So, in about three weeks I get to pitch a feature or tv project to an audience of real live people.  It’s a fun opportunity, and one I intend to make the most of.  And that alone gives me an edge over people who find pitching a sordid and unseemly affair, or don’t believe it’s something writers should be doing.  More fool them.  I figure, if I’ve put passion and commitment into getting a script or treatment just right, who better to persuade people that it’s worth finding more about?

Fortunately, I’m pretty resourceful when it comes to making the most of live situations.  For one thing, it’s a chance to get away from the kind of cabin fever that can result from too many days spent at the keyboard away from human company.  For another, I work in plenty of contexts where I’m used to selling myself to get work in copywriting, marketing, training or whatever.  And as far as I can work out, the key isn’t to do with relentlessly plugging whatever your thing is, but building a relationship with the person you’re meeting in which you demonstrate by your behaviour that you will make their life better, simpler, more fun, or whatever.  In other words, be yourself, having made sure you’ve got out of the right side of bed that morning.

The pitching process can be summarised as follows: generate good feelings in your audience, and attach your product or services to those good feelings.  Simple, huh?  And it’s made easier when you clarify your thinking about this whole networking thing.  Like many people, I was sceptical about networking at one point, seeing it as a means of getting people to give you work regardless of whether you like them.  And viewed that way, no wonder I didn’t want anything to do with it.  So it’s a good thing I got my head straight, and started to approach it in a different way: start by filtering for people you like, and work from there to how you can help each other.  No fixed ideas of what you’re going to be doing, more an intent to spend time with people whose company you enjoy doing stuff you like. 

Hmm.  Sounds better that way, doesn’t it?  And since I’ve approached it that way, I’ve become a dab hand at successful networking.  Before Christmas I went to an event intended for producers (another tip: go where your intended audience are, even if you’re not the target audience of the event).  There were a whole bunch of producers there, and most of them were a very sad lot, bemoaning their inability to get projects off the ground, predicting the impossibility of benefiting from the organisation hosting the session, and so on.  And then there were some fresh faced and smiling people who I gravitated to because they seemed like they actually wanted to be there, so we talked.  We discovered, among other things, a mutual love of comics and games.  The latter was no great surprise, since they worked for a computer games company.  But their enthusiasm was palpable, and my response to them was equally keen. 

Business cards were exchanged, leading to a meeting, the result of which is I’ll find out in the next week if I’ve got a significant contract to do a whole bunch of background writing for one of their forthcoming launches.  And all because we got on, and didn’t share the negative outlook of so many of the people at the same event, most of whom went home secure in the knowledge that things were as bad as they suspected.  Their problem.

So, where the pitching event is concerned, bring it on.  I’ve already sent the script in question out to some trusted and cool friends and colleagues in the business for quotes that can be used as part of the presentation or package. And I’ve got the bones of a strapline that gets to the heart of what my show is about, and why it’s different from anything else on television.  After that, it’s just a question of standing up and doing what comes naturally.