To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Moving Others (20 page)

How does Pixar do it? Success has many parents—the foresight of Steve Jobs, who invested in the company early; the distribution and marketing muscle of the Walt Disney Company, which struck a development deal with the studio early on and acquired it in 2006; the meticulous attention to detail for which Pixar’s army of technical and artistic talent is renowned. But an additional reason might be the stories themselves.

Emma Coats, a former story artist at the studio, has cracked the Pixar code—and, in the process, created a template for an irresistible new kind of pitch. Coats has argued that every Pixar film shares the same narrative DNA, a deep structure of storytelling that involves six sequential sentences:

Once upon a time ______________________________. Every day, _______________. One day _________________________. Because of that, ___________________. Because of that, _______________________. Until finally ___________________.

Take, for example, the plot of
Finding Nemo
:

Once upon a time
there was a widowed fish named Marlin who was extremely protective of his only son, Nemo.
Every day
, Marlin warned Nemo of the ocean’s dangers and implored him not to swim far away.
One day
in an act of defiance, Nemo ignores his father’s warnings and swims into the open water.
Because of that
, he is captured by a diver and ends up as a pet in the fish tank of a dentist in Sydney.
Because of that
, Marlin sets off on a journey to recover Nemo, enlisting the help of other sea creatures along the way.
Until finally
Marlin and Nemo find each other, reunite, and learn that love depends on trust.
²⁴

This six-sentence format is both appealing and supple. It allows pitchers to take advantage of the well-documented persuasive force of stories
²⁵
—but within a framework that forces conciseness and discipline.

Imagine you’re a nonprofit organization that’s created a home HIV test and you’re looking for funders. Your Pixar pitch could go something like this:

Once upon a time
there was a health crisis haunting many parts of Africa.
Every day
, thousands of people would die of AIDS and HIV-related illness, often because they didn’t know they carried the virus.
One day
we developed an inexpensive home HIV kit that allowed people to test themselves with a simple saliva swab.
Because of that
, more people got tested.
Because of that
, those with the infection sought treatment and took measures to avoid infecting others.
Until finally
this menacing disease slowed its spread and more people lived longer lives.

It’s even possible to summarize this book with a Pixar pitch:

Once upon a time
only some people were in sales.
Every day
, they sold stuff, we did stuff, and everyone was happy.
One day
everything changed: All of us ended up in sales—and sales changed from a world of
caveat emptor
to
caveat venditor
.
Because of that
, we had to learn the new ABCs—attunement, buoyancy, and clarity.
Because of that
, we had to learn some new skills—to pitch, to improvise, and to serve.
Until finally
we realized that selling isn’t some grim accommodation to a brutal marketplace culture. It’s part of who we are—and therefore something we can do better by being more human.

—

T
o see each of the six pitches in action, imagine that you live in the fictional town of Beeston. The bridge that spans the nearby Girona River and connects your town to the larger city of Arborville has grown rickety—and you’re leading a citizen campaign to replace the structure with a modern four-lane bridge. You’ve got many people to persuade—the town government, the citizens of Beeston, maybe even people in Arborville. And you’ll need to do considerable work, figuring out how to finance the bridge, assessing its environmental impact, deciding who will design and construct it, and so on. But each of the six pitches offers a way to begin the conversations that will lead to the outcome you seek.

Your Pixar pitch, for instance, could be:

Once upon a time
it was difficult and time-consuming to get from Beeston to Arborville.
Every day
, people tried to cross the old bridge, but it took them a long time and some didn’t even bother because of the delays and safety concerns.
One day
citizens came together to finance and build a new, modern bridge.
Because of that
, people in Beeston wasted less time and their families felt safer.
Because of that
, more were able to work and shop in Arborville, which helped that economy flourish.
Until finally
the new bridge became such a fixture in our lives that we wondered why we had waited so long to build it.

Your Twitter pitch could include an online link to an artist’s rendering of the bridge along with a list of its benefits and entice people to click it with:
See what tomorrow’s Beeston and Arborville can look like & why we need to create that future.

If you’re sending information to your fellow Beeston citizens, your subject line pitch could be:
3 reasons why Beeston families support a new bridge
.

Your rhyming pitch?
Opportunities are wide on the other side
.

Your question pitch could help people think through their own experiences
: Should it be such a pain to get to Arborville?

And your one-word pitch could explain the reason for your efforts (not to mention an indispensable lesson of this chapter):
Connect
.

SAMPLE CASE

Pitch

Practice your six pitches.

There are three ways to learn and perfect the six pitches: Practice, practice, practice. Here’s a place to begin. (You can also find extra copies of this practice sheet at http://www.danpink.com/pitch.)

1. The One-Word Pitch

Pro tip:
Write a fifty-word pitch. Reduce it to twenty-five words. Then to six words. One of those remaining half-dozen is almost certainly your one-word pitch.

Your try: _____________________
.

2. The Question Pitch

Pro tip:
Use this if your arguments are strong. If they’re weak, make a statement. Or better yet, find some new arguments.

Your try: _____________________
?

3. The Rhyming Pitch

Pro tip:
Don’t rack your brain for rhymes. Go online and find a rhyming dictionary. I’m partial to RhymeZone (http://www.rhymezone.com).

Your try: _____________________
.

