4 key elements of your sales overview pitch

The elevator pitch is important, because it provides a simple and memorable outline. When it comes time to have a long discussion with the potential customer, sales reps use the elevator pitch as a guide, adding detail where needed.

“Sales pitch” is a strange term. It suggests that a salesperson warms up and then throws a collection of statements at a prospect. The prospect either accepts or rejects the pitch.

But, we all know selling high-dollar items isn’t like that. It’s about careful, patient interaction. It’s about building a relationship, uncovering needs, and eventually— when the time is right—solving needs.

Why, then, promote training salespeople on an overview pitch for all the company’s key products and services? For two reasons:–to shorten the time between new product training and execution, and to build confidence.

This article is designed for manufacturers selling high-dollar products through full-time salespeople or agents, although the principles can apply to many sales situations.

Prepare Them to Sell

Too often, companies provide the sales team with a list of technical features and product benefits and stop there, thinking every salesperson in the room is trained and ready to go. Assuming a salesperson can absorb all the new information provided and turn it into a persuasive dialog is unrealistic. The overview pitch gives them a place to start.

Every release of a significant new product or service requires an overview pitch. You don’t want the reps to recite the pitch. Instead, you hope they take ideas from the pitch, incorporate a technical term or two, adjust the phrasing as they see fit, and weave it all together into the natural flow of the conversation. In short, they need to make it their own. The overview pitch provides a valuable jumping-off point to help them create their own persuasive presentation much more quickly.

The Confidence to Sell

The overview pitch is about confidence. Confidence plays a role with the buyer. Buyers of a high-dollar items will purchase your product only if they have confidence that your solution will result in a return on the investment, alleviate their fears, won’t threaten their job security, and will lead to future success for their business.

But, confidence plays another, equally important, role with your sales team. It’s crucial that your sales reps have the confidence to propose your new product to the buyer. Sales reps must be confident in their ability to deliver the pitch, answer the buyer’s questions, meet the buyer’s needs, offer something of value, and close the order against the competition. They want to do all of this as easily as possible.

This is especially true when you are asking them to sell new products. To get salespeople to break out of their comfort zones, you must build their confidence in pitching the new product, or they might find ways to simply avoid promoting it at all.

Perhaps the single most important way to prepare your salespeople to sell your product is to train them on a well-crafted overview pitch.

Figure 1

Prepping for the Pitch

A great deal of salesperson/buyer interaction takes place before the salesperson gets to the point of delivering the pitch. Successful sales people spend most of their time with a potential customer uncovering needs, establishing credibility, and, to an extent, identifying the competitive landscape (Figure 1).

Once these three tasks have been covered, and you’re ready to present a recommended solution, it’s time to give the pitch.

There should be two versions of your pitch. The one the rep uses depends on the situation and the amount of time he or she has. The first is the elevator pitch, a quick 30-second delivery for those brief opportunities with potential customers. The second is a more detailed presentation for appointments and situations when there is more time to pitch the prospect.

The elevator pitch is important, because it provides a simple and memorable outline. When it comes time to have a long discussion with the potential customer, sales reps use the elevator pitch as a guide, adding detail where needed.

A perfect example of when you might use an elevator pitch is on a tradeshow floor. You have a high-quality prospect in your booth, your time with him is limited, and your competitors are lurking and waiting to pounce. You must give the prospect a compelling reason to stay longer in your booth and add you to his short list of vendor candidates.

Keys to Your Pitch

Whether it’s the long or short version, an effective sales pitch for high-dollar items contains four key elements:

1. Value Proposition. This short sentence describes for whom the offering is intended and the primary benefit or value.

“The easiest to use and most productive ______ available for the _________ industry.”
Or, “Our product helps __________ people solve ____________ by providing _________.”