The Winning Pitch - Why Customers Say Yes - Natural Training

the winning pitch ten reasons why clients say yes

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© the natural training co ltd 2011 v2

How will this e-book help you? This is an article about how to make sure your next pitch is a winner. At each pitch your client has in front of them a shopping list. This list has all the criteria on it that they are using to judge you and your competitors. For example price is usually one of the criteria that clients will use to judge your offering relative to your competition. However price is far from the only one. This article gives you the rest of the top ten on the list. This is based on our research from training hundreds of clients. It is also based on research completed over the past ten years by individuals including Neil Flett, who wrote an excellent book on t his subject called The Pitch Doctor . Natural Training has a win rate of over 90% when we help our clients win pitches and we can help your team get it together even if it’s the night before! We hope you like the article and you can put some of these concepts to good use.

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Ten reasons why customers say yes So, the golden question - what do clients look for when you pitch to them? What defines success – and a win for you? This is a difficult question to answer in just a few words. The reason is that clients alter their priorities across industries. For example, in relatively immature industries, such as Web Design, a proven track record of success, plus a financially robust balance sheet, are both essential elements that clients will look for. In mature industries, such as Logistics, it's quite the opposite. Clients know that the top logistics companies are on the whole successful and financially robust. Instead, clients might be looking for freshness, energy and innovation in this mature industry. But there are loads of other considerations too. Your job prior to the pitch is to find out which of these points are right up the top of the client’s assessment notes. If you get them right, and focus your pitch in those areas, then you will have much more chance of success! So here’s the list – keep it handy while you’re preparing for your next pitch!

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Reason #1: Previous relevant experience Clients want to know that you can hit the ground running to help reduce induction rollout costs. All things being equal between suppliers, then clients might choose the supplier that already knows them, t heir industry, key personalities and issues. Educating a supplier can be an expensive process. Your clients will want to cut down on these costs as much as possible. Additionally, there is something reassuring about a track record. It means that you have got some results and learned from your mistakes - on someone else’s time! How do you demonstrate experience? Well the first thing to realise is that experience doesn’t “go unsaid”. You must absolutely showcase your experience in your pitch. You can do that with testimonials (client video interviews work well) and case studies. Customer testimonials are the finest way to prove relevant experience

With your case studies, consider using the "Challenge, Solution, Result" structure. If the "Result" section is written or spoken in the client's words, even better!

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Reason #2: Special insights into their issues Your aim with a pitch is to change the client's world. At the end of the pitch, your client should feel fundamentally different from when you walked in. If you don’t feel that you can do this, then chances are you won’t win, because yours may be a "me-t oo" pitch jammed in with the rest of the pack. One of the key ways you can change the client’s world is by telling them something that they either don't know already, or haven't given enough thought/priority towards. It’s not easy to come up with a special insight or two. It will take the most experienced and lateral thinkers from your business. But that’s usually what wins pitches, so you need to set aside the time. In his excellent book The Perfect Pitch, Jon Steel mentions that was one of the ways he won the Por sche account. It seems in the 1990s that Porsche executives did not realise what the rest of the world thought about their cars – that they were “driven by assholes”. The pitch that Steel made was about providing research into Jon Steel’s book Perfect Pitch is a fantastic read - and a great resource for pitching

this attitude and this one insight formed the backbone of a very successful and creative advertising pitch.

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Reason #3: Ability to deliver solution Note the wording here: deliver solution. This is not "ability to present solution" - that's the easy bit! What you have to do when you're pitching is to show how you are going to actually deliver the solution. If you are pitching something tangible to the client that they can touch and feel, then you’re at an advantage. For the rest of us who sell the “intangible” then showing our ability to deliver the solution is not as easy as it sounds. It might be best to demonstrate your ability to deliver the solution. So maybe you can think about doing a walk-through, or painting a vivid word picture. Show them the people who will be rolling out the solution their personalities, drive, ambition, track-record. Plus a simple rollout-plan always helps.

The client likes to see your solution in a way that reinforces your ability to deliver on time and under budget.

The most effective pitches show just how easy it is to work with a client. Easy steps with minimal hassle is the key to success here. And the way it is delivered is important too – this is part of what you do every day and every week so you should present in a calm, logical, clear way. Remember that you don’t need to know how your car works to enjoy the luxurious ride. The client doesn’t need to know all the detail. However they do need to know that you are more than capable of delivering an outstanding solution.

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Reason #4: Cost effectiveness It’s important to know the difference between price and cost effectiveness. A price is a ticket hanging on a product, nothing more. It is a number only. So price alone has no value. That number is validated by you in a pitch if you are able to add value. When you put it into a pot with anticipated (or guaranteed) results, adding benchmarking, competitor comparisons, success-measurements & performance incentives then you have cost effectiveness. It’s possible in a pitch to plant some “value bombs” as well. Supposing that you are in a competitive pitch, and you want to show your product has a certain value that your competitors do not have. For example you might be able to offer a performance guarantee and your competitors may not. You might say the following in your pitch: “Be wary of companies who offer this without a performance guarantee – this may be covering up some of their service faults.” Being cost effective is not slashing your prices. It’s about packaging value.

