![]() (The deals that arise as a result of successful screenplay pitches are often multimillion-dollar projects, rivaling in scope the development of new car models by Detroit’s largest automakers and marketing campaigns by New York’s most successful advertising agencies.) To determine whether my observations applied to business settings beyond Hollywood, I attended a variety of product-design, marketing, and venture-capital pitch sessions and conducted interviews with executives responsible for judging creative, high-stakes ideas from pitchers previously unknown to them. In interviewing and observing the pitchers and catchers, I was able to discern just how quickly assessments of creative potential are made in these high-stakes exchanges. Over the course of six years, I observed dozens of 30-minute pitches in which the screenwriters encountered the “catchers” for the first time. Specifically, I worked with 50 Hollywood executives involved in assessing pitches from screenwriters. These insights emerged from my lengthy study of the $50 billion U.S. Within 30 minutes, they’ve made lasting judgments about your character. Research suggests that humans can categorize others in less than 150 milliseconds. So the first thing to realize when you’re preparing to make a pitch to strangers is that your audience is going to put you into a box. But the fact is, they rush to place us into neat little categories-they stereotype us. We all like to think that people judge us carefully and objectively on our merits. And judgments about the pitcher’s ability to come up with workable ideas can quickly and permanently overshadow perceptions of the idea’s worth. The person on the receiving end tends to gauge the pitcher’s creativity as well as the proposal itself. It turns out that the problem has as much to do with the seller’s traits as with an idea’s inherent quality. All too often, entrepreneurs, sales executives, and marketing managers go to great lengths to show how their new business plans or creative concepts are practical and high margin-only to be rejected by corporate decision makers who don’t seem to understand the real value of the ideas. By finding ways to give your catchers a chance to shine, you sell yourself as a likable collaborator.Ĭoming up with creative ideas is easy selling them to strangers is hard. To become a successful pitcher, portray yourself as one of the three creative types and engage your catchers in the creative process. ![]() As Oscar-winning writer, director, and producer Oliver Stone puts it, screenwriters pitching an idea should “pull back and project what he needs onto your idea in order to make the story whole for him.” The research also reveals that catchers tend to respond well when they believe they are participating in an idea’s development. ![]() The results in those environments were similar to her observations in Hollywood, she says.Ĭatchers subconsciously categorize successful pitchers as showrunners (smooth and professional), artists (quirky and unpolished), or neophytes (inexperienced and naive). To determine whether these observations apply to business settings beyond Hollywood, the author attended product design, marketing, and venture-capital pitch sessions and conducted interviews with executives responsible for judging new ideas. An impression of the pitcher’s ability to come up with workable ideas can quickly and permanently overshadow the catcher’s feelings about an idea’s worth. Having studied Hollywood executives who assess screenplay pitches, the author says the person on the receiving end-the “catcher”-tends to gauge the pitcher’s creativity as well as the proposal itself. ![]() Entrepreneurs, sales executives, and marketing managers often go to great lengths to demonstrate how their new concepts are practical and profitable-only to be rejected by corporate decision makers who don’t seem to understand the value of the ideas. Coming up with creative ideas is easy selling them to strangers is hard.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |