Customer Pitching

To create an effective pitch, you must have a good understanding of your product category, capture the potential customer's interest with your background, and demonstrate how your product benefits meet the customer’s needs.

Understanding Your Category

Before crafting your pitch, you must first identify your product category. There are 2 main categories to consider:

1. The Disruptor: Disrupter products involve selling into an existing marketplace with competitors. Prospects are aware of the problem you're solving, and they are actively seeking better solutions. Think of Salesforce — when they entered the marketplace, they addressed a problem everyone was already familiar with. In this situation, your discovery process often flows smoothly because prospects know the problem and are actively looking for a better solution.

2. The Evangelist: Your company falls into this category if your product introduces something new to the market. Here, you're educating potential customers about a problem they might not even know they have. Your sales process is more about creating awareness and showing the value of your solution.

Case Study: Marketo
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In the case of Marketo, a company that revolutionized marketing automation solutions, many businesses struggled to grasp the full scope of what Marketo's offerings could deliver. Terms like "marketing qualified leads" and "sales qualified leads" were unfamiliar, and the idea of breaking down the marketing pipeline into specific categories was a foreign concept.

To succeed, Marketo had to educate potential customers about the challenges they might not have been aware of and then persuade them to consider their products and processes. It was akin to going through two sales cycles from the start: firstly, raising awareness about the hidden challenges businesses faced, and then convincing them to to go through a full sales cycle.

Pitch Framework 

While there’s no universal approach to your pitch, here are some essential steps: 

1. Build Your Origin Story: Your origin story is the narrative behind what you've created and why you've created it. Why did your team decide to build this product or service? Were you solving a challenge that you personally faced? Or did you see an opportunity in the market that others might not have noticed? It's about articulating the "what" and the "why."
2. Connect with the “Why”:  When prospects understand why you've built your product, they want to know that you're not just another company looking to make a sale. They want to know that you genuinely believe in what you're offering.
3. Explain Universal Benefits: Highlight what your prospects can expect when they become your customers. Will they save money, generate more revenue, save time, or operate more efficiently? These benefits should be woven into your narrative. They help prospects envision your value and how it aligns with their goals.
4. Clarify the Process: Once you've framed the "what" and the "why," explain how the process works. How do prospects go from being aware of your product to becoming satisfied customers? Is it a short-term project or a long-term commitment? By outlining the process, you make it easier for them to grasp the journey they're about to embark on.

Pitch Example

Here’s an example we've created using the company, Tome and their 43 million series B funding announcement: 

“Hi, [Name], 
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Great to meet you. I’m the founder of Tome, an AI-powered storytelling tool that lets anyone create compelling stories. 
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My co-founder and I realized that the current methods of creating and delivering presentations were outdated and hard to maneuver. Creators and teams often spend countless hours tinkering with their presentations only to make them look marginally better, and, ultimately, these creators are unable to achieve the desired impact on their audience. 
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Through our work at Instagram and Messenger, we realized there was a better and faster way to tell stories. Tome has beautiful, modern creation tools that are powerful and easy-to-use for anyone. For example, our text tool automatically beautifies text, saving you the time to search for the perfect font or adjust letter spacing and shadows. Our table feature is also simple, useful, and powerful.
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Tome is seamless to incorporate into your team's workflow, and we have a dedicated Customer Success team to help you onboard. 
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Can I ask you some questions about your current presentation workflow and learn how Tome can make it more seamless for you? 

Tailoring Your Message for Engagement

Your pitch should be adaptable to different stakeholders and buyer types. Consider who you're talking to and what their role is. Are they a user champion, a leader, or in an operational or financial role? 

Typically, there are 5 key stakeholders you may want to tailor your base story to: 

• User/Champion: Your direct user and advocate
• Leadership: Owns the budget and strategic outcomes
• Operations: May own the implementation and/or administration
• Financial: Manages the budget and procurement process
• Technical: Defines and evaluates technical requirements 

If you're speaking with someone who is typically in an operations role, for example, you can highlight the ease-of-use. If there are multiple decision-makers on the call, you may want to dedicate a little extra time to make sure everyone understands the key points and how they’re relevant to their role. 

