Your 20 Second Sales Story - The Pitch
Your 20 Second Sales Story - The Pitch
According to Mckinsey Global Institute the average American hears or reads about 100,000 words each day. Think about the emails, texts, phone conversations, TV, radio, friends, etc. These days your "pitch" or "elevator pitch" or your "story" better be good. It better be very good! These days only the simple messages get through. Steven Jobs comes to mind. He created the simple messages for Apple that came from out of nowhere! Brilliant! Big companies spend millions on their tag line, their logo and their message.
You need to be prepared for the moment when you are put in contact with someone who just might ask you what you do. What is your pitch when you are put into a situation where you must use it? Do you have one? The best "pitches" are one word. Yes, one word. In his book titled "To Sell is Human" Daniel Pink discusses different pitches. He talks about "One Word Equity". What is the one characteristic that is associated with your brand? When people think of you, what is the word. Maybe it's a a hyphenated word. Daniel Pink says that this demands discipline and forces clarity.
I will admit that one word might be kind of tough to come up with but with the Internet, and all of the noise out there, it is very important to dumb this pitch thing way down. Remember that 93% of communication is non-verbal. The people aren't even listening to you after 10-20 seconds. My headline for this post says a 20 second story. Well, you may want to cut that down to about half of that. Remember, you always want to have a little intrigue involved! I like to think a good story or pitch should have relevance and intrigue included in the pitch. How can my story be of relevance to the person I am speaking to and do they think their curiosity is hightended a bit? Remember, you have got to cut out the noise!
Relevance and intrigue. How does it impact the guy asking the question? You see the relevance issue everywhere on the Internet. That is how Google ranks you, your content, Facebook, Tweeter, You Tube. Relevance is key. So craft your message so the relevance relates to your customer. Intrigue is the mystery. You want the customer to be curious. You want that customer to ask more questions. Let's face it, you just have a short period of time to peek the customer's interest or who ever is asking the question. Spend some time on this short important pitch. Craft something really cool wrapped with relevance and intrigue and you will be surprised at the reaction you might get.