Alligator Pitch

I recently happened across this term in relation to Marketeers' struggles to impress upon bean counters their wonderful 'effectiveness'. Principally due to speaking outside of the specific language Finance understands.

Although as many a seller may ruefully attest, such hard numbered returns can often feel elusive when dealing with our non-quota'd brethren.

The gist appearing to be that when reporting back on effectiveness, they ought go deeper than the overwhelmingly used mere el-pitch format brevity.

I realised I'd heard the term before though.

Via relative the crocodile. In the sense of borrowing from the famed reptilian hunter's features. A 'big mouth, little ears' syndrome. A pitch of one-way disproportion. All talk and no listening.

Verifying whether a nascent trope was forming, a little light searching suggests the label is not in widespread use.

Among the handful of relevant results, one reference used the label to describe a "predatory elevator pitch". (Received by a VC when naked having a scrub in a Chinese bathhouse.) So a pitch setting where you are held captive, alone, with no simple means of escape. As the seller bombards you. More thirty minutes in the clutches of a sales death roll, than thirty seconds of attention grabbing set-up for true engagement conversation.

Clearly not something a true sustainable solution seller wishes to bound prospects up in.

Then there's a media careers podcast episode using the moniker. In their own words;

"We’ve all heard of the elevator pitch — that 30 second pitch of your creative project that everyone should always have ready to go — but this is an Alligator Pitch. It’s like an elevator pitch, but with way higher consequences. We’re talking about your life-changing passion project, not some feeble 30 second speech."

The angle of how you aim to make the world a better place has other titles.

'Purpose' perhaps being the most used currently. As it tends to emerge alongside/beyond the Mission and Vision statements of strategy texts instruction.

As well as a decent time to remind of the classic Golden Circle framing of Simon Sinek. Exhorting to 'start with Why'.

Another angle comes from someone who sold their event ticketing startup to a global player.

With definition playing on the creature's evolution to enable seeing prey when bobbling between surface and underwater;

[an alligator] pitch is structured to penetrate the third eyelid of the most discerning, information-deluged, and underwater audience.

A 20min pitch deck emanates from a 'storyboard' for 10-12 slide titles which, he claims, 'allowed us to get information through investors’ pattern recognition lenses'.

Which sounds like an algorithm-jolting move.

And a final intriguing framing comes from a mother. She noticed her toddler would mispronounce 'elevator' as 'alligator'. Giving the family a unique new description of the humble lift [nb, British English] of pitch fame. And a symbol for her family of creating a culture of togetherness.

Dismissing All-Talk & Predatory, we're left with;

Aligned :: Purpose :: Algo :: Togetherness

Four different flavours of Gator.

Which one suits your fresh pitch?