It’s interesting how many times we get told that “we recently lost a pitch based on price”. One way of looking at this is if you pitch for a client and lose based on price, then you only have yourself to blame. Why? Because you talked about price and not cost effectiveness. Clients will look for value so spell it out for them.

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Reason #5: Strength of senior management If you have an interesting, charismatic leader from your senior management team then it’s a good idea to put them forward. Humans love associating with power, and your business clients will love a strong, robust senior management person/team. During the pitch your senior management must talk from the heart and give some real flavour about your company. It is up to you to showcase your senior management team as best you can. If they can’t be there in person, can they record a 60-second video for the pitch? Could they call in for question time from the airport with a special message? Don’t underestimate the power of involving this person, or team, because they drive your very important corporate strategy, thinking and financial success. Your clients will like to know that your leaders are accessible people who are thinking of them. Show off your senior management – but make sure they have something valuable to add.

Final tip – if your senior management is in the pitch, it’s important to guide them about content, tone and role. They need to rehearse just as much as the next person. You won’t want them to hijack the pitch and run away with the timing because they were ill prepared. The point is clients will say yes to you if your senior management puts their heart & brains on display – rather than just sit there nodding.

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Reason #6: Financial stability Does this one surprise you? It might because (except for a tender process) clients may not usually be forthcoming with questions about your financial performance. Yet it is important to them and will count quite strongly in their reckoning. The reason is clients may want to partner with you for several years at least, without having to go through a regular buying process which costs them time and money. As such no prospective customer will be interested in a partnership that will be soon brought to a scre eching halt when you become insolvent! So please make sure you point out to the customer the highlights of your financial success. For example: • You have been active in the market for a number of years, Clients can’t be blamed for feeling nervous about your financial stability – reassure them!

• You count X, Y and Z as some of your biggest clients • You are investing in your company with innovation and technology •You are continually investing in your people to ensure that they are happy, stable a nd always learning. If your financial stability “goes unsaid” t hen you are inviting a level of nervousness. Now that you know clients are actively assessing your financial stability then you can introduce it into your pitch. 9



Reason #7: Position within your own sector Your average pitching audience will see 3 of your competitors. Sorry if this is the first time you are about to hear this: from your audience’s perspective you and your competitors may look the same. So you must differentiate, and that means declaring your market position: • What is the one thing that you do differently to everyone else? • What is the one way that you seek to surpass client expectations? • What is the main point of difference about your product and your people? Are you clear about your position in your sector? Are you "100% digital", or "We come to you", or "Guaranteed success”? Do you offer a “personal service”, or are you all about “convenience”, or do you have a “retail specialty ”? You must stand out and have a clear proposition relative to your competition. (pic: Master isolated images)

At the end of a busy period being pitched to, even if they can’t remember your company your clients should know your position (what you stand for) as well as their own names. They should be able to say something like “Oh yes, I really liked the [insert position] people!” For example, “I really liked the Content Management System people”!

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Reason #7: Position within your own sector

(cont)

Whatever you decide, there are a couple of guidelines about positioning. 1. For a position to be viable, then you usually have to be first. 2. And if you’re not first then you need to do it much better! 3. Also a position is usually relative, meaning that you should have X position in relation to your competitor’s Y position. For an understanding of positioning, there is no grea ter book than "Positioning, The Battle For Your Mind" by Trout and Ries. They reasoned that each market segment is like a ladder - for example in the "Cola" category there are 5-6 main players forming the rungs of that ladder. Each cola has a position in the mind of the consumer. For example: diet, upper class, a mixer, the real thing... THE book on positioning. It is without peer – buy it if you haven’t read it yet.

The point is one of the key criteria that clients are using to measure you is the difference, the value and the uniqueness you have compared to your competitors. This is one of the key ways to winning a pitch and is worthy of as much time as you can dedicate to it.

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Reason #8: Creativity of your solution People are creative, companies are creative and solutions are creative. If you think you are in a totally noncreative company, then you are wrong. Creativity doesn’t just belong in an advertising agency. Creativity dictates the effort, the skill and the approach required to solve a problem. In a pitch you don’t have to reinvent the wheel. You might have the same commoditised solution as your competitor – for example a bag of wheat – and you might think there is little you can do about it. However, in the right hands even a bag of wheat can win over an audience. Pitch creativity is about presenting it in a way that moves audiences to

feel something

about the solution. It

could be the way you present it in the pitch: you could make the solution the hero and the real focal point of the pitch. You could have certain visuals to support this. You might include the client in a session to help you actually arrive at the solution in the pitch – demonstrating both your creativity and giving the client a first hand look at how simple it is to work with you. You might twist the solution around and look at the problem from a different angle (maybe the customer angle, Sebastian Coe and his team came up with a creative solution to win the 2012 Olympic Bid.

or the media angle). You can be creative with how you structure account service, how you order your logistical solution and how you present a contract. There are all sorts of opportunities to demonstrate "out of the box" thinking. The London Olympic bid was a prime example of this. The bid team were up against 3 cities that were all considered front runners – Madrid, Paris and New York. The team had to find a creative solution to position London against these three, and chose a core message around youth, heroes and the future of sport. It was a creative solution that won.


