We’ve been anticipating her arrival for weeks. Her reputation precedes her.
‘Listen to Annette’, Jon commanded everyone. ‘She is incredibly bright’. After weeks of build up, a cheerful and energetic Annette Kramer arrived to the office this morning, ready to help remix each team’s investor pitch to sculpt a more compelling presentation.
Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.
Spending 40 minutes with each team, her opening instructions were simple. Stand against the wall, walk into the centre of the room, and give us your pitch. Now repeat. During the second rendition, Annette took out a fine tooth comb and stopped presentations wherever an explanation was unclear, overly complicated, or lacking in oomph. What are you actually trying to say? What does your company really do? Who are you going to be selling this to?
With a background in theatre but a substantial insight into the investor/startup realm, Annette’s combination of skills is rather unique. Instead of leaving people on the spot, she opened up conversations with teams in order to find better ways for them to communicate in plain English. Objections of ‘It’s too complicated to explain in 5 minutes’ were discarded, as Annette worked through the art of finding the right words to express an idea and excite others with it.
Sitting quietly in the back of the room for several of Annette’s sessions, it was neat to watch her work her magic. ‘Are you afraid?’ she asked a presenter at least once. While content was one aspect, the key was helping people feel comfortable with what they’re saying and how they’re saying it. Whether this entailed presenters whacking a magazine against a chair or jumping up and down, sessions helped founders relax into their own style to pass their passion and excitement on to the audience.
It was intense 40 minutes as founders had to pitch and re-pitch constantly, but teams were really enthused by the improvements they could make in their presentations. One team bounced out of the room explaining how Annette helped them transform facts into stories, while others made massive improvements in articulating their businesses. ‘No, that’s not what you do. What you do is _____’ she’d point out. It seems the sessions helped founders not only articulate their propositions in plain English, but also see their own businesses more clearly.
By the end of the day, there was a lot of love in the room. ‘That was great! I was afraid that was our only session with Annette – I’m so glad we get to see her again’. I don’t know how she managed to stay sharp for every team, but luckily Annette says we’re her favourite people to work with (we won’t tell anyone). With a return visit in a couple weeks, it will be fun to see how the pitch evolution continues.
Oh, and happy 4th of July! Annette and I were the only ones celebrating at the office… but the shared spirit was appreciated!
