How to pitch design to non-designers?

Hello, hello. Are you all ready for the next session? Basically this is sort of a workshop and presentation setup. We just want to hear because we have to engage you and have you part of the presentation later on so now you are warned. We just want to hear are there any English speakers here? Or one English speaker? Okay brilliant we will do it in English. Okay Okay, we'll take the presentation in English. Two. Two speakers. Ah, two speakers, okay. Yeah, hello, I'm Toga, and this is my colleague, Aska. And we're from a digital design agency here in Copenhagen called Think. And what we will be speaking about is how to pitch design. So just before we saw Christian from a Danish design center talking about that designers are not interested in pitching design, but I see a lot of people here, so I think we're interested in pitching design because it's very important. And so thank you for coming and seeing this workshop. I think it's the first time I've been speaking to so many people, so I'm probably a little bit nervous and be talking a lot of gibberish, but bear with me. So what kind of design are we talking about about what design to pitch? And design can be many things. It could be service design or it could be print design, but what we're going to talk about is digital design. And what Aska and I have been doing for about 10 years each, I think, is digital design. I'm a user experience designer, and Aska is a project manager. So why is this important? I think it's really important to be able to pitch design because you want to, what you're doing is either you're designing something really pretty or if you're a user experience designer, then you're making wireframes, then you almost always have to get through some kind of gate, some kind of gatekeeper. You've been working your ass off for weeks, making pretty design, pretty pixels, or pretty wireframes, and then at some point you have to present it to a boss or to a coworker or some guy who is a gate between you and the end user, the guy that you were making this stuff for. So this is what the workshop is about, is how do you get your design through that gate, that virtual gate? How do you get your design through and out to the end user? Because there's always a guy who can do it like this. He can say, okay, I really don't get your design, so I won't take your design and give it to the end user. And that's why it's a really important skill, not only to be a really great designer in the sense that you're really good at putting pixels together or wireframing, but also in the sense that you're really good at pitching your design. So, and basically, as we all know, all of us who've been in this situation know this is really unfair, because as Torge said, you've been working your ass off for so long, and then finally you meet this C-level boss, and you just say, no, that really doesn't work. So just to get past that and really bring out the great design. Yeah. And as I said, just to give you a little bit of background who we are, I am Torge. That's me, so right now I'm out without glasses, and this is Asker. And this is some of the companies that we've been working for. Yeah, maybe you know them, maybe you don't, but I think what, of course, we come from the agency side, so a lot of our experience is from agencies who are pitching clients, but I think it's, you can use the things that we are talking about, it's the same situation if you're working within a corporation and pitching your design to maybe a boss, maybe another department, or an IT department, or, I think it's the same skills, and it's the same situations. And this is some of the clients that we're used to working for. But just to get back to the front page, that of course a gatekeeper doesn't go like this or like this. They give the feedback in another way. They will like camouflage their feedback. So you can say, just like when Houston asked, how will I know if he really loves me? How will I know if he loves your design? Because most gatekeepers won't say like, oh, I really like your design or I really hate your design. Instead, if they really hate your design, or if they do like this, they would say stuff like this. They would say, I don't think this fits our business strategy, or I really like the design, but I'm not sure about the customers. Or something like, this is off-brand, we're much more approachable. I don't know, have anyone tried this kind of feedback for their design? Like, maybe put your hands up. I've tried this a million times. Even though I don't design pixels, but also when you present wireframes, you can get this kind of feedback. And basically often what we meet, for example, like the final quote, this is off-brand, we need to be more approachable. None of us actually make none of the feedback actually make non-approachable design. And how to take the design you already presented and make it even more approachable, it really doesn't make sense in relation putting this into pixels. So just to get past all these obstacles that really just a break point for coming up with your design. So the overall objective of this talk is to get the gatekeeper to love you. So he'll be like this. So when you present your design, you want him to go like this. The greatest thing he's ever seen, you want him to be aesthetic. That's what we're trying to, we'll try to do today. And we'll put together a little agenda. And we'll talk a little bit about elevator pitch. How many of you know elevator pitch, how you do that? Okay, a lot of you. So you're probably better at it than me. So I'll just get some feedback for my pitch, how I would put together an elevator pitch. Then we have a little workshop exercise. Then we'll do some group presentations. And then Asker will reveal some dirty tricks. Yeah, that's it. That's the really exciting part of the presentation. Exactly. But let's start off a little bit with the elevator pitch. And maybe before we start with what is an elevator pitch, we have to ask ourself what we are doing. What are we doing as designers or user experience designers or project managers? What are we actually doing? Are we, what kind of business are we in? What are we selling? Because pitching is about selling stuff. So what are we really selling? And this is a rhetorical question so you don't have to answer. I will answer it for you. Are you selling graphic design? No, you're not. Are you selling wireframes? No, you're not. You're actually selling ideas because what most of us do, if you spend a lot of hours doing a wireframe or a lot of hours producing a digital design, you're giving this, what you're doing to some other guy who will then give it to some other guy before it eventually meets the end user. It's a long journey before your, what the thing that you're actually doing before it actually meets the end user. So what you're doing is an idea that some other guy has to catch and work with and put it to the next guy, which then eventually will meet the end user. So what you're actually selling is an idea. You're selling an idea to your coworkers. You're also selling an idea to a boss who have to buy your design, or you're selling an idea when you're pitching a startup, like the guy who was here yesterday from Possible, POS, the POS app. These are also about selling