Selling a pitch or a business idea is probably one of the most challenging aspects of making modern trade.
Most people don’t know how to do it, and they see successful development managers as magicians who have some sort of magic wand in their hands that keep bringing success to their doorsteps. But that’s not the case.
The problem doesn’t end here. Most people don’t believe in their ideas and underestimate their worth among those that are already successful.
However, in the beginning, everything looks doubtful, even the most successful businesses in today’s world. They had days of doubt, too, when their owners/creators wondered if they were on the right track.
Anyway, if you think you can push the industry’s bar to a new level, show yours and your partner’s skills, etc., then you ought to polish your pitching prowess because at the end of the day is going to save your sinking boat.
“An entrepreneur should be a salesperson who should possess persuasive selling skills.”
Let’s look at some of the steps that can help you hear ‘yes’ from your potential funders or clients to take an interest in or hire your business for their economic/business needs.
Make the person comfortable.
How can you make someone listen to you when he’s not feeling comfortable in your presence? Oren Klaff, the author of Pitch Anything, shares the same thoughts before pitching and turning the meeting into a successful one.
“In the vast majority of cases, they don’t [feel at ease] because they don’t know how long they’re going to be stuck listening to you, and you’re a stranger.
Most people just don’t want to sit through an hour-long pitch. To put them at ease, I have a simple solution: The time-constraint pattern.” – Oren Klaff
Like Karloff, you can start your pitch by giving your client an estimate of the pitch duration. For instance, saying, “We have only 20 mins with us. Let’s get started” In the stated reason, you are giving the time duration to ease the person’s comfort level of listening to you for a particular period.
Moreover, being a presenter, you have to master the art of capturing attention because without it, no matter how good words, or data you are using to entice your client, you will eventually fall flat.
Use Data to Dive Deeper
Suppose you are pitching a magneto development project to a potential client, and you have studied the industry in which your client is dealing, but he doesn’t have an e-commerce portal to grow his business double fold.
How will you convince him? Well, showing how much his competitors have been benefitted by an e-commerce portal and how it has affected their ROI throughout the last few years, will certainly valid your argument of why your client should get a Magento portal developed for business, asap.
Let’s put it this way; the person you are talking about is willing to invest in a business, but he sounds unconvinced with your pitching.
That’s probably because you don’t have enough industry data to earn his interest in using his resources on your project/pitch.
When you present data, you are bridging the trust gap between you and your client, and it leads to a far better journey than you could imagine.
Every potential investor loves knowing the future of its investment, and pitching your deal in economic forms always prove to be highly successful at the given time.
Case Studies
If you manage to impart data with successful case studies, then you have –played your masterstroke. It will make you look like a real professional and even a powerful presenter who knows what he is doing with the time.
Agency Management Institute conducted a study and concluded that that one of the most compelling aspects of idea pitching or project pitching is industry expertise and case studies perfection.
How your client perceives your case studies often cuts. It’s up to you to make a difference by opting for several ways to create an out-of-the-league survey.
In layman, case studies often show what you are capable of and what you have done with your other clients’ projects, and how successful they were while working with you. Hence, you really gain an edge when you provide case studies during the presentation or afterwards for the client to ponder on his final decision. You increase your credibility by showing your abilities and skills.
Pitch Like a Storyteller
Just imagine; how you would feel when you were in a business meeting and hearing pitches. I mean, not even a single creative idea fetched your due attention and respect. How would you feel? Pathetic, isn’t it?
Being a client, you will look to be convinced. You will want a creative storm that can carry you away from your life for a moment and place you in the realm of dreams where your business is growing many folds and you seeing is an inevitable success.
Successful storytellers are amazing presenters who know how to silence the crowd and capture each and every being’s’ attention that is present in the hall. That’s the power of storytelling, or they know the magic of words.
It works in the business model, and selling your idea through storytelling does wonder.
If you look closely at any storytelling module, you will find how they teach their students to build tension and create compelling characters to tell a story most genuinely. The audience can relate to their problem and find a solution or inspiration.
Focus
From working on an idea to pitching it during the presentation, the interval between that time scale often takes its toll on your social life, too.
You keep bringing new ideas to the table, and every new idea seems higher and better than the previous one. It takes many sleepless nights while working for a big client’s project.
However, your clients don’t care about your hard work. All they care about is their needs, their company and its profits etc. Hence, your focus should be on tapping those opportunities to create a solution to their problems.
You must convince your client that you are or have a solution to their problems, and your team can help them to achieve their business goals, altogether, within a given time-frame.
Moreover, clients really don’t care how long it took you to find the solution, as long as it really fits in.
Use Easy language
Usage of simpler and shorter words can do wonders. Often, marketers falsely believe that using long and tough synonyms can make them look like a maestro.
However, they pay for their mistake when clients seem unimpressed because of the wordings that he fails to understand. No one has the time to use a dictionary and find the meanings.
As David Ogilvy said, “The customer is not a moron. She’s your wife.”
Conclusion
Pitching an idea isn’t easy because you crave and fight for your client’s attention. However, through storytelling, you can not only pitch an idea successfully but can win your client’s trust or potential funders to trust in your abilities and skills to increase their ROI many-folds.
