Thread by @depappas

Oren Klaff - Pitch Anything

If you do not give the information to the other person fast, visual, and in a narrative format the other person’s other person’s crocodile brain it filters out and ignores the information

#startups #Growth #GrowthHacking

3 parts to the brain
•Neocortex
•Mid brain
•Crocodile brain

Neocortex
-smart problem solving mathematical
-makes decisions pitch deal? stay at home?
-majority of the brain
-last part of the brain to receive information

Mid brain
-processes social situations
-understands social relationships
-understands status

Crocodile brain
-Here is a person confronting me
-Should I eat it?
-Should I kill it?
-Should I mate with it?

The Crocodile brain
Filters out the messaging
The Crocodile brain does not want to pass information up to the mid brain and neocortex
Does not want to give information to the neocortex that it can solve on a survival basis
The stuff around you does not even get processed

The Crocodile brain wants the information to be fast, summarized, high contrast, binary
-safe/not safe,
-fast information
-visual
-narrative format

If you do not give the information to the other person fast, visual, and in a narrative format the other person’s other person’s crocodile brain it filters out and ignores the information

The neocortex says to the crocodile brain if i have already solved this problem before then do solve it the same way you did before.
If the information is novel it is not filtered by the the crocodile brain.

If the presentation, manner, and pitch seems overly familiar then the receiver’s crocodile brain says we do not have to deal with this and does not send it to the neocortex and sets information aside.

-Not novel, not dangerous, therefor I am going to ignore it because in the final analysis the brain is a cognitive miser.
-The brain uses a huge amount of energy to solve problems and the receiver’s crocodile brain filters out information that creates a high cognitive load

You have to give the information fast and that is novel and in a novel way, and from a high social status position.

Needy is associated with weakness.
Neediness is a low social position.
The low social position due to neediness causes the crocodile and the midbrain to go insane.

People have limited resources and when you want something from them you are the enemy and they want you to go away.

If you are needy you will never get your pitch/information about your product, service, startup to the other party’s neocortex

If the information makes it past the crocodile brain it is sent to the midbrain.
Who is this person that I am talking to?
-a relative
-a person of authority
The midbrain determines if the person that you are speaking with a low or high status

Construct your pitch to get past the receiver’s crocodile brain.
Then have a belief in yourself to get past the receiver’s midbrain.

There is fundamental misunderstanding on the part of people who go to raise money, who talk to private equity, VCs, banks that lend, joint ventures
-they view the money as a prize to be won

I perform for the king that can grant me the prize
-Organizing the pitch that way is a low status position
-pitching from the low status position means that people are not paying attention to you

Attention equals convincing power

To the degree that someone is paying attention to you you can deliver logic and information and you can build your case

Know the attention window (20 minutes)
You have a maximum of 20 minutes of real attention during a meeting if you are lucky.
While someone is paying attention to you, you can make your case.
If they are not paying attention to you you cannot convince them.

All of the info, arguments, narrative, compelling rational if you are not paying attention falls on deaf ears.

Who cares about the money
Money is the lowest commodity
The bank can lend you money
It is in your bank account
You do not try to win the money
You are the prize, not the money, that the customer has to win

When you structure a pitch correctly:
-you do not have to be up.
-you do not need to be motivated
-you do not need to have high emotions
-you do not need to have will power

You have to understand the value that you bring to the equation

Capital cannot do anything without people and a good product

Serious people, with a good product is rare

You are the prize

Money needs to seek you out

How do you get the investor to seek you
The human condition:
People want what they can’t have
They chase that which moves away from them.
They only value what they pay for.

Relationship imbalance
Founder/Investor

Eradicate neediness
->Establish yourself as the prize
Zuckerberg bathrobe and flip flops at the Sequoia meeting

You want lots of investor options
If you get to the closing table with limited options you have to take the deal that the investors offer and the investors run the show
If you have more investors then you can be more aggressive at the closing table

People waste time with rapore-don’t do this
ABC- always be closing
Tom Hopkins
Zig Zigler
Tony Robins

Establishing rapore - what you are trying to do is orient yourself in the meeting

Don’t seek to understand what status you have
Don’t understand what status you have
Instead build status

3 typical sources of status
•Wealth
•Power
•Celebrity

Instead build local status
Local star power

Do it every meeting
the main tool is prizing yourself
time constraint
Pleasure to meet today, I got about an hour. Why don’t we get started

Giving a sense to the audience that they are in the presence of a professional
The you have a narrative, an agenda, a time constraint, and you understand how buyers buy

All relationships have passion
If an investor is not extremely passionate about your pitch the relationship will not be what it has to be to reach your goals

The narrative part
What the problem is
What our solution is
How our solution works
What our value proposition is
What the ROI is for the investor
How will spend the money
What the team is

Information has no convincing power
If you do not have a prepared pitch that is a narrative you present the information in the way that it is stored in your mind

The narrative is not chronological
the selling order
the big idea
how is this high stakes/will make money/solve a problem
how does it fit in the world
why is this important
why is this important today
how does this relate to economics