an idea. And actually the startup guy who was just here before, he also talked about Simon Sinic, who's had this famous talk, TED talk about Start with Why. And he puts it this way, that ideas alone are not scalable only when an idea is put into words that a lot of people can clearly understand and idea can aspire action. And that's actually what I'm talking about. That what you're doing, you're giving it to someone else that you want to take action. You're making a graphical design or digital design, and you're giving it to a frontender who has to do some kind of action. You want him to do amazing work and take your design and make it really brilliant in the front end. So you're passing on an idea to another guy. I'm getting really close to you. It's a dirty trick, yeah. So what you're actually selling is an idea, an idea that can aspire some kind of action. And a good way of communicating an idea is when you put an idea into an elevator pitch. So most of you are familiar with the elevator pitch, but the really short description of an elevator pitch is something that you can do in 60 seconds so that when you go into an elevator, you can tell a guy, the guy that's standing in the elevator, about your idea in 60 seconds, and he will think it's a great idea. So what does this mean for us? Why could it be a good idea to have this kind of elevator pitch? I think it's a good idea because most of the designers I see, when they pitch their idea, they pitch a lot of crazy buzzwords. Like many designers, when they pitch, they talk about flat design or they talk about parallax scrolling. So when you present your design, they say, okay, we created this new amazing design for the front page, and it's really great because it's flat design and it has this amazing effects where the layers are scrolling. But the audience, the buyer, the gatekeeper, he can really connect with this because he don't need flat design and he don't need parallax scrolling. He needs to sell more or have happy clients or reduce costs. So he can really connect with what you're telling him as a designer. I know that that's the tools that you use. You use a tool called flat design or you use parallax effects, all of that stuff. But in his world, it's all about selling more or have more happy clients or reduce costs. So I think a lot about when you're pitching design, instead of talking about how your design looks, like describe its features, like, oh, it's this color, or we have a big, beautiful image, let's stop talking about how it actually looks because they can see just like you and start talking more about what problem it solves and how. So what is the problem that you're addressing? Are you trying to make a design that sells more or is it a design that reduce costs? Or what is it actually doing? And a really good example, I think, is from, if you remember the movie, The Wolf of Wall Street, where he's actually showing the point I'm trying to make. And I'll just play this little scene from it. Show him how it's done. Boom. Sell me that pen, watch. Go on. Let me sell this fucking pen. That's my boy right there. It is a pen. Fucking sell anything. Why don't you do me a favor? Why don't you name down that napkin for me? I don't have a pen. Exactly, supply and demand. Holy shit. He's creating urgency for getting to want to buy the stock. It's something that they need. Okay, so if you're selling a pen, he's not talking about the pen and how it looks. He's talking about what problem it solves for you. That you want to write something, you want to write your name on a blanket. Okay, here, I have a great product for you. So one of the businesses that have been really good at designing pitches is startups. Because startups pitch all the time and there's competitions all over the world where startups pitch against each other. And startups have this formula that they use for pitching or for making an elevator pitch. And it goes like this. So it's like, we solve a problem by providing some kind of advantage to help some kind of target, like target group accomplish some goal. So for instance, we have Fleming here who yesterday spoke about for Plan Day, which I think is a 10 year old company. But still consider themselves a startup. And you could use this formula on Plan Day. It would go something like, we solve shift planning problems by providing an online system for shift planning to help restaurants, Leisure and other companies accomplish more efficient shift planning. That could be a way to use the formula. So this is like a good way of trying to pitch a startup. But you could also take this formula and use it for a design. And I will do that in just a second. But I think the key here is actually that you're very good at pointing out what is the problem. What is the problem that you're solving? Like for Plan Day, they're solving the problem of it's very hard to make a plan of workers planning their shifts. And so it's the same point as before, but it's about pitching the problem and not the solution. So a way you could do that is actually take the same formula and use it for design and say, okay, this new design solves a business problem by some key means, unlike the current state, like the current design or unlike some competitor for the customers who wants to do something. So just as a quick example here, I took the Plan Day site because Fleming and I actually did this together. And so when Fleming, he presented this design for his management within Plan Day, he was doing it very effectively. And then just a second, I'll show how he did that very effectively, but just to show you how you could do this the wrong way, which Fleming not did, and I'm gonna say, you did this. This is what Fleming not did. So when he presented the design, he didn't go into presentation mode. And this is what I call presentation mode, just as I told you about before. Like, if you see this design, like the presentation mode of this is just saying, okay, I created this really beautiful website and it has a dark overlay, and here I have some text and I'm using the Avenir Fund. This is like really a presentation mode. And a lot of designers make the mistake of going into presentation mode. The right way to do it is to pitch it. And the way you go about pitching this is saying, okay, this is the new plan.com. This design is focused 100% on generating leads by demonstrating how PlanDate can make employee scheduling much more easy and effective for managers. Using Avenir, yes, exactly. So can you see the difference? In the one mode, we're just presenting the features of the design, we're just saying, okay, it's black and overlays and parallax scrolling, but here we're going into what the gatekeeper is thinking about. Okay, if I buy this design, will it get me more clients? Will I make more money or will I reduce costs? So this is the way that you could attack a gatekeeper with a more, I don't know, a better pitch, essentially. And when this is supposed to be a workshop, if you had any feedback or any comments relating to this, just bring it on, you'll have to use this yourself in just a few minutes. So if you have any question that we need to elaborate anything, just bring it on, otherwise we'll go through. So yeah, just to sum up, this is like the difference between the two. And if we take the right way