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Reason #9: Chemistry of the team When your clients are watching your pitch, there is a portion of their attention (albeit at times subconscious) that is directed towards your teamwork. Chemistry is defined in Wikipedia as "the science of matter and the changes it undergoes". Note that there are two dynamics here - the original form, and then change. What does this mean for chemistry within your team? Well, the same two things. Winning teams are the combination of personalities in your te am, but it is also the way you change with, and react to, each other. In other words true team chemistry is not just how you appear, but the small changes that you go through in the room while you are pitching. It’s the changeovers, the reactions, t he subtleties, the respect you have for each other (not doodling while the other person is speaking for example!) and the way you bounce off each other that count. Chemistry is the jokes you share, or the way you throw across the room to your Account Manager for an example or anecdote. It’s the slight brush of a hand on your shoulder as your GM s tands beside you, talking about you warmly and genuinely. Clients love to see you coming across as a team.

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Reason #9: Chemistry of the team (cont’d) Teamwork is greatly aided by rehearsal. Be aware that it is very difficult to “create” chemistry between people because it may come across as fake or forced. Team chemistry shouldn’t be the aim of a session, but rather a pleasing side effect of rehearsal. Why do clients rate team chemistry so highly when they are watching pitches? Because it is an indicator of so many other things, such as: • Respect: If this team respect each other (for example don’t interrupt) then they probably have a healthy working relationship. If they respect each other’s expertise then it probably represents a well structured and talented business • Experience: If this team work well with each other in the pitch then it means that they have worked together in a stable environment for a while in the real world too

Clients can see a genuine warmth among team members – you can’t rehearse that stuff!

• Easy to work with: A pitching team in harmony and good humour indicates to the client that they will be easy to work with.

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Reason #10: Performance against industry Won any awards lately? Has your company been the subject of a survey, or some research? Have you had the opportunity to statistically prove how good you are – compared to others in your industry? Has there been any consumer comparison data produced? This is very important information to get across in a pitch. The reason is that industry benchmarking can move the pitch topic from opinion to fact. From “this is how good we think we are” to “this is how good others think we are”. If you haven’t entered any industry awards maybe this is the year you could consider it. Yes, it’s a lot of work. However there are benefits - it can really help to focus what your company has achieved, producing some great materials for your next pitch. And it can bring people together from various internal departments. It’s important to show your achievements. How well are you tracking against your industry?

But most of all, preparing for an award or commissioning some research is a great way of ticking this important box for a client. (Incidentally at Natural Training one client of ours said that winning an award increased his billings by about 100%).

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Make your next pitch a winning one! A pitch is a high energy process - often fun and sometimes frustrating. It is usually a time of great uncertainty too. From the outset you are never 100% sure that you are going to win, which makes it a nervous process full of guesswork. Your aim throughout the pitch preparation process is to bring as much certainty to the process as possible. While not conclusive, this list of criteria should go a long way to helping you get that certainty. Give us a call if you would like us to help you win your next pitch.

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Next steps The mission of Natural Training is to provide a learning experience that transcends the ordinary. That’s why in our training you will find more hands-on experience, simulation, live sales calls and more fullimmersion than any other European training pr ovider. We create heat in all of our training experiences, and we will help you to k eep the heat in the sale for all of your clients too.

For more useful resources visit: • Natural Training’s Blog: www.naturaltraining.com/blog • Subscribe to our One Minute Pause newsletter by emailing [email protected] • Email Author of this E-Book and Founder of Natural Training Matt Drought for some more information and further reading guides: [email protected] Author Matt Drought, founder of Natural Training. Matt and his trainers regularly help clients to win new business pitches.

• Come along to some of our training – visit: www.naturaltraining.com/open or call +44 (0) 20 7613 7830. • One of Natural Training’s specialist pitch trainings can come to your workplace and deliver a Winning Pitch session in an hour, 4 hours, a day or a programme over 6-10 weeks.

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Smallprint TRANSFER INFO You are welcome to pass this PDF on to others, and to print it out, share it around and if you like make a little pair of trousers out of it. When you do all of those things, just remember that you can’t charge for it, alter any of the words or reprint any part of it in other articles without permission from Matt Drought.

COPYRIGHT INFO The copyright in this work belongs to t he author Matt Drought, who is solely responsible for the content. Please direct content feedback or permissions questions to the author: [email protected] This work is protected under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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The Winning Pitch - Why Customers Say Yes - Natural Training

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