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A sales pitch is a powerful tool that can have the potential to change your life. When done right, it will help you sell one product or service and generate leads for follow-on work as well. But how do you make sure your sales pitch gets through? Here are 7 steps on what to expect in any good selling situation including examples of each step so that you too can become an expert at making pitches!
A sales pitch is a quick explanation or dialogue meant to pique the interest of a prospective consumer in your goods or services. These “propositions” assist organizations in generating qualified leads by measuring interest and expressing a clear value with a call to action that pushes a lead to the next step of the purchasing process. In this post, we’ll go through the seven stages of learning how to make a sales presentation, as well as some examples to get you started.
A Sales Pitch’s Components
There are three main parts to making a sales pitch that work holistically with one another moving a lead through the sales journey. These must work in unison to build rapport with the prospect, help them understand what you offer, and layout the next steps to move forward. The three A Sales Pitch’s Components include:
- Introduction: The process of easing a lead or prospective client into the value proposition through probing inquiries, acknowledgments, or any other way of eliciting a response.
- The “meat”: The “meat” of the sales presentation is the value proposition, which explains how your goods or services bring value to your target market.
- Closing: The change to get the lead to proceed to the next phase of the sales process, such as buying a product or agreeing to a conference call, is known as a call to action (closing).
While the format of your sales presentation will differ based on whether you’re giving it in person, through email, phone, or video conferencing, the intro-to-body-to-closing structure will stay similar. In seven easy stages, here’s how to make a sales pitch:
1. Define your one-of-a-kind selling point.
Your sales presentation should explain how your product or service offers value to clients and how it differs from the competition, outlining your unique selling proposition (USP).
The question “why select us?” is answered with a USP. Focus on a characteristic of the product or service that sets it apart from competitors, such as cheaper costs, higher quality, better customer service, or a positive component of the user or customer experience, such as product simplicity of use.
An HR management consulting business, for example, provides free consultations and a guided experience with their customers, in which they are there at every stage of the process. This is in contrast to other HR consulting organizations that don’t give the same level of service and instead focus on providing advice rather than assisting with implementation. Before you can use these distinct characteristics in a pitch, you must first understand them.
2. Recognize your ideal market
Next, determine who will benefit the most from your products. You could cater to a specialized niche market, such as small IT management firms, or a larger consumer base, such as NGOs. When you include an ideal market in your pitch, it becomes more relevant to the individual who is listening.
Consider the case of owning an accounting business. A sales representative from a staffing business approaches you about how they can assist you to recruit temporary workers as well as permanent personnel during the hectic “tax season.” This service provider employs IT engineers, security analysts, sales representatives, administrative employees, and software developers, indicating that they are a general staffing business.
Another sales representative says the same thing, except they exclusively deal with accounting and tax preparation organizations. Because they exclusively operate in that market, you’re probably assuming they know more about your requirements and have more competent individuals. In your small company, you should use the same strategy.
Whether you already know your niche or want to target a certain market segment, the variables (and examples) listed below may help you narrow down your market, enabling you to specialize your product and customize your marketing to your unique client profile:
- Gender: For example, just targeting female clients.
- Age: For example, exclusively target clients between the ages of 25 and 30.
- Organization size: For example, only targeting companies with 10 to 30 people or less than $1 million in sales.
- Geographical restrictions: For example, only targeting consumers or companies within a 20-mile radius.
- Interests: For example, just marketing to clients who like sports.
- Lifestyles: For example, just targeting parents or those who travel a lot.
Pro tip: Using tagging tools in customer relationship management (CRM) software, you may organize your lead data and categorize target audiences. For example, Zoho CRM allows you to classify leads and contacts depending on their source, client profile, or market sector. Users may then examine this information in an individual lead record or use the tag to filter a list of leads.
Lead list tagging in Zoho CRM (Source: Zoho)
3. Develop a Value Proposition
Before you give your introduction, we suggest that you work on your physique. This is because your introduction may take many different forms—which we’ll go into later—but the content and value proposition will remain consistent.
Combine your USP and ideal market into a value proposition, which will serve as the foundation of your sales presentation. For your convenience, we’ve included B2B and B2C value proposition samples.
Business-to-business transactions (B2B)
Through tailored tax preparation and tax planning services that match client goals and budgets, we assist small companies in navigating the tax landscape for their specific circumstances.
In this case, the ideal market is “small enterprises,” and the USP is “customized tax preparation and tax planning services,” which provides a terrific client experience.
Consumer-to-consumer (B2C)
We use our hundreds of relationships and in-depth quality screening process to assist parents in the D.C. region identify reliable suppliers and care providers.
This example focuses on “parents in the D.C. region” and has a USP centered on “thousands of relationships” and an “in-depth quality screening procedure” to provide high-quality concierge services.
4. Define the goals of your sales pitch
A full sales presentation does not consist of just stating your unique value offer without providing context or next actions. Start with a way in and have an exit or next step plan in mind—both of which need knowing what your sales pitch’s goals are.
The primary goal of lead generation is to communicate the value you provide to your prospects. As a result, the next stages will be determined by how your specific sales process is set up, and will most likely be one of the following:
- Making an appointment for an introduction, a sales presentation, or a product demonstration
- Obtaining a lead for the purpose of making a buying decision or signing a contract
- Persuading the lead allows you to give them further information or marketing materials
- Getting the lead to take a needed next step, such as being underwritten, being evaluated for a quotation, or consenting to a free audit or assessment.