of pitching, we could try and put it down into kind of like a formula where you say- Unreadable one. Yeah, an unreadable one. But here it's actually where we took the pitch, the Plan Day pitch of the new design and tried to put in the formula and say, okay, the formula is that we try first to say, okay, what kind of business problem is this new design solving? How are we doing it? In the case of Plan Day, we did it by showing real use case situation of the product. So that was like our key way of communicating the design. Unlike what is the current state of the design, when we put in this new design, how is this going to totally change the way people would think about this design and who is the key competitors? So we will just try and make a very, very quick exercise. I think Asker will- Yeah, I'll jump into this one. If you just go further to the next slide. Basically, when this is a workshop, what we want to do is we want to have you to try to make this, use this exactly pitch formula. Just to get it under your skin and see how it works. And basically we took a website that we didn't make, but we know the guys who did it, just to make, we have no part in this. So basically the exercise is that you grab your phone to computer or whatever you have and look at the new website. And basically what you have is you have 20 minutes and you'll just hook up with the nearest three or two sitting next to you and you'll have 20 minutes and try to use this formula on the website and see how can we pitch this. And after that, we'll be in the best public school manner ever, pick out different groups and have them present the pitch, so you better do the work. And we'll use one of the old tricks is of course, the ones who are looking at the most down into the floor will pick first, so just so you know. So basically we have the formula and if- The secret formula. And if anyone walled us off and they can't see the screen, just come up to us and we have a range of small handouts they could use and you have like 20, 25 minutes or something like that. So grab your nearest colleague, coworker or person sitting next to you, two, three, four people and start working on the elevator pitch of be all and play. Okay, we'll be starting up again. Are you guys ready for use the secret sauce formula? I think we're lacking one or two groups, so we'll just wait. But just if you place yourself in the groups, you've been working it. And we just, are there any volunteers? Do we start picking out? Okay, that's a brilliant group. Okay, if you'll join me up here and then you'll start pitching the, pitching, using the formula and then we'll both talk and I and you'll give some feedback on what do you think. I will just run a few sessions of this. Do I have a microphone? Okay, I'll just give you a few seconds. So if you're not here, do I have a microphone? Okay, can you hear me? Speak really loud. Yeah, we have written that the new design places Beardoe as a modern lifestyle brand by telling stories and relate to details and dreams by showing the user in an aesthetic, urban environment unlike other e-commerce sites that only focus on the product itself. Hmm, that's a great pitch, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are there any thoughts? Feedback. Yeah. Even louder. Yeah. The new design places Beardoe as a modern lifestyle brand by telling stories and relate to details and dreams by showing the user in an aesthetic, urban environment unlike other e-commerce sites that only focus on the product itself. It's like, do it again. Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts? How was it working with the formula? I think it was good. Actually, we had a good discussion. Yeah. We have this one. Thank you. We had a lot of ideas quite quick and had a lot of trying to go into the different websites. We were into HiFi Klubben, that's a Danish site, and also Apple's site, and then B&O, and how did this differentiate from the other sites? And we saw this about the user in a Nordic environment that focus on detail and a cup of coffee, the relaxed atmosphere, and I think that's, if you have a Mac, it relates very good to the lifestyle you want to live. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah, and maybe also exactly the focus on the item because here the item becomes a part of a dream, of a vision of me, I wanna be that model with the thin chin bones and everything. I'm not going in there to just purchase those earplugs. I'm going in there to purchase a dream. And in that way you can see they know their segment. This is not only the best specifications for these earplugs. This is a dream and a brand I'm purchasing. And if I'm a B&O purchaser, that's exactly what I wanna do. I want the brand too. So, yeah, they actually really found their segment really good. Yeah. Just adding, if you ask about the formula, I think it was, once we've had the discussion on what we experienced on the site, it was pretty easy simply to use this as a structure to formulate the pitch. Yeah. Yeah, as a checklist. Yeah, exactly, as a checklist for what to include in the pitch. Any of you designers or what are your job situation? Three of us is working for one house. Yeah. And one you're working for the other one. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And I also overheard that you would be, you talked about that when you were presenting design internally, that you would go about this in this way instead of like, could you elaborate a little bit? It was kind of an eye-opener also for us when we looked at how do we pitch our design back home in our company. We actually got inspired from this site that maybe we should think more about putting our design or placing our design and the product that represents the design, put that into context. Instead of showing, or an app, instead of showing a smartphone with the app on it, we should show a guy using the smartphone in a specific environment solving a problem. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. A bit naive maybe, but it was very straightforward. Yeah. Okay, great. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other groups? How about you guys? Will you join us on stage? Yeah. So we are from Danfoss, me, Susanne. Auto Butler. So. We've seen you before. Yeah. Maybe. Yeah. Okay, I think the word needs some polishing, but by this new design, we're introducing a new, lightweight and classic universe. We've been doing this by introducing a new portfolio, unlike the old and dusty dark website, portfolio slash portfolio. And we're doing this for younger people between 30 and 20 and 30, who wants to be part of the classic legacy of the Bang & Oluf universe. So. That was it. That was what we reached on. Glass as cattle. So beautiful. It was a Bang & Oluf user. Yeah. Yeah. What are your thoughts in the process of making this pitch? Yeah, I don't think we had such a straightforward and good process that the others, so we were talking a bit back and forth. But I mean, it's a great way of framing the thoughts that we have, especially with such an unstructured group as ours. Well, groups typically are very unstructured. So that's a good thing. Basically, just a small remark to the pitch. It's, in our experience, it's very dangerous to be too harsh on the old design. Either because if you made, as an agency, and