolished and
to prefer the world of creative ideas to quotidian reality. Neophytes
tend to be—or act as if they were—young, inexperienced, and naive. To
involve the audience in the creative process, showrunners deliberately
level the power differential between themselves and their catchers;
artists invert the differential; and neophytes exploit it. If you’re a
pitcher, the bottom-line implication is this: By successfully projecting
yourself as one of the three creative types and getting your catcher to
view himself or herself as a creative collaborator, you can improve
your chances of selling an idea.
My research also has implications for those who buy ideas: Catchers
should beware of relying on stereotypes. It’s all too easy to be dazzled
by pitchers who ultimately can’t get their projects off the ground, and
it’s just as easy to overlook the creative individuals who can make
good on their ideas. That’s why it’s important for the catcher to test
every pitcher, a matter we’ll return to in the following pages.
“How to Pitch a Brilliant Idea”, by Kimberly D. Elsbach, Harvard Business Review, September, 2003.
To order, go to:
www.hbr.org
Tom
Levinge (class of 2012) has his short feature "This is Intercourse"
screening at the upcoming London Short Film Festival (January 12th
2013).
