Can I Use My Notes?.....Please!

        It would be lovely wouldn’t it, to be able to use notes when having to pitch/do presentations/ media interviews.   Have your notes handy so you don’t have to memorise everything and you can go back to them if you go blank.  They’re the perfect safety blanket.  

        BUT………

        Put yourself in your audience’s position.  Someone stands in front of you, you are expecting them to know what they’re talking about, and they’re using notes.  What would your reaction be?  You’d doubt their knowledge and therefore doubt them.

        I recently did a pitch training session with a very successful businessman who was going for funding for a new venture.  He was about to face a panel of VCs. 
       
        The conversation went like this…..

Him “I need my notes”

Me “You don’t, you’ll be fine without them.”

Him “Yes I do!”

Me “But you know your business, what makes you feel you need notes?”

Him “I need them…it’s fine it’s not a problem”

Me “You are risking looking as if you don’t know your business”

Him “It’s just technical information, they’ll expect me to be using notes”

Me “There’s a lot of competition for this funding, if it’s a toss up between you and someone who doesn’t need notes…….”

Him “I’ll put them on the table so I’m not holding them”

Me “Have you been in the room?”

Him “No”

Me “ So what if there isn’t a table?”

Him “……….Well there’ll be a lectern”

Me “ If you haven’t been in the room how do you know there’s a lectern?”

Him  “Look, I’m using my notes, it’ll be fine”

        I realised that I would have to physically demonstrate another reason that notes are not a good idea in order to get him to accept my first point that investors don’t like it.  The other reason is…….nerves.

        I casually picked up my own notes as I was talking to him.  As I kept talking I started to shake the papers very, very slightly as if I was trembling.   Despite the fact that I was still talking, his eyes kept darting to the sheaf of papers involuntarily.  The more he looked at them the more I shook them, still talking about something else.   His eyes kept darting…..
   
        So I asked him why he kept looking at the papers.  

Him “er…..well…they’re….”

Me “ Shaking?   Yes I know, and I lost your attention completely the first time your eyes dropped to see why they were shaking.   And that’s what will happen to you if you use notes.   If you have even the slightest nerves, the notes will show it.  And as the VCs eyes go to the paper,  you will notice them looking at the paper and that will make you more nervous and they will shake even more.”

Him “................Ah!”  

        If you don’t believe the effect shaking papers can have, try it yourself on someone else and watch their eyes.   You want your audience looking at you not at your shaking hands.   You want their complete undivided attention.   

        Notes are a very very very very very bad idea.    They will give away any hint of nerves and they will make you look ill prepared and ill informed. 

        If you want to know how to do without those notes, keep reading this blog.  Making your pitch easy to deliver is a subject I return to again and again.