do the redesign, you shouldn't talk that much bad about it because you actually did it at a point. And the other thing that's good to remember is the people you're presenting the new designs have probably also bought the old one. So not to put them into a bad light that they really bought something that's not that interesting or dark or gloomy or whatever. So be careful, better to empathize how brilliant the new thing is than to talk too much bad about the old thing. Unless they know it's really shitty, then you can do it. But otherwise, be careful about that part of presenting new design. Any feedback from you guys? Completely silence. We'll give them a big hand. Yeah. Thank you. Should we grab another front row, front row group? Yeah. We have more business. Could you say where you're from? Yeah, I'm Kim from Dwarf, and I'm Jens from Nucrely. I'm Peter from Moabay. Lars, Nucrely. Okay, our pitch is, the new design increases online and offline sales by providing an appealing shopping first and discovery experience now available on all devices for music lovers who wants the best possible listening experience regardless of background noise. Great. Could we do it again? Just a bit slower, then we'll get all the details with. The new design increases online and offline sales by providing an appealing shopping first and discovery experience now available on all devices for music lovers who wants the best possible listening experience regardless of background noise. Clean and simple. Yeah. I think it's a really good pitch also because they really, you get the key feature of the product, you get that into the actual pitch, but you're not telling the concrete feature of the product first, but you're just putting it in last in the pitch. So that also, typically if you're pitching for a client, they also want to know if you know their product, and you know it really well. So I think if I was at Be Old Player, I would be happy that I've spent a lot of hours designing this amazing earplugs that reduces noise, and that you in some way have thought about that in the design. So I think it's a good way of pitching that you show that you really understand the product, but put it into the pitch. And I think it's a great way. Do you use anything similar when you're home at work, or is this new turf for you? How do you eternally present, for example, projects and so on? I think it was a very good idea. I think we should have kind of more like a brainstorm. It was hard doing next to each other on chairs. So maybe it would be even better at home. I haven't tried it before, but I think it's a good structure way to presentate new stuff. And normally I have the role as a gatekeeper, so I'm usually the one turning thumbs up and down. It's kind of funny to sit on the other side of the table. Yeah, but I guess this is something that I would like to hear at least that our agency knows what we are working with, what we have dealt with before. And not putting too much bad words on the old design. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We'll at least have one more. Are there any volunteers who think they would try this? Yeah. Cool. Just to make it even more intimidating. My name is Søren. I'm from Klausen and Pardas. I'm Flemming. I'm from Plan Day. I'm Aubrey from Plan Day. And here's her text. The new design solves the former inaccessible product telling new and younger audience that B&O is for their generation by attracting, intriguing, and engaging the audience, letting them experience the product. What was the next? Unlike other tech companies who only sell audio, we sell fashion. Who wants this? It's people that are aware of themselves. They're brand conscious and they understand the signal value of fashionable products and brands. It's really good. Yeah. I think that's a great insight that they're not trying to sell hi-fi products. They're trying to sell fashion. That's a lot of difference. Of course, we all know the Apple story, but I think B&O Play has a different kind of touch. And I think they're really good at being like a fashion brand with all those beautiful pictures. So I think it's a great pitch to talk about that's what they're doing. They've always had a legacy of having great audio and design, but audio doesn't really change. Design does. And they've sort of been held back for maybe a decade or so. And it's like telling the younger generation that we're here, we're back. We've never really been gone, but here's a new product that's more accessible, it's cheaper, it's not like your parents. No. This is something else, but it's still B&O. Basically, I think it's good with the pitch is basically that you dig into a business problem that you already had, and you solve that business problem by design. You're saying like the old B&O and the new B&O. And of course, they're making a new line, a new branch, because they're having a bit of a problem. So that you actually solve the business problem by doing this, which is really, really strong when trying to get past all these damn gatekeepers. Thank you. We'll take the last one. Maybe some of the, yeah. You. Well, we were a bit puzzled in the beginning, because this new design, that means there must be an old design that didn't work, and how does that old design look? We didn't knew that, so we tried to Google it. And of course, it said that B&O had a lot of economical problems, and they were going bankrupt. And no, they were saved in the last minute. And so, we tried to do a little bit of research, and we found that the B&O was a little bit more difficult than they were saved in the last minute. But anyway, we thought, of course, yeah, like the other group said, that they're doing this new line, because they want to look a bit younger, so we wrote this. The new design will rejuvenate the B&O brand by making it look more accessible to a younger audience. Unlike now, where the B&O values look old and conservative, for the future consumers who want one day to become a B&O luxury TV owner. Short. Yeah, short and simple. So basically, the key purchase motivation is actually a step towards owning the big product in the end. Yeah. What are your thoughts on using this process? Did it work well for you, or is it something you do in your everyday life? It was quite complicated, but that was because we didn't have all the background information, so we had to guess a lot of things. Do you have a design background, or what are your background individually? I'm a designer. I'm a product manager and UX designer. And I'm a digital designer from Operate. So was this far from the way you usually present? This is the first 100% almost design group. Is this far from the way you usually present, or how do you go about pitching your solutions? I can sell for myself. I think I have some issues because I usually just jump in and try to explain why do we design, why do we use the colors as we do, why do we use the fonts as we do, and the imagery and the design language just to explain the CVI as such. Trying to put those more sales approach buzzwords can be quite difficult. But I think it's a good formula to just try to nail it in to something simple and acceptable as such. Well, when I present to clients, I skip the parallax scrolling stuff because I know they don't care about parallax scrolling. I think