What is the perfect sales pitch and does it really exist?
In music, a sound is pitch perfect when it is exactly right in tone, mood, or style, but in sales how can you tell when your pitch is perfect?
In this article, we’ll give you 6 hacks on how to create and deliver the perfect sales pitch.
First things first, if you didn’t know; A sales pitch is a well-prepared sales presentation that is intended to persuade a person (or people) to buy a product or service or to buy into an idea. Pitching to prospects might seem like a big deal but can be effortless if you have the perfect pitch.
Here are 6 ingredients that should go into the perfect pitch:
– Identify The Right Prospect: You’d always have the best chances of selling to customers who need your services and can decide to purchase whatever you’re offering. Imagine trying to sell gas to a customer who uses a bicycle to commute vs selling to one who drives a gasoline-fuelled vehicle? You’d be wasting your time with one while the other might even help you close the deal.
– Search And Research: Doing detailed research of whoever (Company and/or individuals) you are pitching to, should be a given. This increases your level of preparedness and will also earn you respect from prospects as they can see you have carried out due diligence on who they are/their needs and are likely to take you more seriously. Internet and social media research are absolutely free and readily available, you can also reach out to mutual connections for information.
– Present Your Solution: Great! you’ve identified your prospect’s needs from your research or probe, so how does your offering solve that need? A tip on presenting your solution will be to focus on the benefits of this solution to the prospect and not exactly the complex process of how your solution works (features). Details can be provided on request but keep it customer-centric and easy to digest.
– Prepare For Objections: What counter questions might your prospect have? You would need to go through your pitch to envision and proactively prepare for any objections that may arise from what you will be presenting or your conversation. This will prevent you from fumbling or stuttering when these questions arise. In a case where a question without a readily available answer arises, it’s okay to say ‘I don’t have the answer to that right now, let me check with my team and get back to you.’ as this portrays you as more authentic and automatically gives you another opportunity to communicate with your prospect.
– Pass The Microphone: In plain terms; Let your prospect talk. After a lot of preparation, you may slide down the slippery slope of thinking you know everything and just wanting to go on and on and on. One of the keys to nailing your pitch is listening, as this helps your prospect express their pain points while also giving you insights to know what benefits to focus on or just gauge how the prospect is taking your pitch. Remember, a pitch is an interaction of two parties so if only one side is doing the talking then there’s a problem.
– The Next Steps: Before rounding up any sales presentation, ask yourself; ‘What are the next steps?’ Whatever your answer is (determined by how the meeting went) guides you on what call to action you should bring up with your prospect. These ‘Next Steps’ usually vary depending on the outcome of the meeting and could be setting up another meeting, sending an invoice or more information, etc.
Now that you have the 6 ingredients to a perfect pitch, do you feel confident enough for your next sales pitch?
Just remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day so the more you pitch using these tips, the better you’ll get overtime.
Happy Selling!