Additionally, you should consider where they are in the buying process. Here are the main buyer types to focus on: 

When in doubt, refer back to your Customer Personas.

Best Practices: Making Your Pitch Work 

Here are some key takeaways to keep in mind when crafting and delivering your pitch:

• Keep it concise and specific, avoid industry jargon: Limit your pitch to a maximum of 2 minutes and tailor your pitch to the customer persona.
• Verbally deliver your pitch, use slides and visuals to validate it: Build and maintain a personal and emotional connection with the potential customer. Use slides to showcase relevant customer success stories and product features that may benefit them.
• Include facts only after mentioning your product concept and personal background: Begin your pitch with your personal background and what inspired you to create the company. Unless the customer gets hooked on the concept of what you built, they’re going to be skeptical. Once they’re intrigued, you can discuss benefits like ROI, costs, etc. ‍
• Avoid too much personal background: Avoid getting too personal or including too much information on how the product should be assessed. You must earn the customers interest before you get the right to sell or qualify them. Use the majority of the time to explain how your product can help them.

When to mention competitors

‍Generally, you shouldn’t mention competitors. However, if there's a dominant player in your industry, you can mention them to showcase your product's unique selling points. For instance, if 97% of the people that use Excel only use 15% of its features, and you built a product that focuses on those core features in a more streamlined experience, mentioning Excel could be useful. 

Bringing up competitors should be done with caution and only if necessary, as it can detract from the impact of your own product story. 

Determining Pitch Success

Gauging the success of your pitch can be challenging, but you can often determine its impact through 2 measures:

1. Emotions towards the product: The audience's response to the pitch should give you a clear indication of their interest. A positive reaction may result in a request to continue the conversation, while a negative reaction could mean that the product does not align with their needs or budget.

2. Understanding the product: More importantly, at the end of the call, the customer should have a clear understanding of the product. They may love it and want to proceed to the next step, or may determine that it is not a fit for them and choose not to move forward. 

If there is uncertainty, the pitch was not successful, and it’s best to clarify any points before ending the call. 

The goal for both you and the customer is to have a mutual understanding of the potential for a future relationship, and as a result, avoid wasting your or their time. 

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To maximize the impact of your pitch, use discovery questions to learn more about the customer, their challenges, and how to meet their needs.

Note: discovery questions are not qualifying questions. The goal of discovery questions is to understand the customers’ pain points (focus is on their needs), not if they qualify for a sale (focus is on your needs). 

Creating Effective Discovery Questions

There are 3 steps to creating effective discovery questions: 

1. Determine practical blockers: The first set of questions in the discovery process should focus on clarifying  blockers. These are not budget-related or decision-making questions; they are about determining whether there are any fundamental issues that might hinder the prospect's ability to benefit from your product or service.
2. Define Product Competencies: Clearly define the value your product can provide, either unique to you or better than a competitor.
3. Decide Strong / Weak Answers: Hold yourself accountable by deciding what a strong or weak response is before talking to prospects.

Discovery Brainstorm Example

Using the company Square as an example, here are some questions you can ask after your pitch to help tailor your discussion or presentation:

Once you've gathered preliminary information and ruled out any technical obstacles, it's time to customize your pitch to the specific pain points and needs of your prospect. A general presentation is seldom effective; your sales pitch should always speak directly to the unique needs and challenges of the potential customer.

You can use the discovery grid in our worksheet below to get started.

Next Steps

The final step in the discovery process is to align with your prospect and mutually agree on whether there's potential for further engagement. This is not the stage to discuss budget and timing, but rather to confirm that both parties see value in moving forward. If there is alignment, you can proceed to the next steps of the sales process.