by Voyage | Apr 20, 2011 | Blog post, Pitching
AND WHAT THEY CAN TEACH US ABOUT PITCHING I have a dirty secret that’s written on my resume in invisible ink: I used to be a telemarketer. Please just know that most of the money I earned by telemarketing was spent on either beer or t-shirts with offensive phrases on them. There’s a fundamental principle that’s pounded into the heads of any and all those who are brave enough to dabble in the telemarketing profession: Read the pitch script verbatim. No exceptions. It’s easy to see that what works in telemarketing won’t necessarily work in an entertainment pitch. But while the pitches and presentations for TV shows and movies have infinitely higher stakes, it’s still easy to get lazy and tap into the same formulas. This applies to all pitches. What telemarketing specifically amplifies are 2 things: 1) The beginning or introduction of a pitch is where you hook (or lose) the audience 2) Your audience could be having the worst day of their lives That’s not bad advice but what happens with telemarketing: the scripts becomes innate. The precedent becomes reflex. No thought or inflection is put behind the words, whether it’s a pitch for the New York Times, or for the ultimate Snuggie. And it makes you want to throw your phone into traffic. Now, there certainly is something to be said about the value of the precedent and/or formula. I’m not saying that it should be completely thrown out, just that there’s room to breathe and tweak within it. What if the person on the other end of the line actually spoke to you with a...