parallax scrolling is really great. We all do. But usually I use the helicopter view and saying, well, this new design will give you more leads, blah, blah, blah. So this is not far from the way you actually approach. No, I haven't used this formula before. It's good, but I've used it pre-intuition. Thank you very much. Great, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Basically we'll just move on to, are there any comments? Should we just skip on to the dirty part? The dirty part. We'll go on to the dirty part. The dirty part. Basically this is the sort of, how should I say? This is the, yeah, this is, I'll just use dirty, and this is the dirty part of the presentation. What we've actually, Toga and I have been discussing quite a while up to this presentation. How do we do it? How do we actually, how do we present? How do we make the design go through apart from this sort of business approach? And there are all of a lot other cheap tricks that we know we're gonna share with you. And we're not really sure that we have a job as a consultant after this because we revealed how we sell the design, but I hope you'll bring it forth so it's worth it. And please bring on any comments as we go along. If you have any similar experience or you think this is totally wrong or totally off. Maybe we should also say that the secrets or the dirty secrets that we're showing here is for when you are going for a client meeting or a big meeting internally, and you have worked your ass off for weeks for designing something really great, and then you are at this moment where you have to present the design. So we're talking about this very specific situation where we're going to present your design in front of a gatekeeper. So this is where we got some tricks for you to get it through the gatekeeper and out to the end user. How do we get past those 20 minutes? Make it or break it? The first of all, it's pretty obvious, but it's still a really good thing to think about before you enter the presentation room. Who are you presenting this design for? Is it another designer? Is it a CEO? Is it an editor? Is it a project manager? And so on. Just make it really clear who of these gatekeepers can give you the thumbs up or thumbs down because it has so much to do how you value your augmentation when presenting your design. And all of these different persons have different motivations. For example, a project manager really needs to make this go smooth and simple and not that much hassle. How can you present this design? So it seems like an easy thing to buy for a project manager. If it's a CEO or something with a bottom line responsibility, how does this make his business better and so on? So be really, really precise of who can give you a yay or no on the design and angle the augmentation towards that. And also remember, it's not only the target group. There's a lot of all the different cultural issues. I know this is pretty basic, but it has a really big import. And it depends, do you have to present this in Denmark? Do I have to present this in England? So on, that's a really right scope of how you can actually use and present your design. This is a real life example that me and my colleague actually used first. We have used this image in a process slide of how to optimize IT projects after go live. And we first, in a week, we used this image at an internal IT department in a big Danish company, and they thought it was really great and they laughed and they said, this is such a funny way to show that we have to move on when we first go live. Then a couple of weeks after that, me and my colleague, we went to England and presented it to, I think it was a German client and an English client, and I think it was an Indian client. And we haven't really thought about the cultural differences. And after we nailed this really tight business schedule, and we ended with this, and of course, hoping for a laugh, they were just like totally stone-faced. And we were just looking what's happening here. And the only thing that they said to us, would you please skip that slide? And then we knew we wouldn't ever go back there, just because of one simple, funny slide. So of course, in some cases, it worked, but think of both the target group and also the cultural situation, because it means the world. That's actually relating to the further slide also, but a really, really good trick is just to make your audience laugh. Take the tension off the presentation. Don't make it too formal. Make them feel comfortable with you that you have to work on and go forth with the project. There's another example that I've used a couple of times. Toga also used it, I think. But this actually shows how they, in the 60s, thought the computers would look like in 2004. And basically, just to bring up, this is what they thought the computers would look like, and this is in no way what happened. So basically, this has nothing to do with the design presentation whatsoever, but you make them think, how did it look in the old days? What are we building now? And just put a smile on their face and help them bring it forth. You can do it even more subtle. This is also an example we used in the presentation, where we actually lined up a best practice for an e-commerce site that we were building. But instead of just saying, the following showcase will be a relevant example of great user experience and so on, this analysis contains 20 examples of great tactics to increase the conversion rate of a booking flow. And if you just have this slide, this is really boring. It's true and it's good, but it's really boring. But if you just add the Chuck Norris ingredients, they will both remember your points even better and relieve some of the tension in the audience. And everybody loves Chuck Norris. And other thing that we have a real, really good experience with is actually we make digital design, but actually make the digital design physical. So whenever we present a new design, we of course present it on screens and so on, but we also make hard printed copies of the website, the front page, the app or whatever it is, just to give, actually to give the clients with home, just to leave them on the desk and they can keep looking at it when they're checking mails and take, that was really, really brilliant. So just a small reminder that they keep going back and forth to it and just basically let the design, let the design grow on them and thereby making it even easier for them to purchase this. So even though you present digital and so on, give them something, give them something they can hone all to and looks good and they can show also to their colleagues, look at this new project we're gonna build. It works really, really well in dealing also with the politics internally in the departments. And of course, give them a hot model. Now we're actually almost back at the mask slide, but when you pitch design, just as our exercise with the secret source formula show, it's really good to build something business related to put your design into a context or into a setting where they can understand why should they choose this design and how does it differentiate? Even though you presented in words, models and so on, really helps to understand where is this product and how does it help me? So basically this is just an