How To Pitch: 7 Tips for Making an Outstanding Pitch

Have you ever had an idea so great that you just had to tell someone about it? Or are you a salesperson looking to perfect your sales pitch? You are not alone! Creating an effective and persuasive pitch can be the difference between sales success and failure. It can be a challenging task to make sure your sales pitch is effective, but the good news is that there are a few simple steps you can take to ensure that your pitch is successful. In this blog article, you will find seven tips to help you perfect your sales pitch. Anyone can make a strong pitch; just follow these steps and gain the confidence of a seasoned salesperson!

Tip #1: Know Your Audience

This is perhaps the most important tip in creating a strong sales pitch: know your audience. It is vital to understand your audience, research their needs, and take into account whatever information you may have on their background. After all, if you don’t know or understand the needs of your customer, how will you know that your product is a fit for them, and more importantly, how will they know that your product is a fit for them? They’re listening to you – and they will be even more receptive to your pitch if your messaging is tailored to them. 

If you can, do some research on demographic and psychographic information as well. Understanding not just their business needs, but also their attitudes, lifestyles, opinions, where they spend their time, how they spend their money, and more. Every customer is different, so it is important to identify as much as you can, so you can assess their needs and demonstrate how your product or service can meet those needs. Additionally, make sure to focus on the customer’s unique situation and avoid making generalizations. The more personalized you can get — again, based on your knowledge and research of your audience — the more successful your pitch will be.

Tip #2: Focus on Benefits

When making a sales pitch, it’s important to focus on conveying the benefits of your product or service. A successful sales pitch should focus on how your product or service can solve the customer’s problems, rather than the technical details or features of the product. People are more likely to purchase a product or service if they understand how it can help them. By highlighting the benefits of your product, you can show customers how they can save time, money, or energy by using it. Additionally, emphasize the value of your product or service in comparison to competitors. 

When crafting your message around benefits, another important tip is to identify the problem that your pitch is going to solve.This is essential in providing clarity for the audience.  Do everything you can to acknowledge the problem or gaps they are experiencing, and then show that you have the perfect solution. If your product has functionality that can solve their problems, you need to make sure you are framing that functionality correctly. Tell a story about how it works, and supplement this story with facts or statistics that elaborate on how your product solves the problem. By focusing on the benefits of your product or service, you can ensure your sales pitch is successful.

Tip #3: Be Prepared

Practice, practice, practice! It is important to remember that the most effective sales pitches are well planned out ahead of time. When preparing your pitch, make sure to research your product or service thoroughly, familiarize yourself with the customer’s needs, and anticipate any potential questions or objections they may have. Additionally, make sure to practice your pitch before delivering it to the customer. This will help ensure that you are able to deliver it smoothly and confidently. Practicing your pitch will allow you to both identify what is effective and what may need to be corrected. This is your opportunity to smooth out any rough parts and fine-tune anything that seems lackluster or boring. If comfortable, practice the speech in front of an audience. This can be friends or family, whose feedback can be extremely helpful in creating the most persuasive pitch possible.  If you cannot practice in front of others, try recording yourself and watching the replay.  This valuable evaluation tool can help to alert you to any areas you may need to work on or practice a bit more.

Another good preparation tactic is to create a written or typed outline of what you plan to say in your pitch. Using what you have learned about your audience and the appropriate language and tone, compile a basic outline of the points you want to hit. Your outline will be the “blueprint” for your pitch and starting this way will help you create an overall, cohesive message. Make sure as you’re writing that you are structuring your pitch for success with an intriguing opening, a set of planned questions, and specific examples and stories to support your claims. Show your audience that you did your research and your voice is the authority on the topic. The more convincing you are to yourself, the more convincing you will be to your audience – and that only comes through extensive practice and preparation.

Tip #4: Use Visual Aids

No matter what kind of pitch you’re giving, whether it’s in person or on the phone, try to find a way to add visuals. Visual memory is a lot more powerful than auditory memory, so you’ll want this weapon in your arsenal. Visuals do more than just grab attention – they can be an effective way to help your audience see themselves using your product. 

In many cases, your visuals will come in the form of a PowerPoint presentation or a video proposal that summarizes your main points. When creating your presentation or video, use the six-by-six rule, which states that each presentation slide should contain no more than six bullet points with no more than six words per bullet point. You can also use other visual aids such as handouts or posters as long as they are not too distracting for your audience. Try to keep a good balance between text and visuals so that your pitch is easily digested and understood.

