Your one-line project
Say your prepared one-line project description. Your teacher will ask "why should I pick you?"
What a stranger needs, in order
The order a cold pitch actually needs
1 · Who you are, correctly. Title first — get this right before anything else, since a wrong title here is the worst possible place for it to appear.
2 · One piece of concrete evidence. A project, a number, a result — not a general claim of experience.
3 · Why this project, specifically. Connect your evidence to what they actually asked for.
4 · A clear next step. What happens if they say yes, stated plainly.
A stranger has no context to fill gaps with. Every step this course has taught — the correct title, cohesion, the right register, a stated conclusion — has to arrive without being asked for.
Pre-empting the obvious question
Answering before it is asked
Listen and repeat.
"And just to be clear on the title" is worth having ready, unprompted. Volunteering the designer/architect distinction before anyone asks reads as precision, not defensiveness — waiting to be asked, and then explaining under pressure, reads the opposite way.
Order the pitch
Rewrite each flat line as a stronger cold-pitch opening. Use the word given.
I do landscaping. DESIGNER
I have done a lot of projects. RECENT
Contact me if you want to talk. HAPPY
Pitch to a stranger
Full sequence, unscripted questions.
Task card
A prospect who found your work online — no context, no referral
Give the full cold pitch, in order, then answer at least three unscripted questions.
- Title, evidence, relevance, next step — in that order, unprompted.
- Volunteer the designer/architect distinction before you are asked.
- End with something they can actually say yes to.
Did you volunteer it?
Did the title clarification come before or after your teacher asked? Before is the target — it is the single strongest signal of professional precision this unit teaches.
Before the unit task
Homework. Think of one real or plausible prospect you could write a proposal for. Bring the project type and one thing they would need to know about your training. Write nothing yet.