Proven Method To Building Your Corporate Pitch That Destroys The Competition.
What is a corporate pitch and how does it work?
If you had the chance to get in front of an audience of your best clients and potential clients all at once, what would you say? Most companies aren’t ready to answer that question because they haven’t created a solid corporate pitch. If you can determine who you are and what your Corporate Pitch (also known as a stadium pitch) is, you will have a huge advantage in the marketplace.
Once you have an idea of what you would say, you need to come up with a title. Most people like to use titles that are focused on themselves and their companies, products and services, but remember: Marketing is about your customers’ needs. Instead of saying, “Here’s why my product is better than anyone else’s,” say, “How would you like to…?” and stack some of the benefits of what your product, service or company offers.
Once you understand and can present your Corporate Pitch, all that’s left is to find an audience who will listen.
Imagine you were in a giant stadium right now as the presenter, and the entire audience is completely comprised of your most perfect prospects. Are you ready right now? Could you walk out on that stage and present to every one of them and do it perfectly? Now before you say yes, let me make the stakes higher. Before you walk out there, the audience is told: “You had to come, but you don’t have to stay. If this person (you) fails to keep your interest, you can simply get up and leave.”
You need to open your stadium pitch with what “wows.” This means that all great presentations start off with information that makes your prospects say: “Wow, I didn’t know that.” The focus must be on THEM and things of interest to THEM, not you. So rule number one of a great presentation is that it must be focused on the prospect and not on you (at least not initially). You must have information that is OF VALUE to your prospects even if they have never heard about your products or services. Information that is above and beyond the product or service you are offering will be considered extremely valuable to them.
A great presentation is loaded with bad news for your prospects. Why? Because bad news motivates. Your prospect, when viewing a great deal of bad news, will suddenly feel the need to take some action. Any action they take will make them feel better.
Rule number two to building a killer presentation is that the data should “set up a buying criteria” in which your product or service becomes the most logical choice. What are your client’s current buying criteria? Is it price? Easy to overcome with the right presentation. Is it that they want to buy only from the biggest provider? Easy to overcome with the right presentation. Is it that they don’t think they even need what it is that you sell? Easy to overcome with the right presentation. Data can motivate your prospects in all and any of the situations mentioned.
There’s no situation where one of these presentations, properly prepared, can’t help overcome any challenge you may be facing. Declining market? Price is the main motivator? Inability to get appointments? Inability to get to see the higher decision makers? All of these challenges can be met with a fantastic presentation.
The Corporate Pitch
This is called your Corporate Pitch, or stadium pitch, and it serves many extremely valuable purpose.
How to Build a Corporate Pitch
If you want to be the ultimate player in your market, you must take the time to carefully craft your companies Corporate Pitch, using data as a powerful access vehicle as well as an urgent motivator for your otherwise slow-moving clients to make faster and more urgent decisions. Before you read the steps and become discouraged, you should know that there is a group that simply does all of this for you.
They will interview you and a few other appropriate people in your company to kick off the process of preparing a KILLER presentation filled with poignant and significant research about your market research that your client will find fascinating, research that is compelling enough to get you more meetings, research that is highly motivating to get your client to want to buy faster, and research that hopefully, in some way, “sets up buying criteria” where YOU are the MOST logical choice. YOU are the ONLY one these prospects want to buy from.
They will come back with not just the research, not just the facts, but with visually arresting graphics. Yes, a KILLER presentation has graphics on every panel—vivid visual and photos that triple the impact of your words, graphs that visually illustrate your points, pie charts that point out their problems, and dollar signs in all the right places that show them how you help them save, earn or increase some area of their world.
Eighty-five percent of the information in the brain is taken in through the eyes. Studies show that visuals nearly triple the communication experience. So don’t even think about presenting anything to anyone if you’re not going to use visual aids.
This group will give you an awesome stadium pitch, fully illustrated with your logo on every panel. If you want to know how you might use one of these and you’re not sure, it costs you nothing to talk to this group. They’re called Empire Research Group, and they are little known outside the circle of my clients, as most companies are not wise enough to utilize data this effectively.
Now, that said, if you cannot afford a four-figure investment to simply have someone do this for you, here’s what you need to do on your own.
STEP ONE
Research your industry over a 30-year period. That’s where you’ll find trends that no one else has spotted. How much of everything was there 30 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago? Even you will get “wows” from looking at stats over time. For example, with
day spas, I had asked for the failure rate of day spas. The research revealed that they weren’t failing at all. They were growing like wildfire. So look at data over time. They’ll really fascinate you.
STEP TWO
Look for the bad news. That’s what motivates. Specifically, look for bad news that you might be able to tie to a solution that involves your product or service. Never lie. Never make up anything. But in the example above, we were looking for failure rate as a “pain” point when we found that just wasn’t true. But what we did find is that because these day spas are such a raging success, everyone and their uncle are opening one, and the market is getting massively competitive. Bad news. And it’s the truth.
STEP THREE
Manipulation of those data is the most difficult part of it. It is an art form unto itself. Stack the info, cross-reference the info, blend it with other info, etc. When I built these myself, I would do all the original panels by hand on 3×5 index cards. This way you can erase info and keep shifting the order of how you want to present the info, all in a delicate balance of insight that eventually leads to that prospect wanting YOUR product or service over all those of your competitors.
STEP FOUR
This is really important. Do NOT pitch your product until the very end. You want the material from the start to three-quarters of the way through to all be a “set up.” Then somewhere toward the end, you want a section that says: “What to look for in X type of provider.” At this point you would present all these data about yourself without really saying it’s you.
So now you can have a small section at the end that says: “Would you like to know a little about us?” If you’ve done a great job, no one will ever say no.
They’ll all say yes. And there is where you put some panels about yourself.
A great title is critical.
Here’s a great title for everyone: “The Five Most Dangerous Trends Facing (your prospect’s type of company or issue here) XYZ Type Companies/ Consumers.” If you got a call that offered to teach you the five most dangerous trends facing your business, wouldn’t you be interested in hearing a little more? That’s pretty irresistible. It still has to be sold effectively, but here’s the critical point: It’s easier to sell! It’s easier to persuade someone to see critical info for their survival than it is to convince them to see you come pitch your product or service.
And here’s the best part.
This approach genuinely serves them. You will legitimately present them with excellent compelling data (if you do this process properly as outlined). You will genuinely find things that they will be grateful to know. The best among us is servant to us all. So serve your market by knowing more than anyone else about what’s going on.
Here are more details.
The second panel is always your “Areas Covered” panel. This is your pre-sell opportunity. It should make their mouth water with anticipation. Start with wows after that, perhaps a big overview of their industry and its growth or decline over the years.
In summary, your Core Story can accelerate:
- Training
- Client Access
- Decision-Making process
- Appointment Setting
- Closing Skills
- Rapport Opportunities
- Increased Credibility
And so much more. If you build it, they will buy!
