Imagine you are Head of Security at a big bank. You get hundreds of calls and emails all day long. You pick up the phone because your colleague convinced you that you should listen to a sales pitch for some security solution. What would it take for the salesperson to gain your trust, capture your interest, and schedule a follow-up?
A sales pitch is a brief introduction to explain who you are and what value you can bring to your prospects. It is the first impression that you make on them, so you want to present yourself in the best possible light.
What should a sales pitch achieve?
Sales pitches should achieve one simple thing: create a follow-up so that you can discover value for them. It is a crucial skill, and you’d better not miss an opportunity because of a poor sales pitch. The level of interest you create is determined by how relevant and valuable your message actually is.
But how relevant and valuable can you really be, if you have only one sales pitch? When it comes to connecting to potential customers, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution.
A pitch might work for one person, but be meaningless to another. What the main point of interest is for a company in one market could be completely irrelevant for another company in a different market.
Why a universal pitch does not work
Do you know what happens when people do not relate to your story? They disconnect. Their attention switches off. They’re no longer there, even if they seem to be hearing what you are saying. Even if you sell something they actually need, you can still start off poorly or even kill a potential deal. A universal pitch does not work because it does not create a connection.
On the other hand, having to craft a sales pitch for every scenario you come across is an immeasurable task that nobody could assume.
So why not have a few selected options that cover the most common situations that you are going to encounter? Having these scenarios covered will give you extraordinary confidence beforehand, and you’ll still have some margin to improvise while talking to people.
What all good sales pitches have in common
Before we start differentiating sales pitches, we want to mention two things they should all have in common:
1. They should make the person feel that it is about them.
2. They are short, well-prepared and create interest and trust.
3. They are relevant and inviting of serious dialogue.
How should sales pitches be different
Now that we’ve set clear what good pitches have in common, let’s outline how they should be different from another:
1. Each market experiences different trends, different dynamics, complexity, and, most importantly, pain points. Companies come in different sizes, number of locations, countries, operations, focus on cost control or growth, etc.
All these differences require deep analysis and experience in order to craft your pitch based on those characteristics.
Craft your pitch looking at the words you use, the length of your pitch, the references you mention, storytelling, the pain points you share, and the potential value you bring.
2. Different buying personas have different, goals, interests, and motivations. These buyers can be from completely different departments, seniority levels, and personal preferences.
When preparing your pitch, there is no way you can have a profound impact, without considering these important differences. You never pitch the same to a VP of Sales as you would when pitching to a Data Analyst.
Capture the main specific benefits that your value proposition brings to them based on the buying personas you pitch to the most.
Now what?
Once you have undergone the analysis of markets and buying personas, follow these steps in order to find the right balance between relevance and scalability:
1. Determine a few most likely scenarios. These are pockets of prospects that share the common traits you have analyzed.
2. Create a unique sales pitch for each of these scenarios, considering the differences that you have identified.
3. Test your sales pitch with key prospects and make sure that you have a proper CRM, so the right data can be captured.
4. Track performance, so you know how to improve pitches and their level of effectiveness.
Figuring out all these steps isn’t easy. It can be overwhelming. You don’t have to do all this by yourself. A sales playbook partner can have it completely customized for you, real B2B experts. Bear in mind that a sales playbook is never generic, and it is always completely based on your market, your product/service, your culture, and your process.
So, if you want to increase the impact and results from your team experience from sales pitches, give it the importance, thought, and attention that it deserves.
The ultimate takeaway here is that you can achieve amazing results when your market responds well to your sales pitches. There is great value you bring to the table, just define who is sitting on the other side of it.
