Pitching

Updated at 2014-11-10 16:24

Point of a sales pitch is to get the audience interested in a product or a company. Pitch can be e.g. 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 5 minutes or anything beyond that.

Pitching is more about the person than the content. Even the most brilliant ideas won't be heard if the person cannot communicate that brilliance. Focus on showing your insight about the market, prove your statements and highlight your team.

Consider 4 Us when constructing a pitch:

Urgency: Why the thing you promote is urgent for the people listening. This makes people see the problem and relate to you.
Useful: Why the thing you promote is useful for the people listening. This makes people interested in the possible solutions.
Unique: Why the thing you promote is unique for the people listening. This makes people interested in your solution.
Unquestionableness: Why should people listening believe the things you say. Prove your statements. This makes people trust you.

You should prepare of a short pitch per product and company. That you can use on various events to respond the question about what your company does. The pitch shouldn't contain all the company values, just the most important ones to get listeners interested. Each member of the company should know the pitch by heart. Then employees will seem well informed and confident. Through your people, your whole company seems more stable.

# Simple short pitch example:

# Your main pitch headline should be 140 character long:
Lush makes handmade soaps and cosmetics.

# Support that headline with three key values:
Fresh
Environmentally Friendly
Ethical

# Reinforce those benefits with two stories, statistics or examples that
# tell how the company accomplishes those values:
How you accomplish: Fresh?
    -> Soaps are manufactured each morning at the store.
    -> Ordered soaps are shipped on the evening they are made.
How you accomplish: Environmentally Friendly?
    -> Soaps are unpackaged to save paper and plastic
    -> Soaps and cosmetics are not tested on animals.
How you accomplish: Ethical?
    -> Tell about employees getting day off when there was a protest.
    -> Tell about supporting gay pride campaigns.

Longer pitches are for events and investor one-on-ones.

# Example long pitch outline:
Attention Grab
    something strange or shocking
    showing a short video
    a question
Problem
Solutions
Demo
Attention Grab
    change pitch or volume of your voice while doing this
Market
Business Model
Secret Sauce
Attention Grab
    change pitch or volume of your voice while doing this
Competition
Go-to-market Plan
Team
Money
Attention Grab
    change pitch or volume of your voice while doing this

Pitching

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