Welcome to Meaningful Work Remarkable Life. I’m your host Brook McCarthy, and I’m a business coach, trainer and speaker living and working on the unceded lands of the Camargo people here in Sydney, Australia. In this podcast, we explore the paradoxes inherent in working for love and money, magnifying your impact and doing work you feel born to do. We explore the intersections of the meanings we bring to work and the meanings we derive from work.
June, 2020, Trump was in power in the States. We had lockdowns happening all around the world. There was chaos and it hadn’t really stabilised yet. We were still very much in the thick of the unknown with COVID. Adding to that, we had the George Floyd protests and the Black Lives Matter movement that was surging in the States and in other places as well. And small business owners were really the canary in the coal miner business at this point.
So we were the first to feel the ill effects of COVID. And of course, perhaps we had advantages because we were small and agile, but also we were the first to have people responding in real time to have customers and clients renegging on payments, reneging on payment plans, on contracts. You know, there was a lot of chaos happening. And in June, 2020 in the whole of 2020, I was part of many deals, business mentoring circle with a bunch of other female business owners. And every call at this time felt like a lot of grief and emotion. T
here would always be at least one person crying. Lots of Americans in the group, of course. And the chaos that was rippling through, you know, the world was really felt most acutely, I think, among female business owners. So Audre Lorde has a quote that says, caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation. And that is an act of political warfare.
So how do we as business owners, keep selling, keep pitching, keep marketing our businesses in times of great upheaval and chaos. Because there’s going to be more of this, right? It’s not realistic. I hate that word. There we go. It’s not realistic to think that everything’s always going to be peachy and straightforward. And your uh, launches in particular, when it needs to be all, you know, a lot of focus on selling, a lot of focus on keeping on topic and pitching and marketing and a lot, a lot, a greater volume of this, there’s always going to be a curve ball.
There’s always going to be some bad news, some genocide, war, chaos, some, something that’s going to happen that’s going to potentially throw you off course. And when we’re under siege, when we can feel, you know, the chaos and the bad news all around us, it’s a radical act of self and community love to actually love ourselves fiercely in this time, in these times. And how do we love ourselves fiercely? It’s through sales. It’s through marketing. It’s through pitching despite, despite, despite all of the bad news that’s happening all around us.
Because frankly, we cannot afford to wait until everything is peachy and everything is fine and there are no more wars happening before we pitch and sell and market ourselves. Yeah. And if you are perhaps conscientious, civic minded, sensitive, thoughtful, political, which is really the description of my ideal clients.
You’re not going to want to pitch and sell during times like this. You’re not going to want to do active, you know, proactive kind of launch marketing or campaign marketing when things are chaotic, it can feel really distasteful. But again, it must happen because this is how we look after ourselves. We don’t have a backup plan. We don’t have sick days or holiday pay or mental health days, doona days, as they say, to, you know, enjoy when things are chaotic. We’ve got to keep marketing, pitching and selling. Even when it feels weird, even when it feels icky.
So I created my Life’s a Pitch Party, which is totally free. And if you haven’t gotten your invitation in the mail yet, this is your official invitation. We’re kicking off February 10 running till February 14. Like all parties, it’s free. There’s an excellent playlist being organised. We’ve got the dance floor happening, started by me, of course. And this is when it was created for the first time. I’ve had hundreds and hundreds of people go through My Life’s a Pitch Party, and it was created during 2021, because due to COVID, I lost about $30,000 worth of training work and I did what I always do. I pitched, I reached out to a hello at email address that I found in the footer of a website and I pitched the organization and I booked about $10,000 worth of work. And this is something that I’ve done consistently in my business. I’ve done it when I need to do it. I’ve done it when most importantly, I see an opportunity and I just respond. So it is very much a habit or a ritual or a routine that I now have kind of bedded down when I see an opportunity to pitch for something that looks interesting, that looks relevant, that looks fascinating and valuable to me. If it takes 10 minutes or less, I will pitch on the spot. If it takes longer than 10 minutes, then I might add it to a list to get to later.
So I’ve done this throughout my business and I think that it’s important to recognise that we are all pitching every single day. So one definition of pitching that I love comes from Daniel Priestley and he says, pitching is enrolling people in your ideas in the same way as you enroll your husband or wife or significant other to go to dinner at the new Indian restaurant rather than the old reliable.
In the same way you pitch your kids to go to sleep early so that they can wake up early and have more fun the following day, in the same way that you pitch your friends that we should go out on Saturday night and go dancing, you are pitching people all the time. And this is more than just the sum of its parts.
It is an attitude. Life’s a pitch is an attitude. An attitude of optimism. An attitude of openness that the, that we are surrounded by possibilities and an attitude of passion because it’s hard to pitch people, right? It’s hard to enroll people in your ideas. If you come across as a bit like wet toast, doesn’t really work. You need a bit of passion, right?
