Pitching for All Purposes - creating the hook #IEECOnline #EntEdOnline

Activity:

Video 1. The session is introduced by the use of Video 1 (see resources) – this video has been developed for this purpose by a collaboration between the author, Emma Forouzan at the University of South Wales and Rhys Pearce at Cardiff University.

Activity 1. Learners are then asked to brainstorm where and when an elevator pitch could be used. This can be done in a variety of ways, but care should be taken to gently introduce participation. For an online environment an anonymous method such as a shared google doc, the annotate function in Zoom or an online survey tool is suggested. For F2F small groups or post-it storm is suggested.

Activity 2. The basics. A very simple structure (worksheet 1, slide 1) is used to convey the most important information which must be included in the pitch. Learners should use this structure to write a simple pitch for their own business or for a commonly known business (resource 1). This pitch should be shared in breakout room first (online) or in small group work (f2f). Once learners have created their basic pitch some should be encouraged to share with the whole group either online, or by speaking in the classroom.

Video 2. Examples of a hook. Suggested videos are given below for good and bad examples of ‘hooks’ being used in pitching competitions.

Activity 3. Learners will create a hook for their business, or the business card they are working on. The start of typical ‘hook’ sentences are given as a starting point. (Slide 5). Learners should work in breakout rooms (online) or small groups(f2f) to create 1 or 2 hooks. These should be shared in the small group first, then with the whole group.

Activity 4. The hook should now be combined with the basic pitch to create an elevator pitch, this should be approx. 60s long. At this stage learners may need to add in detail to pad out the pitch. (Slide 7). It’s important at this stage to ensure that the basic information from activity 1 is not lost as this is a common mistake. Once again this activity should take place in breakout rooms (online) or small groups (f2f). A quiet period should be given to write a script, and then a chance to practice and refine. Finally 2 or 3 pitches should be shared with the whole group.

Activity 5. This is the final activity, the aim of this is to challenge the language used by learners. Good pitches make use of strong and confident language and learners need to be supported in selecting the right language for this activity (Slide 10). Great pitches both make an emotional connection with the listener, and use confident language which isn’t ambiguous. Learners should be encouraged to replace weak and ambiguous language with strong confident alternatives, they should also try to select words which are more emotive. This is best facilitated through small group work, although time constraints may mean that you may choose to keep the group together at this point. As an alternative to group work it is possible to ask for existing pitches and ask the whole group to suggest improvements.

Skill Development:

Activity 1. It’s important the learners recognise that elevator pitches are used very commonly, not only for assessment in education, but in all walks of life and careers. While commonly used to pitch business ideas, the elevator pitch is also a great response to the question “so what do you do” or when suggesting a new idea or way of working to your boss. It can even be used at home to ‘sell’ an idea to parents or housemates. Could you use an elevator pitch to persuade your housemates to get pizza instead of curry?

 Activity 2. While this task appears simple, and many learners find it easy – some will struggle with the simplicity – encourage them to keep the pitch very simple at this point. It’s important to encourage participation at this stage of the session. When encouraging learners to share their pitch praise at this stage is really important to create an environment where learners are happy to share. It’s important to ensure that all students have a basic pitch by the end of this activity, if anyone has struggled the facilitator may need to suggest a pitch.

 Activity 3. The facilitator should ensure that learners understand this task and should work in the breakout rooms/tables to ensure learners are able to create a hook. It’s useful to listen for good hooks, especially from quieter learners and to encourage these learners to share with the whole group at the end. Whereas in Activity 2 we would be happy for the more confident learners to share, at this stage we need to encourage less confident learners to speak up – our final learning objective of creating confidence requires that as many learners as possible speak to the whole group.

 Activity 4. The key to this section is only adding in small amounts of relevant detail to the existing structure, care should be taken that the basic content set out in activity 2 is not lost. Learners should be encouraged to use a stopwatch to time their pitch and to speak it out loud. The facilitator should also encourage peer to peer feedback, rather than giving direct feedback, this helps students build confidence in their own ability to formulate a pitch. There is a tendency to add too many elements at this stage, so this should be watched for.

 Activity 5. Most learners will use weak language, this demonstrates that they lack confidence in both their pitch, and their ability to deliver the pitch, by challenging this language and encouraging the use of strong language we will increase the confidence of learners in both the ideas and their ability to pitch. The use of strong, confident language both makes a pitch more credible and increases our learner’s confidence.

Follow up. It’s important that learners can use these pitches in a variety of environments shortly after the session. Try to organise a networking event, pitchathon (this doesn’t need to be competitive) or other opportunity to put this into practice to reinforce the learning within a few days. As well as video 1 we have developed a series of how to videos which look at different elements of pitching. Please explore these on our youtube channel.

Resources:

Resource 1 – list of commonly known businesses (not provided)

Post it notes

Stopwatch

Slide Deck with activities and examples.

References:

Elements of this workshop draw on an approach taken by Debi Kleinman during an entrepreneurship educator’s symposium at Babson College 2019.

See also First Pitch – Winning Money, Mentors and More for your startup, D Kleinman, Babson, 2020

Video 1 forms part of a series of videos which were produced collaboratively by Steve Aicheler (Cardiff Met), Emma Forouzan (USW), Rhys Pearce (Cardiff Uni) and Keiran McGaughey (Like an Egg productions). These productions were funded by the Welsh Government and are available in English and Welsh.