example where you can almost put any client logo in here. All elements must be thought in both in relation to the consumer, the market and of course the client. So basically make a diagram where you look at the different aspects of the business and place your design in the middle thus showing we're actually solving problems both for the consumer, the market and the client themselves. And that's also, it's really, really easy to communicate and it's really easy to understand. Also when we saw Christopher yesterday from Airbnb, he also did this, do you all remember the model with the motivation and ability and stuff like that? It's the same trick. It's a beautiful, simple model, but it just gets into your head, okay, that sounds smart. Yeah, basically it sounds smart. And nobody can argue with this. Nobody doesn't want to relate both to the market, the end users and their own brands. Everybody wants to be there. So it's a no brainer. Other examples, give them something they can also tell forth to their boss. For example, an activation strategy concerning or for example, dream plan go. It's a catchy sentence. And also it's really easy for your stakeholder to communicate this further in the organization. What are you building this new website? No, we're not building a new website. We're making activation strategy with these three strategic elements that also includes a website. It's easy to understand the strategy and it's really, really easy to communicate it. You can go even deeper, for example, what are you, what are, I'm sorry, this is in Danish, but what are your presence focus in related to the market now? This is price, this is technical specification. And what you want to do in the future, you want to have simple usable products that solve the client problem without having to speculate in relation to installation and product packages. So you go from a technology driven position to a simplicity driven position. Who doesn't want to go from a technology driven position to a business simplicity driven situation. So basically make the purchase of the design a part of something that also supports that business and their future position in the market. Other example, for example, you always put the user in the center. You see all these different aspects that you all these different platforms you can rate to, but always remember to put the user in the middle. There's not really any company that doesn't want to put the user in the center. We all need to do that. And make positions in the market, make it really, really clear where are we going from here. And of course, these are made up from, it's not Howard Business Review research. It basically comes in looking at the market and seeing where is the potential, thus making it easier, making it seeing how does this fit into an overall business plan. And our example is just bring, again showing them where do I come from, to where do I get it. And this is a product focused to a, I can't even read, to where the products is secondary. You tell other benefits from the, other benefits from the product you're selling. Does it make any sense, this? And this is also a really, really, really strong key factor in presenting design. This is a bit related also to the target group, but this is also about how do you play the political game of the corporations before you actually go out to present it. For example, you have to present your digital design to a CEO or Chief Technology Officer and so on. Remember who are the other stakeholders in this presentation today? Do you have to get the project manager, the technical director, so forth on your side? So basically a really good way of going about this is actually showing them the previous design or bringing them into the process, thus being able to bring it forth towards a top level. So it's both about placing your design in this right political environment and also helping using the organization itself to bring forth your design. And of course, this is a really, really strong one. If anyone of our generation will remember, this is Steve from Beverly Hills 90210. And basically what this is about, this is do the mullet. Anyone doesn't know what a mullet is? The mullet is this beauty here. And basically what's it about, it's that you will always remember when you present your design. And that's also what the pitch formula is about. It's business upfront, all these clear cut, clear cut look here and party in the back. It means that you never, that you should never present your design upfront. Make your design a natural conclusion of your business or your strategic or your target group argument. And thereby the key gatekeeper cannot really turn it down. And a really good thing about a good way of doing this is actually to use their own business language. Use for example, Mintzberg or Porter or whoever is hot on CBS right now. And place your design within that context, thus making them understand how is this a strategic approach and not just an aesthetic approach. We have an example here. This is the world's best online car booking flow provided by, we have insert logo here, five forces. And if any of you read any business literature, you know this is one of the famous sentences from a business analysis called Michael Porter. And basically when you place it into a context, oh this makes so much sense because I know actually, you know, the business is going to be successful. It makes sense because I know actually know the background and also I can see the design. So we combine the Porter's five forces vocabulary with the elements we actually build up on the website. And when they get this combination of this is where we need to go business wise, we can of course reveal the design later on by making it a natural conclusion of our business strategy. And if you're even, if you're making it even worse, you can actually also use, we've used that a couple of times also, but you could use the reverse model, which is a really nice image, but that's just turned around and say party in the front and business up back. But give them something both to remember and to laugh about and understand what's the context of this design representation. And then other, other really, really strong argument for making a successful design presentation is actually as much as you can do it at the home of your own office or your own agency or wherever it is you're comfortable. Because when you're presenting design and presenting aesthetics, it's extremely important that for example, the screen works, that they're not too much light and sunlight and so you can't see all the details and so on. So we're not going to be able to do that. So we're going to have to do a lot of work to make sure that the quality of the design is really good and that the design is really good. So that's the key. And then the last thing is to make sure that you're not going to have to do a lot of work on the details and so on. So in best case, you can bring back, you can bring the clients or your gatekeepers to your own home just to make sure that all the audio and so on, it really works. And if in some cases, of course, you can't always bring a C-level director and there are crappy presenters and so on. So have it in mind that it's extremely essential that all the environment and all the elements for presenting is