How to lose a sales pitch
I can’t imagine anyone who listens to this podcast deliberately sets out to lose a sales pitch, after all you probably worked hard to get to the point where you’re delivering the pitch in the first place.
But there are things that you are probably doing that actually are helping you lose the pitch rather than win it so let’s have a look at five ways that show you how to lose a sales pitch.
Arrive late – the first step in how to lose a sales pitch – whether that’s in person or virtual – whoever you are pitching to won’t be impressed if you arrive late so give yourself plenty of time and don’t login to a virtual pitch at the precise moment the pitch is due to start.
Start with an agenda and then focus entirely on you – make sure the agenda is very detailed and as such looks quite boring and then spend at least the first half of the pitch telling the audience how great you are, how many awards you’ve won – you might even be able to take them with you or show them on the virtual pitch – that will seriously impress your audience, tell them about the great job you done for others, your momentous career rise and the fact that you are the world’s number one salesperson – your audience will love hearing all about you!
If you’re going to use slides then make sure you fill them up with lots of words, because then you can read the words so you don’t have to worry about having any notes or forgetting what you are going to talk about. It’s also a good idea to throw in a few very complex diagrams which only you can understand and explain – that will emphasise just how important you are to them and why they should need you.
Don’t be concerned about establishing the buying process, just assume the person with the biggest job title or the shiniest suit is that person, and don’t worry about asking about the next steps just when you finished sending the usual lengthy company type proposal with a couple of personalisations in it – that will more than suffice. And if they ask you any questions that you don’t know the answer to just make them up, there was super impressed with your grasp of knowledge and numbers.
Finally make sure you overrun on time, so if you’ve been given 15 minutes for this pitch spread out to at least 25, they won’t care because they’ll be so delighted that you are pitching to them that overrunning 10 minutes is fine, they can just drop someone else off the schedule further down the list.
Okay this was meant to be a bit of fun but of course if you recognise some or any of these as potentially happening, and they might be, then now is the time to address the way you do either individual or team lead sales pitches.
A sales pitch is a wonderful opportunity, particularly when economic times are great, so you really need to make the most about opportunity.
This is episode 243 of the Better Presentations More Sales podcast – the previous 242 episodes are available on your usual podcast app or you can listen and download them on the Better Presentations More Sales podcast page
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