I call them the bookends — the art of the pitch and the ability to close. They are by far the scariest part of the idea/service/product selling process, and the most critical to master for success. When I read Dan Pink's To Sell is Human, I learned that pitches don't have to be so hard.

Radical Media# have put together a 4-minute video summary of the chapter in the book where Pink describes research from Kimberly Elsbach of the University of California-Davis and Roderick Kramer of Stanford University that helped inform the very idea of what pitches are for.

The 6 new pitches are:

1. The Pixar pitch — modeled on the narrative structure of Pixar movies
2. Subject-Line — your email is a pitch, get over it. It's a plea for attention
3. Rhyme — a favorite of Pink's, rhyming increases processing fluency
4. Questions — when you ask a question, the person inevitably has to respond
5. Twitter — short form invites you to be pithy
6. One-word pitch — you want ownership of one word

The pitch process is collaborative (use of the term to describe it notwithstanding), and when you think of it as an interaction, you transform it into an invitation to a conversation.

Reframing how you think about the pitch goes a long way to helping you craft a valuable call to action or close when the time comes.

When do you find it hardest to pitch an idea, a project, your services? Which of the six new pitches have you try or are you going to try?

[hat tip Dan Pink]

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Valeria is an experienced listener. She is also frequent speaker at conferences and companies on a variety of topics. To book her for a speaking engagement click here.