Stop practising the perfect pitch

You are practising your perfect pitch.

You've thought it all through. You have figured out the problem, your product is the solution and you are going to present that simply and effectively. Brilliant.

Except...schools. Schools don't all have the same problem. Or the same view of the problem. A problem for one school is the solution for another. A new test invented by politicians is a nightmare for one, and a chance to shine for another.

You can make no assumptions with schools. When pitching to individual schools you can take the time to get to know them before you pitch, which helps. But what about pitching to a room of different schools? How to get that right?

I could go on and on about all the different variables depending on your product, which country you are in, which sector or age range you are pitching to, whether you have teachers in the room or school leaders...and so on. However before we get on to any of that there is one foolproof piece of advice I can give to every edtech out there (indeed every business in any sector) and that is this:

Know your product. Know it inside out and backwards. Not just from a technical point of view or a "tools and benefits" way. Know about why it was created. Know how people are using it. Know what they say about it. Listen to teachers (or users of any kind) as much as you can.

Prepare for questions you have never been asked before. Prepare by not even thinking about the question. Pretend to be a user on your product and try it out fully. Be ready to answer anything by having inner confidence that:

a) it works

b) it does what it was designed to do

c) feedback so far has been that it does what users need it to do

Then also be prepared that it won't do what some people need it to do. And that's fine too. Either you can add that later, or you can decide that you are not the solution to that particular problem. Don't be there to offer any promises on a product or feature that it doesn't have yet. Just be confident in the product you have right now. Because if you aren't - they will know. And if you aren't confident in the product they will wonder why you are stood up there in the first place. Educators won't judge you for being nervous of public speaking. They will judge what your product does.

By all means decide what you want to say about your product. But if you are not prepared to answer the questions after your initial pitch then your perfect script just went up in flames.

Do share any questions you have had after a pitch that have thrown you a curveball!