The Beginner’s Guide to Pageantry - Everything You Need to Compete in Your First Pageant With Confidence... Even If You’re Starting From Zero:
Must be pageant paperwork season.
Recently, I’ve been getting so many requests from my private coaching clients asking me to take a look at their paperwork, I think they’ve all started blending into one.
(Quick note: there’s a noticeable trend toward using introduction videos or sizzle reels to either complement or replace traditional pageant paperwork. The 3 Edicts we’re discussing here apply to both a video script and the more traditional paperwork.)
Before you start working on any aspect of your pageant preparation or ask any external party for feedback, it’s a good idea to remind yourself of what your end goal is.
The simplest example is the talent section.
Many of you fall into the trap of thinking that the end goal of talent is to perform flawlessly, whereas I would argue that a better goal would be to get a standing ovation. The former is based on your need for perfection. The latter is based on forming an emotional connection with the audience.
The former doesn’t affect your score. The latter very much does.
In a similar vein, many of you think the goal of your paperwork or your introductory video is to impress. You cram in as many qualifications, achievements, miles travelled, dollars raised, and appearances made as possible into the meager word limit you’re allowed.
Let me give you a different possibility.
The goal of your paperwork should be to control your interview.
Specifically, you know your paperwork is doing its job properly when you get asked the perfect questions in interview. That doesn’t mean you get asked easy questions by the way, it means that you get asked the perfect setup questions to show the judges why you’re their absolute best pick to be the next titleholder.
Without further ado, here are The 3 Edicts of great pageant paperwork:
Only include things you’re excited to talk about.
Remove everything you’re NOT excited to talk about.
If there’s anything you DO want to talk about that’s not currently on your paperwork, find a way to include it!
Most of you already have great paperwork that’s free from spelling and grammatical errors. That won’t win you a damn thing.
But if you make just a few minor tweaks based on The 3 Edicts, you just might be surprised at how well your next interview goes, and that could win you the whole shebang.
Until next week.
Adrian.
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