Do you know the rules of the game?

What game are you playing? Are the people that you're talking to on the same playing field. One of the biggest problems that i see with pitches and presentations is that people fail to control the frame.

They don't allow the other party to understand the rules of engagement. Therefore, very quickly people find themselves derailed. Have you ever had the situation where you planned in your head? or out loud how things were going to go and then all of a sudden within the first couple of minutes, you were being dragged completely off track by the other person that you were talking to the reason is that you didn't control the frame? You didn't agree upfront how things were going to play out so when you think about preparing a pitch or presentation, one of the most important decisions you need to make is how are you going to frame the conversation.

That's even more important in this virtual world that we find ourselves in at the moment. If you don't tell people how you want them to respond, when you want them to respond, what the format is going to be, when the breaks are gonna be, then people can't concentrate on what you're saying. So, agree the frame up front, tell people how things are going to work. Then, you can hold people accountable.

If you pre-frame and say we're going to take questions at the end and someone starts asking questions in the middle, you can say Bob i'm going to stop you there. As we agreed at the beginning we will take the questions at the end so please hold that thought. We'll be very happy to answer it once we've got through the presentation material. It's really important that you think about this if you want to succeed. It's a courtesy to the people that you're interacting with, that you tell them what playing field they're on and what rules you're going to be playing by.