Natural Born Pitch-Men?

You would think lawyers should be natural-born pitch-men.  Trained to present their case orally and on the page, taught to analytically arrive at the heart of the matter, peeling away dross and marginalia, understanding the appeal of a simple story with a strong moral and a well-defined beginning, middle, and end, lawyers should be first-class marketers.

Sorry, lost my head.  The reality is of course that most lawyers break out in hives talking (or thinking) in terms of "pitching," sales, and marketing.  But as my wife the advertising executive would remind you, and as Econ. 101 teaches, the objective of marketing is purely informational:  If one has never heard about Apple's new iPod Shuffle, or (say) the expertise of a firm's structured finance group, the choice to purchase or not is foreclosed.  So once lawyers overcome their aversion and embrace the reality of a competitive marketplace with scores of perfectly competent firms for clients to choose among, how do they do?

Again, the reality is not as pretty as it should be in theory.  The temptation is to be over-inclusive, to include not just the bullet-points but the footnotes, and to spend more time and emphasis on nuance than on the headline.

That's why this Forbes piece by Guy Kawasaki, the Silicon Valley venture capitalist, is so worthwhile.  Excerpted from his book, "The Art of Pitching," he magically avoids bromides and explains in pithy English what to do and not to do:

• Explain why you're there in the first minute.
• Imagine there's a little man on your right shoulder who whispers in your ear after every point:  "So what?"
• "I've never heard a pitch that was too short."
• When the client talks, listen hard, take notes, regurgitate what they've said to make sure you're clear about it, and follow up.
• Recognize that after you've made the same presentation ten or so times, you probably need to rewrite it from scratch.  Why?  Because by that point it will have begun to resemble a car in the Phillipines.

And if that's not teaser enough to get you to read the article, I've obviously delivered a poor pitch.