Ever heard of the Doolittle Sales Pitch?  Probably not since I just made it up.  (Boom, trademark.)

I’m not referring to the guy who talks to pets.  I’m referring to the guy who bombed Japan.

Jimmy Doolittle was the WWII Medal of Honor winner depicted by Alec Baldwin in the 2001 Affleck flick Pearl Harbor.  In retaliation for the attack on our Hawaiian naval base, Lt. Colonel Doolittle planned and carried out a top-secret air raid of the Japanese mainland.

The Doolittle Raid was so top-secret, in fact, that the aircraft carrier from which they’d launch was positioned as far away as possible for a one-way flight out of fear it would be spotted.  This meant stripping the planes down to sheet metal to increase their range and add even more breathing room between ship and coastline.

Then there was the minor detail about them being land-based bombers.  Throwing out non-mission-critical components helped lighten the load so they didn’t immediately nose-dive into the Pacific off the carrier’s short runway.

Fast-forward:  planes took off, planes bombed, planes succeeded.

A Doolittle Sales Pitch, therefore, is one just sizable enough to get the job done.  If something in your presentation slides, voice track, demo, etc. isn’t essential or can be even tighter, make a change.

This applies to all of your sales and marketing content, for that matter.  It doesn’t just have to be what you prepare for the face-to-face sell job.

I learned this lesson early on.  Entering the agency scene out of college, I was fresh off a history degree that required writing lengthy, carefully-argued papers to, in hindsight, demonstrate the size of my brain.  One of the first pieces of work I submitted to my boss was a 20-page memo articulating our strategic recommendation for God knows what.  It doesn’t really matter, anyway, because it was 20 pages.  I apparently grasped neither the “executive” nor the “summary” aspect of the request.

Let’s just say the final client version was a page-and-a-half.  With charts.

I’ve never forgotten this (hence the 4 Minute Break blog and not the Bring A Snack blog).  Decision makers have always been hard to track down, and that’s never been truer than in today’s greased-lightning business world.

Consider these CEO stats from Harvard that’ll make you question the limits of your ambition:

• 75% of their time is scheduled in advance and 72% of it is in meetings. Yikes.
• They conduct business on 79% of weekend days and 70% of vacation days. Yikes x 10.
• A third of their time is spent on unforeseen issues, which take priority over entertaining the possibility of spending money with you.
• Only 16% of their day is spent with “outsiders”—customers, partners, investors, etc. You have a lot of competition for attention.
• On meeting length: “Whatever they ask for, cut it in half.”

So, they’re kinda busy.  In all honesty, though, this is the case regardless of title or even audience type.  As Claude Hopkins relayed nearly a century ago in Scientific Advertising, “People are hurried…they skip three-fourths of the reading matter which they pay to get.”

What, then, does this all mean?  It means don’t be a younger version of me by developing excessive material that 1) wastes your time and 2) they won’t read.

Concise is good, but concise doesn’t necessarily mean “short.”  It means enough to get your point across effectively and no more.  It’s Doolittle.

Presentation length generally depends on three things:

• Offer: Are you selling paper clips or defense technology?  One’s going to require a bit more cud to chew.  I’ll let you figure out which.
• Audience: Maybe you’ve convinced their marketing director, but is that enough to persuade procurement?  Or, maybe your industry’s purchase cycle is longer, allowing prospects more time for careful consideration of their options.
• Purpose: What stage are you in, how hard do you need to push?  Think free trial versus annual contract.  The more you ask of them, the more you’re going to have to demonstrate your value proposition and offset any concerns.

Trying to decide if what you’ve put together is too long?  Give it the Churchill Test (as long as you’re not fed up with WWII sales analogy).  Actually, take that a step further.  Going back through a few times with a chisel is smart regardless of whether you think it’s in good shape.

As 17^th century French philosopher, mathematician, inventor, and all-around smarty pants Blaise Pascal once said, “I have made this [letter] longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”  That’s the spirit, but make sure you make time.  You may just catch a few other uh-ohs while you’re at it.

Speaking of time, let’s give you back some of yours.  It’s only proper to close with a bit of wisdom from the man who awarded Jimmy Doolittle his Medal of Honor, President FDR himself:  “Be sincere, be brief, be seated.”

Timeless insights from the Greatest Generation.  If you have thoughts on how I can squeeze any more historical references into an 800-word post, I’d love to talk.