Tip #5: Speak Clearly and Confidently

Confidence is essential in your pitch. Use your voice, body language, and enthusiasm to convey confidence and conviction in your pitch. Speaking clearly is important so that your audience can hear and understand not only the points you’re making, but also the points of emphasis you want them to remember. Consider your diction, and consider your pace as well. Speaking fast can give the impression that you’re nervous so be sure to slow your speech and convey a sense of calm. 

Speaking clearly with strong eye contact is doubly important for bilingual audiences. Carefully assess how to best communicate in a way that your audience will understand, both linguistically and tonally. Be careful to remove any language that may unintentionally come across as hostile or offensive. Also consider your tone and cadence; these factors go a long way in creating the perfect persuasive message.

Tip #6: Listen and Ask Questions

The next tip is to be interactive – be a human! Show yourself as a good listener, so your audience knows you understand them and their needs. As you’re listening, make and hold eye contact with the audience. Holding eye contact will increase the audience’s focus while also creating understanding between you and your listeners. Don’t lose track of your agenda though – listen while keeping your points in mind, so you stay on point and don’t get too derailed by commentary or feedback.

Part of being natural is giving your audience a voice as well. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and involve them in the pitch. You can ask rhetorical questions to inspire thoughtfulness in your listeners, or you can ask direct questions if it’ll help you demonstrate your points. An excellent pitch can be thought of as having a conversation with the audience. This way, your pitch will be more relaxed, natural, and free flowing, which will ensure the best results.

Tip #7: Follow Up

At the end of everything, you don’t want to forget to follow up. It’s perhaps just as important as anything else in your pitch. Send a thank you note after the sales pitch, and use the follow-up communication as an opportunity to check in with your prospects and build a relationship with them. It also allows you to identify any additional needs your prospects may have and provide them with additional information to help close the deal. 

Following up also helps you identify areas of improvement for your pitch – if a customer decides not to proceed with your product or service, you can ask them for insights and what you or your product/service can do better. By taking the time to follow up and build a relationship with your prospects, you not only increase your chances of making more sales, but also make yourself a better salesperson more generally.

Closing Thoughts: The Perfect Sales Pitch

As you can see, there are many different components that come together to create the perfect sales pitch. From understanding your audience to being creative and prepared, you can use these tips to create a pitch that will be sure to get your message across and sell your product or service. Remember, practice makes perfect and you will be sure to make a great impression with the perfect sales pitch.

If you’d like more inspiration, we have listed some fun, popular pitch examples to help you get started on your own pitch. We wish you luck!

How To Pitch: Examples of Great Pitches

There are a variety of pitch inspirations that you can use to model your pitches after. Below are listed some of the most famous ones to help you get started.

Steve Jobs – Apple iPod Presentation

In this iconic presentation, Jobs, donning his classic jeans and black turtleneck, paints a picture of what the iPod is and why it will transform how the consumer listens to music. He gives a vision for his product, describes the competition, and describes where the iPod will fit into the current music market.

Don Draper – Mad Men

Here, Don Draper  begins his pitch by telling the team from Kodak a personal story that describes advertising’s fascination with novelty. As he continues, there are a few things Don does in this pitch that are particularly worth noting. First, he uses the product to deliver his pitch. This can be a powerful way to demonstrate the product in action – if your product or service is something that can be applied to your pitch. Secondly, his delivery is patient and deliberate. By doing this, he is allowing what he says to have an impact on the Kodak team. By using slow, deliberate, emphatic phrases, you can make an emotional connection with your audience.

DoorBot/Ring

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqQblsZgF8M

This pitch is a great example of describing the problem and then showing how your product is the solution for that product. He also speaks in a way that clearly demonstrates his understanding of the audience. In this case, it is the Sharks. He shows how easy it is to use his product and ties it into how it could be implemented in their houses.

Scrub Daddy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggi3yfUv0Mo

What makes the Scrub Daddy pitch so compelling is the pitcher’s use of voice. He speaks in an excited and extemporaneous way while also demonstrating how easy it is to use the product. He was able to convey a level of genuineness through his tone, and ultimately it left him with a deal that is widely considered the most successful product to ever be on Shark Tank.

Boiler Room

In this scene, Vin Diesel’s character was able to communicate a sense of scarcity in his product. He understood that his audience, in this case, the doctor, would jump at the opportunity if he knew how “good” of an opportunity it was. The doctor, although hesitant at first, is convinced that this is an opportunity he cannot pass up. By employing a sense of urgency, you can make your pitch that much more persuasive to your audience.

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