1: Brant Pinvidic sat in a room with his client, Keith. Brant is a top Hollywood producer who has successfully sold nearly fifty TV series using his 3-Minute Rule, which is also the title of his book on how to deliver a successful presentation.
Brant’s brother was on the speakerphone. Keith’s assignment: Deliver his 3-minute pitch to Brant’s brother.
Afterward, Brant told his brother: “I need you to pitch that concept to one of your friends, and then have them pitch one of their friends, and then give them this number and call to pitch it back to us.
“Tell them it’s a game and we have to have it back in one hour.”
Forty-five minutes later, the phone rang.
“You would not believe the excitement that jolted in the room, he recalls. “We put the conference phone on speaker.”
“Hi. This is Jeffrey? I was asked to call you guys for this game and pitch this idea?”
“Yes, Jeffrey. Please go ahead. We are listening.”
Jeffrey pitched us the idea.
“It was a mess and it wasn’t at all what Keith was pitching,” Brant writes.
The input from the call was invaluable, however.
“It showed us what pieces of the pitch were resonating (people tend to remember the things they like or are drawn to), and it showed some of Keith’s ideas that looked clear on paper were not being understood,” he notes.
2: Brant forces all his clients to do this test.
One of the lessons Brant learned early in his career is that when someone writes a script for television or the movies, “all the motivation and emotions are perfectly clear to the writer,” he notes. “The writer understands the characters and the twists and the story elements perfectly, as clear as a bell.”
That’s the good news. The bad news?
“Surprise! What not all writers are good at is making the audience see their story and characters the way they do,” Brant observes. “The only difference between a great script and an OK script is the ability for the reader to grasp it all as the writer intended.”
The same reality applies to our presentation.
“I’m betting you feel it, know it, understand it, appreciate it, and believe in it,” Brant predicts. “It’s very clear and concise. We might even think it’s a little too simple.”
That’s why we must get feedback. We choose a friend who doesn’t know our presentation or what we’re working on.
“Ask them to listen to our pitch. Then ask them to call someone else and pitch it to them,” he suggests. “Ask them to then pitch it one more time to a third person, who is going to call us and pitch it back to us.”
Brant’s prediction?
We “will be shocked at how much information we get back. We’ll also be surprised at how much information is lost in translation. There will be elements that we felt were so important that never made it down the line.”
3: That’s the whole point.
Which is what happened to Brant’s client, Keith: “We played the game a few more times (we actually had to buy $200 in Starbucks gift cards to bribe people to play after we ran out of personal connections).
“Eventually Keith’s pitch came back the same way it went out,” Brant writes. “That was a very exciting call.”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: How intentional am I about getting feedback on my presentations?
Action: Experiment with “The Telephone Test” the next time I create a new presentation.
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