Sales Pitch

How do you begin your sales pitch?

Your obvious answer will be by asking questions and going on and on with more and more questions.

Then for your information, let us tell you that this strategy is indeed not going to work. If you think that the idea of talk, talk, and talk will help you sell, then it’s high time that you delete such thoughts and try to understand the ways you can convince a prospect to buy what you offer.

Pitching a sale is indeed a challenging task. Most of the time you face rejection and end up thinking what went wrong. The fault lies in your way of pitching. If you just try to dump your words and expect prospects to listen to it, then you are misunderstanding the scenario. For successful selling and building a healthy relationship with your customers, you need to know them well and then accordingly cater to what they want. Your conversation should make some sense and appear useful to the customers then only you can crack a deal.

Here are six strategies following which you can give a fresh start to your sales process and emerge as a winning salesperson when you go for delivering your next sales pitch.

Research and then Pitch for Sale

Before pitching, firstly what you need to do is find out the most appropriate person speaking with whom will serve your purpose. Then find out their business-specific needs and how can you make them relate to your product or services. To get information on the company and the individual you are targeting, you can look for prospect’s social profiles like LinkedIn or visit their website. You need to do detailed research to know how you can connect the value of your solution to that particular buyer so that he/she gets convinced. Once the targeted customer has been identified, fix an appointment according to their convenience and then from your end, you start doing your homework to prepare yourself before going to the meeting. This kind of well-planned effort is likely to put you in an advantageous position in the sales process.

Tailor the Pitch

The next step is about crafting your pitch and for doing that you must have a detailed understanding of all the features of your product or service and its usefulness to customers. Basically what you need to do is tailor a unique and simple to understand pitch that audience can relate to. Try to bring out the most important points across in the first minute of as soon as your conversation starts.

Within the time given to you for conveying to the buyer, don’t forget to explicitly mention the name of your company, the products or services you provide and how can it give value to their business.

Amidst all your active efforts, be prepared to face the negative response or declining attitude towards your sales pitch. To deal with situations of these kinds, you need to be all set with answers so that the listener can never put you in pressure.

Finally, before hitting the bull’s eye just check words, clarify meanings, and make your wording more vibrant and relevant for the customer you are going to approach.

Rehearse Your Performance

Before your final show time, practice your pitch by delivering it to a friend or a colleague. Get their reviews and based on that try to rectify your mistakes. Do this on repeated turns and see how you have improved compared to your last rehearsal.

Secondly, calm yourself and take proper rest before the final performance. Also, don’t forget to confirm your appointment and who will be present to attend the pitch.

We all know that appearance does matter in professional meetings. So, dress appropriately in business attire like a responsible salesperson to leave a good impression on your listeners in advance of your presentation. Last but not the least, be on time. Try to reach the meeting place early to avoid any uncertain delays from your end.

Deliver What You Have Prepared

Begin with your introduction and also let others introduce themselves. Take a deep breath and have your time to proceed with the presentation slowly. Don’t be in a hurry and mess up things. Stay as relaxed as possible. Maintain a confident body language and speak with energy and authority.

Don’t forget to keep close eye contact with your customer throughout the pitch. Also, go ahead with asking them questions so that it helps you better understand their needs. Your words should aim towards gaining their trust for your offerings. You feel comfortable and at the same time make them feel the same too.

And, yes, answers to their questions to clear their doubts and compel them to believe in what you say.

Give Proper Ending

Once you have given answers to all the questions of the customer, you need to request to them to re-think everything that you spoke during the conversation. Ask them to update you on their thoughts about your proposal so that you can schedule a follow-up meeting. You can also offer them a trial period to use your product. And most importantly, be in touch with them and keep working on strengthening your relationship with your customers.

Send a Follow-up Email

As a professional gesture, send an email to thank them for the meeting, regardless of whatever the outcome is. Also, you can include your plans such as getting a referral or schedule another meeting in your follow-up email.

Hope these strategies will help you score high in your upcoming sales presentation.

Best of Luck!