Pro tip: Every company’s sales funnel is distinct in terms of what they sell and how they do business. A CRM is an excellent tool for organizing and tracking prospects as they go through the sales funnel. HubSpot is a popular CRM that allows companies to personalize their sales funnel and track the development of transactions or leads. Conversions may be seen on a Kanban board, and performance can be tracked using built-in reporting tools.
Pipeline management using HubSpot (Source: HubSpot)
5. Incorporate Ease Into Your Pitch
This phase sets the stage for you to ask probing questions or engage with the lead by highlighting pertinent news or a connection you have with them throughout the sales presentation. For example, suppose you were at a networking event and met a decision-maker from your target market. Following some small conversation, you may ease them into your pitch by discussing a recent news event that has affected their industry and how it has affected them.
The relevant tale may prompt them to outline some of their concerns, which you may address in your sales presentation. Another option is to ask probing questions before launching into your pitch. When selling commercial insurance, for example, you may begin by asking, “When was the last time you had your policy reviewed?” If they say it’s been a few years, you’ve got yourself a great starting point for exploring the “body.”
The purpose of an introduction, whether in person, over the phone, or through email, is to prevent you from jumping immediately into a pitch without first gathering context or establishing rapport. Due to the fact that many sales pitches are conducted by email, have a look at our efficient email introduction templates to help you navigate through numerous email introduction circumstances.
6. Make a request for action in the form of a call to action.
The last step in a thorough sales presentation is to persuade the prospect to act. Even if the prospect has indicated indifference, this step is nevertheless taken. If the lead answered “I’m not interested at this time,” your call-to-action should be something like “No worries, I’ll follow up in four months and see if anything has changed.”
Whether in a conversation or by email, the key to an effective call to action (CTA) is to present a clear next step and make it simple for them to execute it. Many CTAs may say something like, “I’d love to arrange a call and learn more about your company to determine if we’d be a good match.” They may then click a link to arrange an appointment or coordinate to find a time that works for them after that statement.
If you’re pitching in person, you may take the lead’s business card and inform them you’ll send an email to set up an occasion. The goal of the call-to-action request is for the lead to complete your sales goal. While the majority of possibilities include organizing a sales presentation or demo, you might also ask them to consent to get further marketing materials or allow you to audit or underwrite them for a quotation.
You may use the following template to start your call to action:
Following the delivery of the pitch’s body
I’d welcome the chance to [achieve the sales aim] so that we can [achieve the sales objective]. What is your [availability in the next days/email address where I may give you further information]?
Pro tip: Scheduling automation systems like Calendly make initiating a call to action and getting the lead to complete the request relatively painlessly. Calendly allows you to create a scheduling system based on calendar criteria and preferred communication channels. Users may then send their unique scheduling link to a lead as an email link or a button in their email signature, allowing them to choose a time that works for them and sync the event to their calendar.
Calendly is a scheduling tool (Source: HubSpot)
7. Adjust Your Pitch to the Correct Channel
Teach your sales personnel how to create a sales pitch, as well as how to customize it to the appropriate channel, as part of a comprehensive sales training program. This action is quite different in an email than it is in a face-to-face talk, a phone call, or a video conferencing conference. In an email, for example, you might begin by quickly introducing yourself in your introduction.
Hello, [lead name]
My name is Joe Mozeyko, and I work for ABC Corporation as an account executive. I’m writing to inform you of a recent regulatory change that affects financial institutions like [their organization name]. The new rules, as you may or may not be aware, compel [industry] enterprises to [regulatory requirements]. As a result, we may be able to assist.
[Sales pitch body]
Your pitch would be more conversational if you were giving it in person or over the phone, with more questions and back-and-forth. Furthermore, many channels presume you have previously made a personal introduction.
[Following a short chat or a personal introduction]
Thus, how have the new restrictions affected your company so far?
[Lead responses]
Is there anything in particular that you’re having trouble with? Maybe it’s something for which you’d make it a priority to discover a solution?
[Lead responses]
Those are some fantastic observations. That’s a decent introduction to what we do, I suppose. [Insert the pitch’s body.]
The content of the message may be almost the same across all channels, but the introduction and conclusion must be tailored to the channel in question. Here are some closing and call-to-action examples that may be used in an email, in person, or over the phone.
I’d like to set up a product demo with you to demonstrate how our software solution helps financial institutions enhance operational efficiency while remaining compliant. You may select a time that works for you by using the Schedule Appointment button in my signature.
In-Person/By Phone
I’d love to organize a product demo with you in the next week or so to show you some of the capabilities for workflow automation, data management, and compliance support. [What is the best way to contact you through email/do you have a business card?] [I may send you an email as a follow-up.]
Conclusion
One of the most critical factors in getting leads or measuring their interest is a strong sales presentation. To ease a prospect into the presentation, explain the unique value they bring, and set out the following stages of the process, sales management employees and company owners must carefully create the message. Once the message has been established, it must be correctly adapted to meet any communication channels that may be utilized during sales activity.
