We know you know how to give a sales pitch. You’ve been in sales for years, you have your elevator pitch and long-form technique, and your numbers are pretty solid.
Despite your current success, there’s always room for improvement. A solid sales pitch can bring in new prospects, increase sales, and help grow your business overall.
You may not have set out today thinking, “I need to improve my sales pitch,” but we know the advice in this post will help bring you to the top of your sales game. Whether you need to polish what you have or create something new, here are some sales pitch strategies and tips that work.
Know Your Role
The phrase “we’re the only ones doing ____ in this space” is used far too often in sales meetings.
If you want to land a sale, you need to understand how you fit into the grand scheme of things. Saying you’re the only company that offers computer-aided dispatch software while your competitors just launched their own service isn’t a good look. Not knowing that a competitor offers comparable products and services makes you look uninformed at best and dishonest at worst.
Where do you fit into the current marketplace? What do you know about your competitors and what they offer?
Understand how you compare to people in your field regarding price and offerings. On top of that, understand how your product or service can match or exceed what the competition has.
Know Your Prospect
How long has the person you’re talking to worked at their company? Did you know that the company you’re pitching just went through a round of layoffs? Were you aware that their engineering department recently won an award?
It doesn’t matter if you’re giving your pitch to a team of professionals or a single representative. Knowledge is power in sales, and you want to make sure that you know everything you can before starting your pitch.
Social media makes it incredibly easy to learn more about prospects. Company profiles can provide a wealth of information for people in sales. Checking out recent posts can tell you a lot about who you’re talking to and could even help serve as conversation starters.
Nail Down Your USP
Some companies offer prices that are ideal for people on a budget. Others have unique handcrafted goods that can’t be found anywhere else. It doesn’t matter what you’re offering; people won’t buy it unless you tell them what’s special about it.
Every pitch needs a unique selling proposition (USP) to show people why they need to choose you instead of a competitor. If you can’t identify the USP in your pitch, you’re setting yourself up for failure.
Take time to think about what makes working with your company worth it. You may not be the only company that offers excellent customer service or competitive pricing, but adding it to your sales pitch can increase your value in the prospect’s eyes.
Define Your Goal
We know that the ultimate goal of a sales pitch is to eventually land a sale. The only issue with the mindset is that you’re missing a lot of steps between talking to someone and signing a contract.
You may want things to move fast, but sales take time. Some companies have a sales cycle that lasts weeks, and others can take nearly a year to close. If you want to have more success with your pitch, think about the next steps you want people to take after speaking with you.
Some people want to get an introductory appointment on the books or schedule time for a longer presentation. Others may want their prospect to be evaluated for a quote, or you may want to follow up with more information.
Thinking about your pitch with actionable outcomes makes it easier to create something that works for what you need. You can develop pitches for specific times in your sales cycle to make everything more effective.
Understand Their Motivation
It always pays to know a bit about a potential client and their pain points. If you’re used to going into sales meetings with just the basics about who you’re talking to, it’s time to dive a little deeper. For example, at 10-8 Systems we offer different but similar software solutions for private and government agencies. Despite similarities in software the approach for selling police management software to law enforcement would be different than selling security management software to a private security company.
If you want to have a solid pitch, you need to understand what motivates the person you’re talking to and the company they represent. Take time to understand their problems and how your product or service is the solution they’ve been searching for. Take some of the advice we listed above around research and check out their blog and website to learn more about them.
Think about existing or past customers and clients that had the same issues your prospect has. You can use their experiences to show how your company has what it takes to solve its current problems.
Practice
The saying that practice makes perfect rings true in the world of sales. Successful pitches come from people who sound knowledgeable and confident. You can gain both qualities by practicing your pitch so you’re comfortable enough with the material.
Reading your pitch out loud at home can be helpful to a point. Although it can get you more comfortable with the material, it can’t prepare you for interacting with another person.
Try out your sales pitch on other coworkers to see if they have any pointers to give. Find some supportive family and friends so you can get used to talking in front of others and gain an outside perspective.
Improve My Sales Pitch the Right Way
It’s important to remember that good sales pitches should evolve over time. If you aren’t thinking, “it’s time to improve my sales pitch” at least once each year, it’s time to rethink your approach to sales.