top notch for selling this aesthetic solution in. So basically, just to sum up what we've been talking about today, it's basically, it's pitch the problem, not the solution. What's the problem that we actually, that we're actually solving with our design and we pitch the problem by doing the model. That's a business upfront, party in the back. And of course, always flanked with a hot model to make it accessible and understandable. Any questions or a paralyzed audience? I'm happy to answer. Yes, the microphone is open. Let's see if this will work. Hi, I'm Camilla from Nova Nordisk and thank you for a very inspiring session here. So with us, we are currently, we're a design, an internal design agency in a very tech driven, classical, mechanical setup. And we're talking a lot about storytelling and a lot about what I hear, especially from these last seven kind of key things you had here was a lot about storytelling. But I'm just curious to know, what are your thoughts on the relationship between storytelling and pitching? I think pitching is basically storytelling. It's about putting it into a larger context. And of course, numerous way to do storytelling, for example, like lining up a user journey of how to use the future product could be a really, really strong pitch element too, where you can actually see how would the user approach it. Like the guys who mentioned that they will in the future use real life settings and so on. So basically, yeah, what's it about? It's a story to put the design into a story and the story can both be user orientated or business orientated or whatever, but it's making it, if you place it in a story, it's also a lot easier for your clients or whoever gatekeepers want to buy it to actually understand where do we bring this forth and how do I actually sell it on to the organization. So that pretty much is the key. As regard to the startup pitch formula, do we have a similar formula for presenting wireframes? It's the same thing, I would say. I would say there's a lot of things that aren't gonna be answered when presenting the wireframe. Wireframe is much more content. Yeah, but I think you should see the pitch formula as the first step in presenting the entire process. If they buy the pitch formula, they'll be ready and eager to hear the rest where we go into the details. This is how we convert the flow, this is how. So for all the other elements, but we have to get key gatekeepers to buy into the pitch first, buy into the story before they have any interest in buying the rest. And also a lot of our customers and the corporation we work with, they're not designers and they really, in most cases, really don't even understand a wireframe. They can't see why is it all black and white and so forth. Basic question, so basically we have to put it in this context just to make them interested enough to actually involve in the deep questions within the wireframe or the UX. So would you, on my first meeting, presenting the pitch and the wireframe, for example, going home, doing corrections, then going back, presenting the design, what would I start with? They already have the pitch, but I want to, make them ready for the big design, sort of missing and in between thing. I think with the, when you're, I think it's almost the same because I do wireframes and stuff like that, but it's kind of like the same exercise because if you're pitching a wireframe, one way of that would be like presenting a wireframe would be like, okay, I have, you know, the traditional wireframe is like, you have a cross for an image. So one way of presenting a wireframe would be, okay, here I have an image, here I have some text, and here I have some news, and here I have a footer that would be presenting. But if you try and do the same thing with this and then try to pitch the wireframe, you would go like, okay, up here I have this big area for your most important products. That is the first part. And down here I have the three latest news that you have picked out to be, that you think is important to be on the front page, I put them here. And that's like another way of presenting stuff, presenting the wireframe as what it is. It's just an image and it's just text. Then talk about what is its purpose. I have this great area because you've got beautiful products so I wanna use a lot of space for presenting your beautiful products. And that's why I've used all this area here. And you've got some really good news and you have this whole department that are doing great stuff. So I want to really emphasize all the great work they're doing by having the three latest news right here. That's like different. So instead of you're trying to pitch the content, the content elements, instead of just pitching the actual wireframe. Okay, image, news, news, footer, link, link, link, or stuff like that. So it's the same. I have good experience in, sometimes because I'm a UXer, but also a web designer, so sometimes it would be easier just to jump in the design. But a lot of times I get a lot of content questions related to the design. So a lot of times I've, before presenting the design, I make a really scrappy wireframe version. So I can start by explaining content, why I put things here, and get that out of the way. Maybe we could take the example from, yeah, exactly. Only can relate to design. Sometimes we can take this one. Just wanna take this. Actually, can I just show an example? So actually this is a real life example, but what I often do is, before presenting the actual wireframe, I go with this kind of blocks, showing the different elements of the wireframe, what it contains, and what the purpose of the wireframe is. So in between this and this, there's a wireframe. So before I just jump in and present the wireframe, I would do something like this, just showing what is the key elements on the page. So this is a booking page. This is for users who wants to book a car. So of course, first I want to make it really easy for users to book a car. So that's the area I have here. Then I want to tell the users that it's really easy if you get in any kind of trouble, or you want help, you can just call us. So I have a service area. And I want to tell the story that this car rental has stations or places where you can pick up the car all over the country. So I want to really emphasize that USP. So I'm showing the proximity part that you can get this rental car everywhere. And that's what you see here. So that is like, I always do a presentation of the, before I present the wireframe, I would do the key blocks of the page and the purpose of the page, actually. Yeah, so it's really simplifying the wireframe because when you look at a wireframe, it could be really detailed. And here it just gets more easy. Why did you do this? Why did you structure the page in that way? Okay, we have to have other ones asking questions. Is that okay, Søren? You can go on with Torge or Lund. You can. Sorry. Okay, this is Peter from MobilePay. And like I said, I'm the client. So I'm kind of the gatekeeper. So now you've revealed all your dirty tricks so you're not able to cheat me anymore. No, it's a shame. Yeah, but basically I'm not interested in buying in on a great pitch. I'm interested in having the right design because afterward, after you're leaving, it's my headache to