I completely froze during a client pitch meeting in Chicago last month

I was in a small conference room with three senior partners from a big firm, pitching our marketing plan. Halfway through my main slide, my mind just went blank. I mean, total silence for what felt like a full minute (it was probably ten seconds, but still). I could see them looking at each other. I took a deep breath, closed my laptop, and said, 'Let me start over, I think I'm making this too complicated.' I walked to the whiteboard and just started drawing the core idea with a marker, talking through it simply. It turned the whole thing into a conversation instead of a presentation. We ended up getting the project. How do you guys handle it when your brain just shuts down at the worst possible time?

3 comments

3 Comments

ruby_henderson3612d ago

Used to think you just had to power through and pretend nothing happened. Your story changed my mind. That move to the whiteboard was genius because it broke the frozen moment completely. You turned a scripted fail into a real talk, and that's what they actually wanted. Now I see those freezes not as a problem but as a signal to change the method.

bennett.evan12d ago

Totally, and @elliot_gibson27 gets it, a freeze just means your plan needs a quick switch.

elliot_gibson2712d ago

Exactly, @ruby_henderson36, that's how you fix most stuck moments in life.