Pitching Psychology: Pitch When You’re Confident

You know the feeling. You get yourself all pumped up on a pitch. Then you start to second-guess. You doubt if you’re worth it. You negotiate against yourself. This is the emotional love-hate relationship that many freelance creators have with pitching. I’m here to break that down. Successful pitching is about confidence. So I’m here to talk about the psychological blocks that keep you from confident pitches, and how to avoid them so you can make more money. 

Pitch When You’re Confident 

Pitching well takes confidence. You’re shoving your foot in the door, creating a job for yourself, with audacity to believe you can show up and make things better for a brand. It may be true, but it’s still audacious. Most people never have the guts to be in the position you’re in, so hats off to you.

You need to have conviction and leverage to pitch healthy rates for your work. If you don’t have confidence, you’ll end up sending a watered-down pitch that brands can see right through. The key here is to pitch when you’re feeling confident. 

This might sound goofy, but it’s true: I’ve been known to put on pump-up music, and muse on my past successes before I start writing a pitch. Because brands want to hire people who believe in themselves. So whatever it takes for you to believe that you’re worth the higher rate, and that you can accomplish the project, do that. Because it’s true. You can. 

Stop When You’re Not 

Once you write your pitch, or create your deck, you might start to wonder if it’s legit. Does it look good? Is it believable? These are fair questions to ask, but it’s only fair to ask them of yourself when you’re feeling confident. 

A lack of confidence can sabotage a pitch. You’ll start lowering your rates for no reason, imagining what the brand will have to say about it, feeling like it’s too big. It’s not too big. There’s a reason you believed you could do it in the first place. It’s because you can. 

Remember, most people never have to pitch in their lives. Don’t let these voices steal an opportunity from you. Don’t let the words of bad clients who said you were “too expensive” reverberate longer than they already have. Drown out these voices, or walk away from them until they fade. Sometimes, the most helpful thing you can do for a pitch is to stop working on it until you feel confident again. 

Create Templates 

Pitch Templates are confidence cheat codes. All you have to do is feel confident while you’re creating the template. Then, when an opportunity arises, you can just copy and paste the new client information in there, and send it off. It doesn’t matter if you feel confident in the moment or not. Your template remembers how confident you felt, and it does the talking for you. 

If you’re looking for a pitch deck template, you can download my Photo + Video Pitch Deck Template here. It’s free and it works, with copywriting prompts that help you win projects.