With 1300 projects submitted, 450 making it through to World Design Capital – ONLY a selected few will get to pitch the projects that they submitted at the WDC2014 Tuesday Pitching Sessions. A selection panel from Cape Town Design NPC will select 1 project on each of the pitching nights who will receive a R10 000.00 cash prize for the best pitch.

These pitches are open to the public & the audience will also include investors, philanthropists, venture capitalists, & social profit projects. Join in! 

In order to give project creators an in on how to fine tune your pitching technique, grooming sessions are prepared by WDC2014; aimed to provide a platform where projects could talk about their ideas, seek input from each other & guidance from Pitch Master & main speaker: Charles Maisel, international award winner for social entrepreneurship, founder of over 70 businesses & successful owner of Innovation Shack.

“You entertain people when you are passionate about what you are talking about.”
– Charles Maisel

The key to pitching is pitching yourself building relationships; the audience will be buying you 1st & your project 2nd. A lot of people buy YOU as a personality. A good name & a good brand comes across as something exciting so make sure that you have carefully thought your marketing strategy through. A good marketing technique is to always give options, your ask needs to be clear.

You have to be able to build a personal relationship with the whole audience, it’s not easy, you can try by interacting, it is a technique. Generally, if you’re going to be Building a relationship with an audience is usually about what you can give/do for them rather than what you’re getting back

The 4 Minute Pitch Essentials:

• Connect with Emotion.
  • The audience needs to feel that emotion come across. Emotion stays with a person – if you can capture this emotion you can have people eating out of your hands. Music is emotion. Silence can also be a very powerful technique.
• Humour is an essential aspect of your pitch.
  • Fun & drama, laughter & joking gets you through the night, a crappy joke will get people to respond especially when it comes to serious social issues that need to be addressed. Have fun with it.
• Make it Entertaining.
  • Use props: blow your audience away with what you’re selling, entertain & sell.
• The Script.
  • If you don’t think that you are the right person to pitch get a friend, hire an actor or use a script. A script is a great preparation tool as it allows you to build on your confidence level.
• Body Language.
  • Body language is really important – have look at how actors portray characters’ in a production. It is essential to get a message across with the correct body language. Be aware of your body, what you do, how you do & remember that how confident you feel comes across to the audience.
• Pitch in the language that you are comfortable with
• Bring the audience alive & maintain that momentum
• Personal experiences.
  • Anybody can practice a story, tell your story & bring out the emotion. A great story can never be beaten with a pitch ever.
• Pictures, animation & Film.
  • People, actors, dancers, slides no power points – power points means that you hide behind you slide hence you will only be allowed 1 slide. Animations will be allowed. You get one slide, why not make it THE PICTURE (one image that shuts what your story is all about) the name of your project, your contact details and your WDC Hashtag so that people can tweet about it on the night & include your contact details. If you can keep a film within your time limit – do it.
• Shock factor, is not a bad thing. You can go out, push the boundaries slightly.
• Sharp & Clear Ask.
  • 1 of the most important messages that needs to be included in the pitch is your ASK on your Thundafund Campaign.You have to be clear on the amount, the time & also what the funds will be spent on (In your Thundafund Campaign these are your Milestones).

Remember that a great campaign represents a great proof of concept: forward your Thundafund Campaign to investors or sponsors and show them that there is interest in your project and get further funded.

Practice makes perfect – pitch all the time.

For further information regarding World Design Captial, WDC Grooming and Pitching Sessions please contact the WDC Team directly.
info@wdccapetown2014.com
086 000 7410