The human pitch: striking the right note in the business world. From the article:
One day, [Brian] Grazer had an ‘aha’ moment that changed the way he pitched the idea. A friend asked Grazer why he had written a mermaid movie. It’s not a mermaid movie, Grazer thought. Instead, it was inspired by Grazer’s personal for true love in Los Angeles, “a place where everything—including relationships—seemed superficial.” Finding a deep connection seemed unattainable to Grazer at the time, almost like falling in love with a mermaid.
Grazer reframed the idea in his next pitch to Disney. He spoke to themes, experiences and feelings that almost every human being can relate to. The pitch worked….
“Now, when a pitch a movie or television project, I always begin with an inarguable, universal theme, something that is essential to the human experience,” Grazer writes in Face to Face. “My protagonists have goals that we all, as a species, want and root for—things like love, family unity, self-respect, and survival against the odds….”
After my conversation with Grazer, I can look back on my interviews with successful entrepreneurs in a new light. The best pitches tap into universal themes.
For example, Melanie Perkins, the youngest founder of a tech ‘unicorn,’ told me that her pitch for Canva was rejected for years until she reframed it as a universal theme. Instead of focusing on the features of her online design tool–which wasn’t resonating with investors– she began to focus on a problem that nearly everyone can relate to—the frustration of learning complex systems. Canva, she argued, solved a common frustration. The pitch worked and today Canva is worth $2.5 billion….
Give your listener a universal theme they can relate to and you’ll connect with them in a more profound way. It’s a powerful pitch tip that you can learn from one of the most iconic film producers in Hollywood.
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