implement the right design. So what are your take on that? What can you do to help me? I think 99% of all the clients that we present design for would never sit in a Design Matters Conference. So actually you're quite special because you actually have a lot deeper understanding on what it is that we're making both in relation to UX, wireframing, and so on. So this is, so if we have a project with a really, with a very experienced client, the process is of course very, very different because it's more like an even tighter corporation because you can use each other so much. But most of our clients really don't, are not that interested in going that deep into it. They just basically want to see how do we make this work for you. So I think, I don't know if I answer your questions, but you're not a typical client. No, exactly. But the thing is, I will do the pitch myself because I need to sell in the design afterwards to others in my organization. But I would say- I think that's a lot of our work actually is to help the clients look good in front of their bosses. So that's a lot of what we do. Like of course they're really good at it themselves, but we just help them out. Yeah, to look good actually. And sometimes I think that pitching, it sounds like really evil. But it's not, also pitching is also for me, it's that also just to be able to communicate about what you're actually doing, also to your grandma or your friend or whatever. So you can get feedback actually on your design, not only from designers, but also non-designers. So it's also a way of getting feedback is that being able to pitch your design, then you can get feedback from somebody who don't necessarily know design. And I would think, I don't know your work situation, but a lot of the persons you actually have to bring forth whatever solutions you are working on don't have that deep insight knowledge that you have. So actually a good story or a good model or anything else that actually helps you bring forth to make your solution look even better would both help the agency, but of course also help you eternally in the organization. Yeah, yeah. Thanks, good question. Anything else? You have more time? Excellent. I'm Aubrey from Plan Day. Just a quick question regarding the pitch pattern or guidelines that you had. Is it only applicable for the non-designers or what if I'm collaborating with other designers? Do you have also a different guidelines or pitch guidelines or pattern? Mm-hmm. I think that it depends on where you start, but I think the idea of pitching design is also very good internally in a design group, like just as a tool for talking about design because instead of focusing on the colors and how it looks, but it's more interesting to start a brainstorm actually with just pitching your ideas and saying, okay, I'm gonna make a new design. I haven't been doing any pixels yet. I'm just pitching you an idea. Can we make, for instance, how can we make the Plan Day tool much more fun? Or how can we use gamification to change Plan Day? Or wouldn't that's kind of like pitching internally? So I think you could use it a lot just internally as designers. I don't know if that's your question, but. Yeah, normally with me and Flemming, we just talk about the colors and the font and the styles, but I think it's totally different from the pitch guidelines that you had. That one I could use with the marketing department or the users or clients. Yeah, yeah. Ask the experts. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. Good question. Yeah, just for, so you have the, like the, I don't know, the formula, but is that just like overall guidance? Or do you actually like, is that like, does that more or less define like the words that you say, maybe not that you write on the slide, but that you say like right away? Or do you, or is that just like, does that just form like help you sort of put together the overall arc of your, like your deck? Yeah, it is. Yeah. It's a basic foundation that you work on top of. It's more of a mindset than a formula, but it really helps when starting to work with it to use, be a bit more slave of the formula. And when you sort of get it under your skin, you of course bring it out depending on clients and what the setting, but have it in your bag and use it your own way. It's not metal than stone. It's something that you should have in the bag in your head. It's a mindset. Sure, cool. Thanks. Maybe you can, could you talk to us about, how did you do? Because you're actually pitching like, okay, how do we improve, how do we improve ability and how do we improve motivation? So what did you do? Yeah, like in the examples that I showed yesterday. Yeah, because that is, for me, is pitching. Yeah, what do we do? Yeah, so I think a big part of it is, so my role as a researcher is often to like help people understand the problem. So what I like to do is mix qualitative and quantitative arguments. So I showed some survey data, which like I usually don't do a lot of survey data just because I don't think it's the most useful method, but I knew that the people that I was working with, it was like the first time that they hadn't really worked with user research. So I knew that they would understand, that would like resonate with them, showing graphs, that they could identify with. It was like, that's like a way in to like, sort of open their mind and make them listen. That's a dirty trick. Yeah, it's totally a dirty trick. And then I like supplemented it with, like it was an open-ended survey, so there were a lot of quotes. So I had like some really powerful quotes illustrating either confusion or like the thing that people wanted, depending, there were a couple different studies I did, but like quotes to sort of bring it to life and then supplement it with like sort of the quantitative feel of like survey data. And then that enough, that was enough. That was like my role and then I worked, like I said, with designers and other people too. So just illustrating the problem was enough and then the designers then took it from there and helped illustrate like what like the future could look like. Yeah, great, thanks. All right, Q&A both sides of the room. So are we done because we have to close exactly as. At 12 o'clock. Okay, I think we have room for one last question before we go to lunch, before the lunch is ready. Does anyone have anything else to say? Okay. It's all crystal clear. But I think you had a lot of questions, so you were good. But we have Thomas over here, last question, thank you. My question is regarding what if you're pitching through Skype or anything like if the customer is abroad. It's the same thing, but it's harder. All the elements that doesn't really make it really intimate makes it harder. It's harder for both Toga and I to present in English and then in Danish because it's not our native language. It's really hard to present on Skype and it's worst time in hell to do it over a telephone call. So basically it's just elements that makes it even harder to. So as long it's actually back to the home sweet home. If you can bring them home and seduce them with laughs and sassy models, it's working even better. And you could hear them clapping in the next room. I think we should give them an even bigger applause in this room. Thank you. Thank you.