So what is life’s a pitch exactly? Well, it’s downloadable copy and paste pitch scripts. I’m not gatekeeping anything, I’m giving you all the best pitch scripts that I’ve used for innumerable years for a number of different purposes. Whether you want to grow your network and find new business buddies, perhaps you’ve outgrown your old community and you’re looking for new people, new people that are doing the big, brave, bold things that are earning 30k months, 50k months, whatever it is that you’re wanting and you’re finding this new community of people.
It could be introducing yourself to somebody who’s never heard of you before. So it’s a cold pitch and you want work ultimately. It could be that you’re pitching to be a guest on somebody else’s podcast or to speak on somebody else’s stage or to be a guest expert in somebody else’s group program, it could be that you are pitching existing clients for more work or re introducing yourself to old clients.
Maybe you’re pitching to raise your prices. Whatever it is, there is likely a copy and paste pitch script in our life’s pitch party to make it super, super easy for you. But like I said, this is more than the sum of its parts. I think I believe that the biggest value of my life’s a pitch party is the fact that it’s a party. It’s a community event because courage is contagious because business development can be fraught, fraught with overthinking, fraught with overthinking and a bit of self-anxed, a bit of imposter syndrome just for good measure. And when we can borrow the courage of other people, when we can buoy each other up, when we can do it together, then we are bolder, we are bigger, we are braver and we are moving a hell of a lot faster.
So what pitching is not, it is not the blanket pitches, the dear sir, madam, that I delete, almost sight unseen every single day of the week. It is not a giant essay on yourself. Yeah, I spend a lot of time in life’s a pitch deleting chunky paragraphs of me, me, me, me, me. Nobody cares, nobody cares. We’ve got to first ignite their interest and start the conversation before we’ve earned the opportunity to actually introduce ourselves in depth and detail.
Brevity is courtesy, and this is one of the key principles of life’s a pitch. Time and attention is our most precious thing. So we do not wanna squander other people’s time and attention by being long-winded and boring. We wanna keep it short, short and charming. It is also not your biggest anxiety dream of dancing naked under a spotlight in an audition. This is not what we’re doing. When we feel that way, we know something is wrong in our business. And sometimes it’s because the other person is making us feel like that. You know, sometimes I’m on a sales call and somebody kind of says to me in not so many words, pitch me. And I’m like, yeah, nah, I don’t think so. That’s not what this is about.
I’m not a performing monkey. I’m not going to pitch you. You know, I’m going to answer questions for sure. I’m going to get to know you. Absolutely. I’m going to ask you lots of questions, but I don’t need to pitch you. Yeah. This is not what we’re doing. So pitching is brief. It is short. It is just the opening of the conversation. That is all. And one other thing that I believe is a bit of a paradox about this and, you know,
What are we talking about here? We’re talking about the paradox of selfishness, right? We’re talking about the paradox of having, you know, of kind of introducing ourselves to somebody, of coming into somebody’s inbox unexpectedly, of coming into somebody’s linked in DMs unexpectedly. And what that is, you know, what that can perhaps make us feel. It might make us feel like we’re being incredibly selfish.
But there is a paradox inherent here because being good at networking, being good at reaching out, being good at pitching means being good with people. And what does that mean exactly? That means deepening our empathy, deepening our compassion and understanding what other people find fascinating. And an extension of that is understanding what other people find fascinating about us. Yeah, it’s about understanding what is our personal charms? Because everybody’s gonna have different personal charms, right, everybody is different and some of us are fabulous with words. Some of us have a very warm personality that makes people, you know, just wanna kind of hang out with us. There’s something very engaging about our personality type.
Some of us are really, really good at being present with other people, of giving, giving you your whole undivided attention, of making the person feel like you are the most important person in the world. Each of us has particular personal charms. And so this is, you know, what somebody that’s good with other people understands in intimately, not all pitches are about selling something. So you could be pitching for new friends.
I hope in 2025, this is a year of growth for you. Perhaps you’re feeling like, you know what? I’ve been at this for a number of years now. I think I want something more. I want something different. I have perhaps outgrown my ideal client group. I’m feeling into a new ideal client group. I’m wanting to pivot. Perhaps I’m wanting to raise my prices, close down certain services, start offering different services.
And therefore, we need to find a new network of people. This is really, really important with growth. If we’re serious about growing, not just 5%, but if we’re serious about growing 30%, 50%, 100%, if we wanna double our business this year, we need to find a new network, a new community of people where the thoughts and the behaviours and the goals of these people are you know, reflective of what your deeper future desires are. Where this kind of stuff is normalised. Because make no mistake, we are social creatures, we are influenced by each other and that absolutely includes online. And so therefore, we need to be very, very careful about the company that we keep, especially as a business owner.
So I love pitching for new friends. I love telling people that I’m interviewing for new friends when I meet them for the first time. And that is the first test. Depending on how they respond, tells me whether or not they have passed that test or not. We could be deliberately pitching to edit and grow our brain’s trust. So the pitches that you will see in the life’s a pitch challenge in the life’s a pitch party, two to four sentences max, some of the, some of the pitches are a little bit longer. Yeah. But most of them are super short.
