Pitch Perfect – tune into your audience to hit the right note

Before you pitch to potential clients, funders, investors or collaborators, it pays to not only research their organisation, and whether they need and want your offer, but also the personalities of their key decision-makers.

Theresa Miller delivering a pitching and presenting workshop.

There are plenty of personality type tests out there, including Myers Briggs, DISC, the enneagram, the motivation test, and many more. You may have even taken a workplace personality test, yourself.

Some HR bosses and recruiters swear these tests give them invaluable insights into people's working styles, learning preferences and behaviour.

Others caution these tests can be misunderstood and misread. I have a foot in each camp – but maybe that’s just my split personality.

Researching your audience is important for pitch perfection.

But you don't need fancy personality tests to gather useful intel on the people you’re pitching to and how they prefer to receive their information. This research is vital to tailor your content and delivery to match your audience.

For example, is the key person a ‘cut-to-the-chase’ kind of character or a ‘let’s have a chat and get to know each other first,’ type of person?

You may have gleaned this information already from the types of emails they send and how they conduct themselves in work meetings and on the phone.

Do they open the email with ‘Dear Sara, I hope you had a lovely weekend’/ ‘I trust you had a relaxing break’ / I’m sorry to hear you were sick last week, I hope you’re on the mend’ or sign off with: ‘have a safe and peaceful Easter break’ or do they simply outline the objectives and meeting agenda in bullet points and never allude to anything personal even when you enquire about their welfare?

Body language coach Vanessa Van Edwards relates an excruciating anecdote about pitching her TV series idea to a group of studio executives in L.A. 

At the time she was experimenting with being more tactile and wrongly assumed that all Californian TV producers were warm and fuzzy types.

Upon her first official meeting, the network boss extended her hand to Vanessa for a formal shake. However, Vanessa extended her arms widely and said with a broad smile: “I’m a hugger!” The executive responded tersely with arms crossed. “I’m not.”

The meeting went downhill from there.

Does your audience prefer hugs or firm handshakes?

Sometimes, you can recover from those awkward first moments.

When my first child was a toddler, I went to the ABC in Sydney to talk about a producer role at Radio National. As I fumbled in my bag to find my business card, one of my daughter’s well-sucked dummies fell out at the executive producer’s feet.

I quickly picked it up, a little flustered at how unprofessional I must have appeared. “I’m trying to give it up,” I said, stuffing the dummy back into my bag.

Fortunately, the producer laughed and later offered me a job. Knowing she also had young children, helped my cause. Otherwise, I would have ignored the dummy and simply handed her my card.

In some cultures, business meetings move much, much slower.

In his beautiful bestselling memoir, Three Cups of Tea, mountaineer Greg Mortenson recounts how he was rescued from near death after a climbing accident and was nursed back to health by the poor villagers in the Pakistani Karakoram mountains.

In a bid to repay their kindness, Mortensen and his team spent the next decade building schools – mostly for girls – in remote alpine villages in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

However, Mortensen and his team discovered the hard way that their American style of cutting a deal was not appreciated in that part of the world.

To obtain permission to build in each village, the tribal chieftains must drink tea with a stranger on no less than three occasions – before business matters can even be raised.

So, before you pitch or present to a small group of decision makers, find out if they like small talk, tea and hugs or if they prefer graphs, statistics, and ‘actionable outcomes,’ with no chat and a firm handshake. If you tune into your audience, you have more chance of hitting the right note.

This is an extract from Theresa Miller’s upcoming book – Speak Up – how to be a confident presenter and media spokesperson. Due out in February 2026 New South publishing.

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