By Seema Menon, Toastmasters International
As a business owner it’s imperative to keep working on your pitching skills as you handle the ongoing pressure of attracting new customers and continuing to win business additional business from existing customers.
Let me share my hard-earned tips for a successful pitch.
Start with something different
By this I mean| – don’t launch straight into your pitch. Begin with a ‘dynamic change story’ (DCS). Use one of the prominent transformational disruptions that is happening in the client’s industry. Pick an attention grabber and alert the client that if these changes are not embraced, the firm will suffer.
Like a movie, the DCS must have excitement, intrigue, relevance and a little fear (if change is not adopted). With their undivided attention it is time to pitch.
Make your audience hungry for more
Go shopping when you’re hungry and you’ll project your present hunger on to the future and buy a lot of food. Projection bias is the human tendency to project current preferences onto future events. The idea of Dynamic Change Story is to create a projection bias within clients so that they’re hungry to hear more from you.
Keep it simple
Most pitches deluge the client with themes and ideas. It’s necessary to discipline oneself to pitch a single enticing idea. This single idea must make a difference to the client and the pitcher must have this conviction.
Overcoming biases
Clients try to categorise the pitcher, the pitcher’s firm and pitcher’s products/services from the first moment. Human beings can categorize others in less than 150 milliseconds. Imagine how many ‘judgements’ they make during a 10-minute pitch!
Clients generally come to the meeting to validate their biases and are busy acquiring proof. Your pitch needs to overcome this and make it so enticing that the client will consider a new idea.
Answer the question: why now?
The pitch must answer the key question; why should the client adopt the idea suggested “NOW”? What difference it will make to them and their business if they buy in right now – and why waiting would be a mistake.
The blackberg
The blackberg is the unseen iceberg that suddenly looms out of the darkness and scuppers you. It’s the risk, the market disrupter, that everyone is missing. Now suggest how the client’s business is going to suffer if they don’t embrace this and make the relevant changes you are suggesting.
Appeal to all the senses
The client must be able to see, hear, smell, taste and touch your brand.
When pitching, attempt to engage the client’s five senses. This could be your visual slides, your own auditory speaking power and storytelling. If certain senses cannot be invoked because of the layout of your product/service, build examples into the pitch in such a manner that you can speak about it and through visualisation, the client is able to feel it
Keep building momentum
It is important to maintain momentum throughout your pitch. If possible, leave questions to the end. Ensure you keep control of the pitch – and don’t let others side-track you and take you from your path. A good pitcher keeps retrieving the control despite the attempts, through questions, to alter its course.
Once the idea has been pitched, it needs to be emotionally enhanced to induce buying interest or a movement forward to the next phase of buying.
Ending the Pitch
Create a sense of urgency
Urgency precipitates action. It’s a persuader, so how do we create it? By getting the client excited and a little bit scared. Provide examples of businesses that are flourishing thanks to embracing your idea. Also give examples of organizations atrophying due to their indolence and delay.
Show how the client will benefit
You’re there to sell but do so with a spirit of giving. Show though your pitch that it is the client who is benefitting from the association. This way trust will blossom.
Heighten emotions
People buy emotionally and justify rationally. The end of the pitch must not make the client logical or rational, on the contrary it must build the emotional intensity of the client.
Use the tips to help you develop a successful pitch. Then use your carefully crafted pitch to get great results for you and your business. Make every opportunity count.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Seema Menon is a member of Toastmasters International, a not-for-profit organisation that has provided communication and leadership skills since 1924 through a worldwide network of clubs. There are more than 400 clubs and 10,000 members in the UK and Ireland. Members follow a structured educational programme to gain skills and confidence in public and impromptu speaking, chairing meetings and time management. To find your nearest club, visit www.toastmasters.org