Whether you’re speaking at a conference or addressing your staff on Zoom, effective storytelling is an essential aspect of being a leader. As the CEO, you must inspire and motivate your team, to reach your goals and Make BIG Happen.
At the 2022 Make BIG Happen Summit, LaQuita Cleare, Founder and CEO of Clear Communication Academy provided a hands-on workshop for CEOs on how to “Perfect Your Pitch.”
As LaQuita explained, to successfully sell your brand message to customers and pitch to investors, you must communicate with impact every time you connect with an audience.
Effective communication requires you:
+ Pitch to your audience instead of simply listing information
+ Master your “hook” and “secret sauce” to tell your story in a persuasive and unforgettable way
Effective storytelling doesn’t just entertain; if you get it right, it can become a significant competitive advantage for you and your business.
LaQuita on the Difference Between Information and Pitching:
“We need to think about what the difference between information and pitching is…Information is something I can see on your website, on a business card, maybe it’s a description of your products and services like ‘We Help Sell Homes.’ Are you the only one who does that? No. There are a lot of people who help sell homes. Pitching is how you make that information pop.”
LaQuita on Why Logic and Emotion Isn’t Enough for a Compelling Pitch:
“If we know that humans make decisions based on emotion, then we can’t just give a pitch based on logic and credibility. It has to be logic, credibility, and emotion. The ‘what’ pitch [focusing exclusively on logic and credibility] can cause lost sales and missed deeper connections. It can cause you to be constantly in that hamster wheel of competition.”
LaQuita on the Power of Stories:
“Science tells us that we as humans crave novelty and creativity. And what happens in the brains of your listeners when you tell a story? Our brain activity begins to align. So if I’m telling you a story of riding a bike and my grandmother baking cookies, your brain activity begins to align with mine because you start thinking about your own experiences. That is why stories are more powerful than facts alone. So if you want to inspire, you want to persuade, you want to be memorable, then start adding stories into your pitching.”
About LaQuita Cleare: LaQuita combines her science/research-based background in psychology and deep experience both in front of and behind the camera in Hollywood to help leaders perfect their public speaking and communication skills. In her work with Clear Communication Academy, LaQuita has traveled to 50 countries and worked with executives from Fortune 500 companies to provide practical tools and actionable strategies to inspire their teams, captivate audiences and improve business performance.
Clear Communication Academy is a Strategic Partner of CEO Coaching International. To learn more, visit here.
About CEO Coaching International
CEO Coaching International works with CEOs and their leadership teams to achieve extraordinary results quarter after quarter, year after year. Known globally for its success in coaching growth-focused entrepreneurs to meaningful exits, CEO Coaching International has coached more than 1,000 CEOs and entrepreneurs in more than 60 countries and 45 industries. The coaches at CEO Coaching International are former CEOs, presidents, or executives who have made BIG happen. The firm’s coaches have led double-digit sales and profit growth in businesses ranging in size from startups to over $10 billion, and many are founders that have led their companies through successful eight, nine, and ten-figure exits. Companies working with CEO Coaching International for two years or more have experienced an average revenue CAGR of 31% (2.6X the U.S. average) and an average EBITDA CAGR of 52.3% (more than 5X the U.S. average).
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