You are also avoiding saying what other people are expecting to read. I’ve done a lot of editing of other people’s pictures over many years, especially during these laughs of pitch parties. And I almost always delete the first sentence. People, we do not need to know. We do not need to say, how are you? I hope you’ve enjoyed the holiday break, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I hope this email finds you well. Whatever people are expecting to read.
They simply won’t read it because the brain is highly efficient and lazy. If you have a connection point, you want to use it. You want to name drop. You want to seek to turn a cold pitch into a warm pitch.
Another thing, and I think this is pretty much, well, 40% of what I do for a living is most of us are way too obscure in our communications, far too obscure. We assume too much knowledge. We assume that people are interested in what we’re interested in. They are not. So 40% of what I do for a living, I think, involves helping people simplify and turn up the volume in talking about what they do. Using plain English, if you cannot explain it simply enough, you do not know it well enough. I think that was Einstein who said that. Now the other main point of pitching, and this is again what a lot of people get wrong, is we’re not trying to get somebody in bed with us on the very first word.
Right. We want to flirt with them a little. We want to just start a conversation. This is the purpose of the first pitch, just to open a conversation. And there’s very specific ways that we can do that, which I share in the Life’s a Pitch Party, but the first pitch is to seek a response. You need the person to pay attention and to respond and engage with you. And then as we go down into pitching a little bit further, if we want someone to do something for you like meet. And I think a lot of the pictures I get, the person’s clearly and obviously selling something and they’re super keen on jumping on the phone. They want a phone call, they want a meeting, they want a Zoom call. And I’ve done enough of these to realise actually it’s a complete and utter waste of my time if I’m not actively seeking that solution. So oftentimes this is far too premature.
But if you do want somebody to do something for you, such as meet, have a phone conversation, you wanna make it as easy as possible for them. So you wanna give them a calendar link, perhaps. You wanna give them two to three clear options for the time or the day. You don’t wanna keep it vague. We lose a lot of business by being too broad, too general, too vague. And when I’m busy, I do not have time. It doesn’t matter how much I like the person or I’m interested in the opportunity.
If you’re too vague and too general in your communications with me when I’m busy, then I just, I don’t have time to figure it out. Yeah. I don’t have time because it just looks like a lot more work than it needs to be.
So the paradoxes of this, there’s a few, right? You’re putting yourself forward. You appear to be selfish. Your inner chatter may be saying to you, how dare you? Why would they be interested in this? You don’t have enough qualifications. You need to wait to be asked. You need to wait to be introduced. How dare you go into somebody’s inbox unasked?
But you’re also keenly aware of what other people find fascinating. You’re also being entertaining where possible because life is long and dull and boring should be a crime. You’re respecting people’s time and attention by being keenly relevant to them and making it as easy as possible for them to take the next step. And in all instances, you’re looking for a win-win.
Regardless of whether you’re pitching them for work, pitching them for a testimonial, pitching them for a coffee date, pitching them for a collaboration, whatever it is, you’re seeking a win-win that shouldn’t ever be a win-lose, right? Not all pitches are about selling something.
But don’t underestimate for a moment the value of enthusiasm and passion. People invest in passionate purpose-driven pitches and other people who are brimming with life, who are bemused by it, not downtrodden and checked out. You know, those people that we meet that look like some nambulant ghost walkers, they’re not really present. Maybe you’re at a networking event and you’re having an active conversation with somebody and you can see in their eyes that the shutters are down and that they’re giving you 30% of themselves and 70% of themselves is elsewhere. Perhaps going through the shopping list, perhaps looking at somebody over your shoulder thinking that person looks more interesting and important than you.
The world is full of people that are checked out. We don’t need any more of those people. We need people who are brimming with enthusiasm, who are engaged and excited about what they’re doing, their own lives. Yeah. Your enthusiasm should be evident in a single sentence in your pitch. And I am one of those people that adds and subtracts exclamation marks. I can be a little bit over the top with my exclamation marks, but it’s more than just that, right? It’s more than just that.
We need to demonstrate to other people that they are important to us, that we are actively interested in them, and not just interested in what we can get out of them. Yeah? That we are givers first and foremost, and that we are all in this together. That despite all of the vagaries, all of the tragedies, all of the sadness, all of the stress of life that we will continue to show up present, enthusiastic and open. So if you haven’t already signed up you can find Life’s a Pitch at hust forward slash pitch. We kick off February 10, make sure you sign up before then and if you have signed up please reach out say g’day.
Join the Facebook group, you get as much as you give in life, and the more you join in, the more the universe will collaborate to help you get what you want. Real quick before you go, if this episode has gotten you thinking, gotten you excited, or has you changing the way that you do business or life, would you do me a super quick favour and write me a short review?
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