How to pitch from the platform

Live speaking can be an electrifying experience. If you've ever sat before a really talented public speaker, you'll know what I mean. The right public speaker can make the most boring subject seem interesting. The right public speaker can sell you something you never thought you'd buy. The right public speaker can change your mind about politics and religion. The right public speaker sometimes has almost unlimited power over his audience. Think about moments in history where the right speech at the right time rallied a tired nation just when it was about to fall; think about those moments where the right speech at the right time changed the course of world history.
You might be asking, "How does this apply to sales?" It's true that your product, idea, or service is most likely not going to revolutionize the world. It's not going to stop hunger, cure cancer, or change a senator's mind. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't advertise it as passionately and intelligently as you can!

Believe or not, a good salesman bases his approach on the really great figures of history. After all, if you think about it in a certain way, all those leaders were selling something, too, whether it was an idea like the end of slavery or a movement like the American Revolution. As a salesmen, you'll be using the same skills of conveying conviction, excitement, and unbounded confidence in what you're doing. The public platform is a phenomenal way to sell your product or service or idea. Your excitement, your energy, your devotion will be conveyed to the audience in a way that television and newspapers can't even approach. And, what's more, if you're good enough your audience will probably feel excited and energetic and devoted themselves. When you make a fine pitch from the public platform, the people in the audience think: "I want to be involved in that; I want to keep feeling like this; I want to get my services from people like him."
One thing that effective public speakers have in common is a manner of speaking loudly, clearly, and regularly, while never seeming like robots. That is, while giving the audience the impression that their words are rising and falling, slowing down dramatically, speeding up breathlessly, and so forth. If your pitch comes out in a flat, unchanging tone, you'll lose your audience in about two seconds. But the sort of delivery described above doesn't come without practice. You might start with imitating your favorite speakers in the privacy of your room. Buy their tapes and DVDs; listen to them, watch them faithfully. What did he just do with his hands? How did she make it seem as though she was telling a secret when really she was announcing something generally known? How does she walk confidently back and forth like that, how does she know what to stop and turn and face her audience, how does she know when pace again? Over time, as you mimic their moves and tones and gestures, they'll become natural to you. Once they become natural to you, you'll instinctively start to develop some of your own.
Many successful public speakers have found that humor is a great key to connecting to any audience. When pitching your idea or service it never hurts to be funny. It isn't easy to be funny, though; it's much easier to be angry or sad! And you can't really learn how to be funny; some say you either are or you aren't. But you do know what's funny when you hear it, and with a little practice a memorized joke can seem spontaneous and natural.
Remember, a great actor doesn't become great without the most painstaking, exhaustive, detailed work. And you, in a sense, when you're up there in front of hundreds of people trying to change their minds, are acting too. Practice, practice, practice. Be prepared for anything. Public speaking, in the right hands, is a powerful, delicate, graceful tool, one of the most effective I know of.

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How to pitch from the platform