THE 5-MINUTE PITCH
Influence Faster. Stay Relevant Longer.
A high-energy live training by Ignite Talks × Palmer E.
In-person or Remote · 5 hours · Highly interactive
You Won’t Get More Time
So Learn to Win With Less
You finally get the meeting.
Thirty minutes on the calendar.
Then fifteen.
Someone says:
“Sorry — I only have five minutes.”
That moment is not rare.
It’s the norm. And it decides:
which ideas move forward
which careers accelerate
which voices get heard again
Most people improvise.
Some talk faster.Others add slides.
The best are ready.
Why 5 Minutes Is the Most Powerful Format in Business
We all pitch. Every day.
Ideas to leadership
Projects to clients
Solutions to teams
Trade-offs to executives
In big companies especially, time is the real constraint.
And here’s the uncomfortable truth:
According to research highlighted by Harvard Business School, up to 95% of decisions are made subconsciously , driven by the emotional brain. We justify later with logic and data.
Yet most pitches lead with:
spreadsheets
bullet points
context overload
Then wonder why nothing lands.
Five minutes forces clarity.
And clarity creates influence.
The Goal Is Not to Explain.
It’s to Ignite.
Great 5-minute pitches don’t try to say everything.
They do something far more effective:
they activate the audience
they create desire
they make people think with you
Your audience stops being passive listeners.
They start doing part of the work for you . As in Inception, the strongest ideas are the ones people believe they discovered themselves.
Or, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry put it:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t gather wood. Teach people to yearn for the vast and endless sea.”
Five minutes is the perfect format for that.
The 5 Foundations of a Powerful 5-Minute Pitch
In both the training and your daily practice, influence comes from mastering these five structural pillars:
Audience
Understand who decides, what they feel, and how they judge value.
Practice translating ideas into the language of their needs.Ending
Decide before you speak: what you want them to remember, feel, and do.
Engineer endings that linger and move decisions.Story Arc
Build narrative tension in support of choice:
context → tension → choice → outcome
Data serves proof; emotion gives it meaning.Emotion
People decide emotionally first — and justify later.
Learn ethical emotional structuring to build urgency, possibility, and alignment.Delivery
Presence, pacing, pauses, and clarity create trust.
Learn how to sound like leadership — not just speak smart.
CASE STUDY
When John Mills, founder of wildfire-alerting app Watch Duty, was invited to speak at TED 2025, he had five minutes to tell a story that mattered to millions.
How the Training Works
(And Why It Sticks)
This is not a lecture.It’s a live, high-energy lab .
5 hours total
Small groups of 5
Breakout work throughout
Each participant becomes the team lead for one foundation
Practice, feedback, iteration — in real time
You don’t leave with theory.
You leave with capability.
The Preparation Paradox
Most people think: “It’s only five minutes — that should be easy.”
The opposite is true.
The shorter the pitch, the more preparation it requires.
But that preparation pays off everywhere:
inside the pitch
in Q&A
in negotiations
in decision-making moments
Like a Rubik’s Cube:
You can fumble for hours — or learn the technique and solve it every time.
This framework makes your thinking faster and stronger.
Free Guide: The Preparation Paradox
Why shorter presentations demand longer preparation—and how the best speakers actually rehearse.
Discover the rehearsal discipline used to prepare a TED Top 10 talk, and a practical framework you can apply to your next high-stakes pitch.
Influence Today. Relevance Tomorrow.
AI is changing how work gets done.
But here’s what AI can’t do: set direction.
Without a framework:
AI makes you reactive
output replaces thinking
clarity erodes
With a framework:
AI accelerates execution
you stay in charge
you become the editor, not the servant
This training helps you future-proof your influence.
Frameworks age well.
Tricks don’t.
The Real Question
What’s the cost of not mastering this?
The idea that stalls
The meeting that goes nowhere
The moment someone else gets the green light
That’s leaving influence to luck. Or you can learn the framework — and be ready every time.
THE 5-MINUTE PITCH
Your ideas, amplified.
Your audience, activated.
Your future, future-proofed.