How to Pitch Anything in Two Minutes

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Ask yourself: What are you really selling? You will find that you are not selling a widget; instead, you are selling a better life for your customer thanks to the experience your widget provides.

Tell stories. "Let me tell you about an experience I had with a world-renowned chef in London..." With that, the chef regaled us with memories of his travels. Stories create connections between individuals. They can tell your listeners more about your product than just the facts.

For example, in the area of enterprise security technology, I recently met a smart IT manager who successfully sells ideas by telling stories. He doesn't start a pitch by saying: "This enterprise level security solution represents best-in-class technology for our scalable architecture." Instead, he tells stories that begin like this: "Imagine walking into work Monday morning to find that your computers had been stolen…" Simple stories can take under 30 seconds to tell but can offer more information than mountains of data. Too few business professionals recognize the power of stories to create a common thread of understanding between speaker and listener. Tell more stories and you'll stand apart.

Teach us something new. The chef demonstrating the toaster taught us about a nesting trend and how this new toaster fit into it. Kitchens have become showplaces, he explained. Homeowners not only want appliances that look good—they want devices that save energy, come in colors other than white, offer more functions, and are easy to clean.

A venture capitalist who I interviewed for a panel offered this advice to the entrepreneurs in the audience: "If you can teach me something I didn't know before, you'll have my attention, and perhaps my money!" Every successful pitch has the element of knowledge, teaching your listeners something that wasn't obvious to your audience.

Creating a positive association with a product as mundane as a toaster is no easy feat. Yet this chef won me over in under two minutes. This proves you have the ability to persuade your listeners with every pitch. Don't believe you have a dull product. As a former correspondent for CNN, I learned that how the message is told is as important as the message itself.

Carmine Gallo, a business communications coach and Emmy-Award winning former TV journalist, is the author of Fire Them Up! and 10 Simple Secrets of the World's Greatest Business Communicators. He writes his communications column every week.