Honestly, I almost pulled my hair out yesterday when someone urgently needed a decent pitch report template. Happens all the time, right? People scrambling last minute, panicking over formatting. Been there way too often myself.
The Annoying Request That Started It
So I’m just sipping my lukewarm coffee, trying to finish this analytics dashboard I hated, when this frantic Slack message pops up: “HELP!! Need a pitch report template STAT! Got NOTHING!”. Seriously? Again? Felt like déjà vu. Saw three teammates ping similar frantic requests this week alone. Something clicked – this ain’t rocket science, folks are just reinventing the wheel every dang time.
How My Brain Went Into Overdrive
Decided right then – screw it, I’m making one good enough template. For everyone. My messy notes? Useless. Tried digging up some old files. Disaster. Found like five different versions on my desktop – marketing_project_final_draft_v2_updated_REAL_*? Seriously? Deleted them all.
Grabbed a fresh doc and stared at that blinking cursor. Asked myself: what actually matters when you pitch stuff fast?
- The Hook: People bounce if the first line sucks. Had to be stupid simple.
- The Pain: What mess are we fixing? Keep it real.
- The Fix: What magic are we selling?
- Why Bother? Make ’em care! Show the shiny outcome.
- Next Step: Don’t leave ’em hanging. Just ask.
Started typing bullet points. Felt too long. Cut it down. Cut it again. Had flashbacks to my college thesis – overcomplicating everything. Went back and forth for an hour just making stuff shorter.
The “Make It Stop” Moment
Looked at my initial vomit draft – looked like a contract killer wrote it. Soulless. Dull. No-one would read that junk. Had this epiphany: if my eyes glaze over reading it, why would anyone else care? Burned it down.
Started fresh:
- Added guiding notes in brackets so people know what to write: “[What PROBLEM are we solving? Be BRUTAL here]”
- Made the layout visually airy – no wall-of-text horror shows.
- Used bold for punch lines, kept the rest lean.
Shared the messy work-in-progress with the team chat. Got roasted instantly:
- “Too corporate!”
- “Where do I put the numbers?”
- “Seriously? Just six boxes?”
Good. Took the heat. Built an ugly numbers section for the finance geeks and kept it entirely optional. Separated it so you could ignore it if needed.
Finally Hit “Save” & Set It Free
Tested it myself on a fake project – took like 15 minutes to fill. Sweet spot. Saved it as “Dont_Panic_Pitch_*” (shoutout to Hitchhiker’s Guide).
The real kicker? Uploaded it to our shared drive last night. This morning? Four separate folks pinged “OMG YES THANK YOU!!!” before I even finished my soggy cereal. Proof it ain’t perfect, but it stops the panic. That’s the win. Free and simple.
Frankly, making things shouldn’t be torture. It’s just basic stuff. Took one annoying afternoon to save everyone a hundred future headaches. That’s it for today. Back to my boring dashboard.
