I met a really passionate financial planner recently who was a bit stuck about how to craft a 30 second pitch to deliver to the people he met at networking events. The problem was that while he was agonising over finding the right words he lost the ability to communicate his intention.

If you have only one goal in mind when you meet someone new and that goal is to leverage that interaction into business then your pitch won’t work.

People don’t just buy the words you say. They buy into your intention. The people you’d kill to do business with don’t want to hear a polished thirty second pitch. They want to know about the real you.

Having a perfect pitch…the perfect words all set to go might make you feel better, but that’s not the point.

Think about how your pitch makes the person you’re talking to feel.

People want the conversation and the connection, not scripts and dialogue. They want you to earn their trust.

More than anything what they want to hear is your story. Not just another forgettable pitch.

Image by ruminatrix.