I've sat in a number of pitch meetings. The kind that make you super nervous because you know that you're being judged about as hard as you were in 5th grade when you were trying to ask Meegan Rossi out on a "date" (supervised PG-13 movie watching) while all her friends were standing around the corner giggling because they knew that you didn't know that they knew that she was probably going to say no...
In these kinds of meetings, people tend to talk really fast, a lot, about everything, and without real purpose. "So Meegan, you know, I was kind of wondering, while I was sitting behind you in class, and looking at the back of your head. I mean, it's not weird because your hair reminds me of the sun because it's so blonde, and I really like the sun because of this one time when I was 5, my mom took me to the beach, and you see, I grew up in Pittsburgh where we don't get a ton of sun, so it was really crazy to see the sun..."
The part that people forget to do is listen. In any kind of social situation, unless you're John Mayer talking to Hollywood actresses over the age of 40, people don't want you to talk their ear off. This is especially true when you're in an investor meeting, or in a meeting with a potential business partner. They don't want to hear your life's story. They don't want to hear a ton of tangential bullshit that doesn't matter. They usually ask pretty specific questions that, more than anything else, are great opportunities to ask more questions so you can palatably deliver a precise answer, an answer that's going to get you somewhere. Not an answer that's going to make the person you're talking to fall asleep, or, worse, think you have no idea what you're talking about while you think you're declaring this genius Cicerian monologue.
Actionable advice:
1) Talk less.
2) Really listen. Get to know your audience.
3) Deliver the points you need to gain buy-in.
4) Impress the hell out of Meegan Rossi with your choice of confectionaries because she's at the theater with you.
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