5 Stages of a Pitch Meeting by Stephanie Palmer, Good in a Room
We got a green-light from our friends over at “Good In A Room” and they gave us an idea of what it looks like pitching in Hollywood. Let’s go back in time… before you had your first pitch meeting… before you even started writing… to when you first realized how much you loved movies.
If you’re like me, when you realized you loved movies, movies were fun. You didn’t really know how they “worked.” You may have thought that big-budget action blockbusters, classic romantic comedies, and gritty independent films had little in common.
But then, when you wanted to become a professional writer, you started learning about screenplay structure. You realized that all movies, all stories, have similar structural features.
There is a similar structure to pitch meetings–and it’s used by top writers, directors, and producers.
Just as screenplays are structured in three acts, pitch meetings have five stages.
If you ignore the five stages and just try to “wing it” in the room, you’re like a writer trying to write a screenplay without understanding basic three-act structure. When you understand the structure of the five stages, you can decide when you want to follow the expectations and when you want to break the rules. START at STAGE 1
Pitch Meetings Happen in Five (5) Stages
- In Stage 1, you build rapport and warm up the room.
- In Stage 2, you ask questions and listen to show respect.
- In Stage 3, you deliver the prepared component of your pitch.
- In Stage 4, you deliver the “improvised” component of your pitch.
- In Stage 5, you ask for one thing if necessary and leave on a good note.
