Why This is the Wrong Way to Pitch for Business

When you sell, it’s really easy to talk about you, your company and how good your products and services are. Yet to do so would be a mistake. This approach will rarely work.

Yes, there will be a stage during the sales process when you’ll need to talk about how you can help your potential customer — but that’s different to the initial scenario I described. One version is all about you, you, you — the other is about how the potential customer would gain from a relationship with you. There’s a massive difference.

Many sales people never find out what the prospect or customer actually needs. Strange…but true.

Growing strong and positive relationship where you focus on your client’s needs, problems, challenges and desires is vital and will ultimately lead to the successful matching of your products or services with their needs.

Every one of your potential customers are different, all are unique. That’s down to the individual influences of all the events, successes, disappointments, peer groups, working relationships, family relationships they’ve encountered throughout their life. Respect and acknowledge this – then let it work for you.

So forget you – and forget your standard sales presentation! From now on, in every sales situation you encounter, acknowledge that everyone is different and therefore needs a different approach.

Take a typical B2B sales pitch

The prospect expects a pitch. The sales person expects to do a pitch – and off they go. The standard pitch gets rolled out and the prospects are left to pick out the relevant bits from this ‘throw everything in’ presentation. The sales person speaks nonstop for the whole pitch with maybe a few questions at the end and a general discussion if it’s going well.

The problems with this approach are that…

• The real challenges and ‘pains’ of the customer are never established.
• There’s no genuine connection or rapport.
• There’s often no real feedback of whether the sales person is close to a sale or not.
• Everything has been delivered according to the sales person’s map of the world and the map of the receiver is never elicited or acknowledged.

An alternative approach?

Walk in – and say something like “rather than talk non-stop about us and what we do – I’m very interested in you, your company and your current and future challenges. Then I’ll be in a much better position to suggest how we might help you conquer your challenges and drive you towards your business objectives. Would that be helpful?”

Assuming a yes – “thank you – so, in the area of xxxx, what would you say your current issues are?”

A two way exchange ensues.

The advantages being…

1. They’re talking and you’re listening, that’s the way it should be.
2. You’re finding out gems of information about their needs which you can incorporate when you talk.
3. You’re finding out about how they’re ‘programmed’ – for example whether they are ‘pain or gain’ motivated, their representational systems, or if they’re internally or externally focussed. And you can tailor your language accordingly to maximise rapport.
4. Of course, you’re learning exactly how you can specifically help them – and are now able to give examples of how you’ve helped similar companies with similar problems before.

This approach is bound to be more successful, resulting in your company’s and your- personal sales success. You’ve connected, built genuine rapport, and identified what they really need – and can then present your offering to them knowing it’s 100% certain to hit the target.

It’s all about the psychology of selling…

Until next time.

Leigh