When you get a call asking if you would come and help two top television stars sharpen their pitching skills for a new business venture, curiosity kicks in rather quickly.
That was certainly true for me when I was invited onto The Business Men, the podcast in which Ben Shephard and Joel Dommett are attempting to launch a men’s skincare brand. Yes, really. And yes, the brand is called For Skin by Ben and Joel. Which tells you immediately that there is a healthy spirit of fun running through the whole enterprise.
Ben, of course, is one of the most familiar and trusted faces on British television, currently fronting This Morning and Tipping Point, with years of live broadcasting under his belt. Joel has that rare combination of stand up comic timing, television polish and mischief, honed through The Masked Singer, the National Television Awards and a whole host of other shows. Between them, they understand audiences, performance and state change better than many people in business ever will.
And that matters.
They have also had some very smart people advising them along the way. Trinny Woodall of Trinny London, Sara Davies of Dragon’s Den and Deborah Meaden, who was also a brilliant guest on The Humourology Podcast. So I was stepping into very good company indeed.
What an absolute pleasure it was too.
Ben and Joel are terrific company. Warm, funny, engaged and full of genuine rapport. We ended up having exactly the kind of conversation I enjoy most. Lots of laughs, plenty of lessons and a steady stream of psychological nuggets tucked inside the banter. They also had great fun grilling me about my own showbusiness past, which meant we wandered happily through pop star stories, comedy circuit tales and a few mutual friends and colleagues along the way.
But beneath the fun sat something serious and genuinely useful.
Why pitching is really a life skill
They brought me in to talk about the art and the science of pitching. Why pitches go wrong. How to build rapport. How to manage your state. How to develop confidence. How to get people to believe in you, not just in the thing you are selling.
Because that is the truth of it.
We are all pitching all the time. Pitching an idea at work. Pitching for investment. Pitching for understanding. Even pitching your children to go to bed at a reasonable hour. The principles are remarkably similar.
Investors buy belief before they buy detail
Investors do not just buy ideas. They buy belief.
Great founders sell the future, not the formula.
One of the key themes I always return to is this. If you want anyone to go into any state, you have to go into that state first. Ben and Joel are already very good at that. If you are doing live television, hosting in front of millions or walking on stage and needing to hold a room, you have to learn state management. You have to know how to lift energy, project belief and create psychological safety. In that sense, they already have an advantage.
Confidence is situational, not fixed
Confidence matters more than many people realise.
Confidence signals safety. Safety attracts investment.
But confidence is not a personality trait that some people are born with and others are denied. It is something that can be created, shaped and strengthened through preparation, mindset and experience. That was a big part of our conversation.
The real mistakes that sink pitches
One of the biggest errors people make is that they answer the wrong question. They become absorbed in what they want to say, rather than what the other person needs to hear. The real question is always: why should the investor care?
That is what I call listener focused persuasion.
The first chapter in my first book, The Pitching Bible, was called It’s All About Them. That attitude elevates the altitude of any pitch. When you think like the person receiving the message, everything changes. Your language sharpens. Your empathy improves. As I said on the show, persuasion is a dance, not a speech.
Humour, humanity and the art of connection
One of my favourite moments in the episode came when I got the boys to pitch each other. That, I think, is podcasting gold. Funny, revealing and unexpectedly instructive.
Can For Skin by Ben and Joel really work?
Listen and decide for yourself.
What I can tell you is this. They have a genuine advantage. They are bright, likeable, willing to learn and, perhaps most importantly, excellent listeners. Those qualities take you a long way in business and in life. I shall certainly be cheering them on and, if they want more help with the pitch, I will happily be there with more psychology, more Humourology and probably one or two more stories from the vault.
And of course, every pitch needs a sense of pace, clarity and emotional connection. When those elements are missing, even the best idea can start to lose the room.
Ultimately, a bad pitch is like a bad date. Too long, too confusing, and nobody knows how to leave.
See you next Tuesday.
Warmest,
Paul x
