Structural, linguistic and rhetorical features of the entrepreneurial pitch

Abstract

Purpose – As mastering the two-minute entrepreneurial pitch is a key skill required of entrepreneurs and all those who have to sell an idea in a business context, the purpose of this paper is to analyse successful entrepreneurial pitches in order to provide practical pitch-related advice to entrepreneurs and to business school instructors developing pedagogical materials. Design/methodology/approach – As mastering the two-minute entrepreneurial pitch is a key skill required of entrepreneurs and all those who have to sell an idea in a business context, this paper aims to analyse successful entrepreneurial pitches in order to provide practical pitch-related advice to entrepreneurs and to business school instructors developing pedagogical materials. Findings – A ten-stage discourse framework was shown to underlie most pitches and typical linguistic exponents and rhetorical devices were identified. While there was a strong correlation between linguistic exponents and particular organisational stages, it was not possible to map the rhetorical strategies or tropes onto the organisational stages. The rhetorical framework provides a macro-structure to help entrepreneurs manipulate key content, whereas the linguistic framework highlights the salient grammatical, organisational, syntactic and lexical features of a successful pitch. Research limitation – The sample of entrepreneurial pitches analysed is too small to be totally representative of the entrepreneurial pitch in general. However, this in-depth multi-dimensional analysis provides initial research into the canonical features of the entrepreneurial pitch. Practical implication – This study provides an actionable, best practice, discoursal template for the entrepreneurial pitch together with the typical linguistic exponents and rhetorical features. The findings should sensitise entrepreneurs and instructors to salient macro- and micro-features of the entrepreneurial pitch. Originality value – To the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that has been carried out that takes a multi-dimensional analysis approach (both rhetorical and linguistic/discourse analysis) to deconstruct the entrepreneurial pitch.

Empirical Literature on the Business Pitch: Classes, Critiques and Future Trends

“…Also, the review showed that some empirical research (see next section) were based on data collected from TV shows. Daly and Davy (2016a;2016b), for example, analyzed pitches from the Dragon's Den while Moreau (2018) explored pitches from its American counterpart, Shark Tank.…”

“…The revision revealed that researchers (Denning & Dew, 2012;McCollough, Devezer & Tanner, 2016;Daly & Davy, 2016a) usually claim that a considerable part of the definitions of pitch come from nonacademic sources, mainly, written press, websites, and TV Shows. Based on the literature review, Table 1 presents classes of pitch and their definitions.…”

“…This type of studies focuses on the description of linguistic or discursive features of the pitch or on the artifacts used (e.g., slide desks). (Blazkova, 2011;Cunningham, 2010;Daly & Davy 2016a;Daly & Davy 2016b, Parhankangas & Renko, 2017Moreau, 2018;van Werven, Bouwmeester & Cornelissen, 2019) C. Process, evolutionary, dialogical research…”

‘The new oratory’: Public speaking practice in the digital, neoliberal age

“…Similarly, sales pitches have been analysed in terms of rhetorical strategies (e.g. Clark, 2008; Daly and Davy, 2016a, 2016b). However, despite acknowledging the mutation that has occurred in public speaking practice in recent years (Crowe and Frank, 2016; Frobish, 2000), there is little systematic – and critical – appraisal of these new digital formats linked to the hypothesis that they be part of a similar social phenomenon.…”

Recursos no verbales en comunicación persuasiva: gestos

“…En un trabajo complementario del que aquí introducimos, hemos dado cuenta de la manera en que la imagen propia que presenta el sujeto que pretende persuadir, así como el empleo que hace de determinados signos paralingüísticos, funciona, estraté-gicamente, apelando a la emoción, aunque también se utilizan para captar la atención y resaltar contenido relevante y para estructurar la actividad comunicativa (Cestero, en prensa). Atendemos ahora al empleo que hacen sujetos emprendedores de negocios de los signos quinésicos en discursos públicos de presentación de empresas o productos, que, hasta ahora, no ha sido tratado con detenimiento, ni analizado en profundidad (Daly y Davy, 2016), y detallamos cómo, con ellos, se capta la atención y se resalta información, se estructura la actividad comunicativa, se aporta contenido semántico y, además o a la vez, se muestran emociones, actitudes y estados.…”