In a competitive pitch? Try these evidence-based tips for extra advantage.

In his New York Times best seller, Atomic Habits, James Clear shares all sorts of insights for tiny changes that produce big results.

He tells of the frightening challenge he faced as a teenager, suffering a life-threatening injury, and how he employed “one percent” improvements in his daily life to recover and exceed his wildest expectations of personal success.

Inspired by Clear, we’ve done some digging to find what science tells us we can be doing for a competitive edge when pitching our ideas. Here are some of our One Percenters:

Get in early to get in early

What's the timing for your next pitch?

According to psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, it might be critical.

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman wrote of eight judges in Israel who spent their entire days reviewing parole applications.

The judges reviewed a case every six minutes and their default position was to deny bail – only 35% of applications were approved.

They stopped for three meal breaks – morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea.

After each break the percentage of favourable rulings dropped gradually from around 65% to nearly zero just before the next break and returned abruptly to around 65% at the start of the next session. It seems the hungrier and more fatigued they got, the more likely they were to keep people in prison!

Don't let a hangry audience come between you and a yes. Get in early to make a time that's best for you and your audience – especially if it's a competitive pitch.

Sweeten the Deal

Research also tells us that self-control is tiring; if we must force ourselves to do something challenging (like those poor judges did every six minutes) we are less able to exert self-control if challenged again.

With less self-control we are more likely to make decisions based on intuition, rather than considered thought. And it’s more likely that this intuition will be wrong.

That’s bad news for any of us that must follow a dud pitch, or pitch to a weary audience. (Which can happen in competitive pitches, board meetings, job interviews.)

Fortunately, research also tells us that low blood glucose might be the culprit. When we are actively involved in difficult cognitive reasoning or engaged in a task that requires self-control, our blood glucose levels drop.

But restoring these blood sugars quickly can immediately improve our decision-making. Especially our intuitive decisions.

So don’t take any chances on how your audience is showing up to your big moment. Start by pitching them some Gummy Bears, Snakes or Kool Mints.

And if ever you're pitching to the Pitch Camp team, bring Snakes.

When making a first impression, make it in person.

Pitching our ideas online might be convenient, but it has two big downsides: the removal of our ability to effectively “read the room” and our reduced capacity to make a good first impression.

Knowing the 7-38-55 percent rule helps. Created by UCLA psychology professor Albert Mehrabian, the 7-38-55 rule identifies the key influences for the likeability of someone in situations where we are forming a first impression.

Mehrabian’s research found that only 7% of our impression is based on our words, while 38% comes from our tone of voice and 55% from our body language and face.

Body language and tone of voice—not words—are our audiences’ most powerful assessment tools.

When you consider body language is a whopping 55% of the equation, it’s not just what we as pitchers miss by not seeing our audience, it’s what our audiences miss when they can’t see us properly.

More than half our opportunity to make a great first impression is taken away when we are hidden behind a PowerPoint slide or they are shooing the cat away.

To give yourself your best chance of success, go offline, and get in a room with the people who matter. Even if it takes a little more organising.

In a competitive marketplace, even the slightest advantage matters. And sometimes it only takes a slight change to make a big difference. We’ll keep sharing them, but if you can’t wait, there’s more here.

Happy pitching!