Pitching as a fractional professional

Rachael here – hello!

Yesterday the awesome Denise Moss joined us and hosted a masterclass to our Plus community on how to nail your intro. It was an invaluable interactive session with volunteers coming up and introducing themselves on the call. It sparked a lot of conversation about stumbling blocks and what we could all be doing better when introducing ourselves in a professional capacity.

If you're a Plus member, you can watch the recording here.

Now, a lot of the dos and don’ts Denise was recommending initially feel really obvious, until you’re put on the spot and realise… actually, DO I know how to talk about my experience, what I do, what value I can offer in a nice concise, confident way? Michael sadly crumbled under the pressure of the moment and realised he wasn’t sure he did know how to do those things, at least not in front of an audience. Liam nailed it pretty well, though was perhaps a little too concise (and admitted the experience did get his heart racing). And I’m far worse than either of them – I didn’t volunteer because I knew I wouldn’t be able to confidently speak about myself, my experience and why someone should hire me. And public speaking? Hell no.

This feels like basic stuff, yet all three of us struggled… we have some work to do. We’re all frantically making notes, and preparing to record ourselves making a pitch (and will watch back three times: once with the sound off, once with the video off and then also read the transcript back – cheers Laura for that tip!). We need to get better at this!

As Denise said, people will make an impression of you in around 30 seconds, so that initial impression needs to be a strong one.

Denise has kindly gifted us the presentation, tools and templates, which we'll provide in the Plus community shortly.  

For those of you that missed it, we highly recommend watching the session on demand. If you're new to Plus, you can catch up on all of our previous live events!

Good luck at working on your perfect pitch! And if you’re starting to burn out under the stress of it all, Evie will be there to help you out on Tuesday.

Check out Denise Moss' expert HR consultancy: Pinnacle Solutions and follow her on LinkedIn.