Imagine you are in a library and all around you there are people working away, there are no sounds from anyone, the lighting is good, you are sat comfortably with a drink and all you can hear is your finger as it glides across the page of a work by William Shakespeare.

As you progress you find a few unfamiliar words and stop, instead of muddling through or just ignoring that part of the book you go back and read that passage again. Except, as you are reviewing the passage you find the page gets turned over without your instruction, you are stunned and then confused, it is like the book has an electrical motor that turns the pages without your doing anything. You try your best to get back on track but having not understood the passage earlier you soon find yourself lost.

This is not an excerpt from the latest Harry Potter film but an example of one of the key differences between a pitch (a speech) and the written word, with the written word you can stop, go back, and move forward as much as you like. With a pitch you cannot. This is why there is the saying in speech writing:

• Tell people what you are going to tell them
• Tell them
• Then tell them what you are told them

“There are always three speeches, for every one you actually gave. The one you practiced, the one you gave, and the one you wish you gave.” Dale Carnegie

The conclusion and the introduction of course do not need to be as lengthy as the main body of the pitch but it should contain the main point.