Did you ever walk out of a meeting with a prospective client and wish you could reverse the clock and start all over again? I have. Recently I was in one of those meetings and you would think after all my years of presenting and pitching, I would have it perfected. Wrong. I went into the meeting highly confident, knew my stuff, even did some industry research with data to support my key points. However, I got sidetracked talking about the exciting components and it threw me off. After realizing that my key points didn’t come across as strong as they needed to, I tried to go back and re-state them, however, I already confused the prospective client and I was now making it worse.
Don’t let this happen to you.
Here are 10 great tips that will help to make sure you communicate your message clearly and articulately every time. Before you begin, your pitch, remember; go slow and leave room for the prospective customer to ask questions. Sometimes silence and pausing can be very effective. That means thinking is happening.
10 Tips For Your Next Pitch
- Have a pre-established plan to keep your message delivery on-track and easy to understand
- Answer the questions in your pitch presentation: “Why would you want to buy this?” and “How does this help solve your problem?” Don’t ask them these questions. Your key messages and explanation of the benefits should answer these.
- Ask them how much time you have to present your information
- Tell a brief story that relates to your key points
- Give a brief, big picture overview – almost like an elevator pitch
- Forecast: Tell them you are going to talk about your key points, and tell them exactly what they are in 10 seconds or less
- Key Points: Choose 3-5 key points you want to communicate and stick to those points in order, without wavering
- Provide a visual representation of your overall big picture – this helps the person to actually see what you are talking about
- Your visual representation may also need a reference example that will help make your key points easy to understand. *Make sure you use an example that they will understand perfectly.
- Final wrap-up: Ask the question, “If this is not clear, what questions do you have I can answer?”
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Scott MacFarland
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