4. The Subject Line Pitch

Pro tip:
Review the subject lines of the last twenty e-mail messages you’ve sent. Note how many of them appeal to either utility or curiosity. If that number is less than ten, rewrite each one that fails the test.

Your try: _____________________
.

5. The Twitter Pitch

Pro tip:
Even though Twitter allows 140 characters, limit your pitch to 120 characters so that others can pass it on. Remember: The best pitches are short, sweet, and easy to retweet.

Your try: _____________________
.

6. The Pixar Pitch

Pro tip:
Read all twenty-two of former Pixar story artist Emma Coats’s story rules: http://bit.ly/jlVWrG

Your try:
Once upon a time
__________________
. Every day,
______________
. One day
_______________
. Because of that,
_______________________
. Because of that,
_____________
. Until finally
________________.

Answer three key questions.

As you prepare your pitch, whichever variety you choose, clarify your purpose and strategy by making sure you can answer these three questions:

After someone hears your pitch . . .

1. What do you want them to
   know
   ?
   
2. What do you want them to
   feel
   ?
   
3. What do you want them to
   do
   ?
   

If you’ve got strong answers to these three questions, the pitch will come together more easily.

Collect other people’s pitches and record your own.

How do artists get better at their craft? They practice, of course. But they also pay attention. A painter visits galleries to view other artists’ work and to make notes about their technique. A singer records an early version of a song, listens to it several times, and devises ways to improve it. Pitches are an art form of their own, so you, too, should act like an artist.

For example, keep a pitch notebook. With a small notepad or on your smartphone, jot down the great pitches you hear as you’re moving through the world—a shrewd advertising tagline, a mom’s request to her kid, a colleague’s plea for a new assignment. This exercise serves two purposes. It will make you aware of all the pitches in your midst. And it will help you see which techniques move others and which merely drift into the wind.

Also, try recording your practice pitches. Call yourself and leave a voice mail with your pitch or dictate it using a smartphone dictation app. Then listen. Does what you’re saying make sense? How’s your tone? Your rate of speech? Listening to your own voice can be painful, but it’s a smart way to practice—and to spare yourself even more pain in the future.

Add a visual.

It’s the saying every writer detests: “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Although this aphorism doesn’t rhyme, it still contains a few morsels of truth. In almost every pitch, the main ingredients are words—or in the case of one type,
a
word—but you can flavor certain varieties with images. For example, you can enliven question pitches, one-word pitches, and rhyming pitches by accompanying them with a single photograph or illustration that captures your idea. As digital communication relies less on text and more on images, your subject line and Twitter pitches can link to a compelling visual. You can even use props. For instance, if George Akerlof, the economist I discussed in Chapter 3, were pitching his idea about the cascading consequences of information asymmetry, he might hold up a lemon.

Likewise, video offers a way to combine the efficiency of electronic communication with the intimacy of seeing another person’s face and hearing her voice. One excellent technique on this front is sending short video messages by e-mail, which you can do almost effortlessly, and usually for free, on QuickTime (get the details at: http://www.quicktime.com).

Experiment with
pecha-kucha
.

PowerPoint is like the weather or reality TV: Everybody complains about it, but nobody does anything about it. No matter where we work or learn, we must endure the blatherings of people who anesthetize us with bullet points and then, in the dark of a conference room, steal our souls and bake them into 3-D pie charts.

Three cheers, then, to Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein, Tokyo-based architects who’ve brewed an antidote to awful PowerPoint presentations. They call their creation
pecha-kucha
,
*
which is Japanese for “chatter.”

A
pecha-kucha
presentation contains twenty slides, each of which appears on the screen for twenty seconds. That’s it. The rules are rigid, which is the point. It’s not nineteen slides or twenty-one seconds. It’s 20 x 20. Presenters make their pitch in six minutes and forty seconds of perfectly timed words and images. Then they shut up and sit down. The format promotes clarity through constraints. And because the slides advance automatically, presenters must convey their message with both elegance and speed.

Since its introduction in 2003,
pecha-kucha
has spread like a benevolent virus and metamorphosed into an international movement. Several organizations now use it for internal presentations. And Klein and Dytham have established a foundation that operates free PechaKucha Nights in 547 cities around the world. Visit one to see how it’s done. Then try it yourself. For more information, go to http://www.pecha-kucha.org.

Pay attention to sequence and numbers.

The social science literature is full of interesting (and sometimes contradictory) findings about how sequence and numbers affect pitches. Here are two general rules that are backed by sound evidence. (I’ve included a link to the research papers themselves for those who want to dig deeper.)

1. Go first if you’re the incumbent, last if you’re the challenger
   . In competitive sales presentations, where a series of sellers make their pitches one after another, the market leader is most likely to get selected if it presents first, according to Virginia Tech University researchers. But for a challenger, the best spot, by far, is to present last (http://bit.ly/NRpdp6). How widely this applies to other settings isn’t clear from the research, but in general, the middle is the place you’re most likely to get run over.
   
2. Granular numbers are more credible than coarse numbers
   . A University of Michigan study asked participants to estimate the battery life of two GPS devices. One device claimed to have a battery life of “up to 2 hours”; the other had an identical, but more finely grained claim of “up to 120 minutes.” Participants estimated the first battery would last 89 minutes, but the second would last longer—106 minutes (http://bit.ly/yapcPA).