The Authority Guide to Pitching Your Business

How to make an impact and be remembered – in under a minute!

Mel Sherwood

• Publisher: The Authority Guides
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781912300037
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Meetings & Presentations
• Index: Business

Make that first impression count. Create success and secure more business with a powerful pitch that really packs a punch. Avoid all the common pitfalls and learn how to boldly and succinctly explain what you do in less than 60 seconds. In this fast, focused Authority Guide Mel Sherwood shares her expert knowledge to give you the skills you need to prepare and deliver a professional pitch with authority, confidence and passion.

1. What is a pitch and why do I need one?

The Oxford English Dictionary describes a pitch in this context as ‘a form of words used when trying to persuade someone to buy or accept something’.

In business, you may be required to deliver a sales pitch, a pitch for funding or investment or even a pitch for a competition. But the most likely requirement and the main focus for this book is for a 30 to 60-second elevator pitch. This type of pitch is widely recognised as a short summary that describes a person, product, service, organisation or event and its value proposition.

Some sources suggest that the phrase ‘elevator pitch’ was coined during the golden years of Hollywood when a writer would catch an unsuspecting executive in the elevator and pitch an idea for a film in the time it took for the elevator to reach the top floor. Daniel H. Pink tells the story behind what may have been the world’s first-ever elevator pitch in his best-selling book, To Sell is Human: The surprising truth about persuading, convincing and influencing others. According to Pink, in 1854, Elisha Otis dramatically demonstrated his elevator safety device on the floor of the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York in front of a large audience by ascending in an elevator cradled in an open-sided shaft. Halfway up, he had the hoisting rope cut with an axe. The platform held fast while the audience gasped. A very persuasive pitch!

Regardless of when the phrase was first used, there will always be times when you will need to pitch your business. Opportunities are everywhere. You never know when you might have the chance to speak with someone who is interested in your product or service, or who knows someone else who would be, so there is a strong argument to be pitch ready at any given time.

Once you are clear on your brand proposition and have developed a concise elevator pitch that you can deliver with confidence, this will form the basis for all of your brand communication and any future pitches. For example, a couple of years ago I helped a client develop a 60-second elevator pitch for her new start-up business. We spent several hours drilling down into exactly how to describe the complex product and identifying the key benefits she wanted to highlight before writing a short script that was easy to remember and easy to say. It took some time to get it right but it was the foundation for a pitch that led her to winning £100,000 in a business funding competition and being offered a further £250,000 worth of investment to grow her start-up. It is worth taking the time to get clear on your message – if you’re not clear, it’s difficult for anyone else to be!

Should you ditch the pitch and have a conversation?

Some people think the elevator pitch is an out-of-date concept but irrespective of how you go about it, you still have to be able to reply to the question ‘What do you do?’ or to respond when someone asks, ‘Can you tell us a bit about yourself?’ A nervous and stumbling answer is not going to fill the questioner with confidence about you or your business. First impressions count and very often answering this question is the first opportunity for someone to get to know you – what impression do you want to give them?

---

Exercise

Consider the word ‘pitch’ – what thoughts and feelings come up for you? Are they positive, neutral or negative? How do you think your thoughts and feelings about pitching impact your own pitch?

---

Many people are uncomfortable with the word ‘pitch’; it is often associated with being ‘salesy’ and a lot of people don’t want to appear too salesy, nor do they want to be sold to. Others are uncomfortable with the word because they have had a bad experience of pitching in the past, whether they were unsure what to say or they were not confident in saying it. But when you think about it, life is a pitch. We have been pitching since we were small children – convincing our parents we needed more pocket money, persuading our friends to choose one movie over another or influencing a colleague to our way of thinking.

In my workshops and masterclasses, I often ask participants to discuss the difference between pitching and selling and to decide whether they are the same thing. While there is often a bit of debate around the question, the general conclusion is that the pitch is the start of the conversation and the selling takes place as you build the relationship. The purpose of the pitch is not to sell, but you do need the initial pitch to start the conversation by capturing someone’s attention, piquing their interest and making them curious to know more. That is why it’s important to be pitch ready at any given time; you never know when you will be asked the question that could spark the conversation that leads to further opportunities.

Don’t bombard them though!

It’s important to note that the question ‘What do you do?’ is not necessarily an invitation to bombard the questioner with two minutes of rhetoric about you. In a one-to-one conversation you will most likely answer the question with your conversational pitch, your short 7 to 10 word explanation of what you do, which should ideally lead to further conversation.

If you know what elements of what you do that you want to get across, parts of your pitch can be dropped into the conversation naturally. But if you’ve never given any thought to how you communicate what you do, or put time into preparing a 30 to 60-second pitch that outlines your value proposition, you may struggle to clearly express yourself.

What are the benefits of a #pitchtastic pitch?

Not only does a great pitch help people to know who you are and what you do, if it is delivered well it will help them to remember you as well as to prospect for you. When your pitch is clear, concise and memorable, if one of your connections then encounters someone with the exact problem you solve, you will be the first person that comes to mind.

---

Key points

• Every business person needs a pitch.
• First impressions count so it’s important to take the time to get your pitch right.
• A clear and confident pitch will help people to remember you and lead to further conversations and opportunities.

---

'A pitch does not take place in the library of the mind; it takes place in the theatre of the heart.'

Roger Mavity

2. Pitchfalls – are you making these mistakes?

If you’ve been to networking events or other corporate events where people are talking about their business, it’s likely you will have found yourself warming to some people and not to others. There are various reasons for this but if the talk is about a business that you have no need for or no interest in, there will be some people who still manage to grab your attention and others who don’t.

---

Exercise

Take a moment to think about some elevator pitches you have heard. Which ones were the most memorable? What made them stand out? Did they stand out for the right or wrong reasons?

---

Pitchfalls that can make a pitch stand out for the wrong reasons

Too much me, me, me

It’s important to remember that when someone asks you ‘What do you do?’, they don’t really care about what you do, they care about what you can do for them. But so many business people love to talk about themselves and go on and on and on… and on… about themselves and what they do without any consideration for the people they are communicating with. In any pitch, presentation or even a conversation, the more ‘you’ language you can include versus ‘I’ or ‘we’ language, the more you will be able to engage people.

Features not benefits

Your product or service may have loads of features but your potential customers don’t care about them; they only care about the outcome, the result, what’s in it for them. Don’t harp on about the features; think about the benefits of your pr...