Sales Pitch · April Dunford · 2023
'Sales Pitch' is the follow-up to April Dunford's influential positioning book 'Obviously Awesome'. Its a practical step-by-step guide for crafting effective B2B sales pitches. Building upon the positioning framework established in 'Obviously Awesome', it shows you how to transform your positioning strategy into a compelling sales narrative that resonates with potential customers.
Key Highlights
Buying enterprise technology is daunting. Buyers face significant risks, multiple stakeholders, and fear making costly mistakes. They're knowledgeable about their pain but often overwhelmed by unfamiliar solutions, resulting in decision paralysis. Thus, sales professionals must shift from merely selling products to actively helping customers buy. This means guiding buyers through complex choices, educating them about the market, and clearly articulating why your solution uniquely addresses their needs.
A compelling sales pitch addresses buyer inertia by emphasising the high cost of inaction or the risks associated with maintaining the status quo. Buyers are frequently tempted by the seemingly safe choice of doing nothing, making it essential for sellers to clearly demonstrate why change is necessary. Effective positioning against the status quo is critical. Sellers must create urgency by highlighting the hidden costs and risks of sticking with outdated solutions, making it easier for buyers to justify taking action.
The emotional factor is crucial: fear dominates purchasing decisions involving substantial investment. Fear of failure or the consequences of choosing incorrectly can paralyse buyers. Effective sellers understand this fear and address it by fostering trust, clarity, and confidence. Trust is built by reducing uncertainty, clearly defining what matters most for buyers, and guiding them through the evaluation process transparently.
Positioning your solution clearly is foundational. It answers why your product is uniquely suited to a particular buyer. Effective positioning is specific about how your product uniquely solves problems for particular types of customers. However, good positioning alone is insufficient and it must translate into a compelling pitch. Sellers must use their positioning to craft narratives that clearly differentiate their product from alternatives and show why choosing their solution is logical and low-risk.
Successful pitches follow structured principles, starting with effective qualification. Qualification ensures resources aren't wasted pitching to unsuitable prospects. After qualification, discovery occurs, a deep, two-way exchange where sellers understand buyer problems and simultaneously educate buyers about solutions. Discovery sets the foundation for customised demonstrations, clearly focused on showing how unique product features solve identified problems.
Differentiated value lies at the heart of effective pitches. Generic benefits like "time savings" aren't enough. Sellers must emphasise unique capabilities their competitors lack, clearly demonstrating how these features translate into concrete, meaningful business outcomes. Addressing alternatives explicitly positions your solution as the superior choice.
Effective storytelling approaches in pitches vary:
Product Walkthrough: Focuses on detailed features; effective if buyers already understand value translation but ineffective at highlighting differentiation.
Problem/Solution: Clearly defines problems and positions your product as the solution; best against the status quo but weak against direct competition.
Vision Narrative: Suited to investor presentations, highlighting future potential but risking buyer hesitation in the short term.
Hero's Journey: Casts buyers as heroes, sellers as guides; strong for branding but weaker in helping buyers differentiate between competing solutions.
The recommended pitch structure includes two main phases: Setup and Follow-through.
Setup Phase:
Insight: Provide expertise-based context about buyer problems and the market, reframing their understanding to appreciate the importance of your differentiated value.
Alternatives: Clearly outline other market solutions, objectively discussing their pros and cons. This phase simultaneously educates buyers and enables sellers to conduct deeper discovery.
Perfect World: Summarise attributes of an ideal solution, setting clear criteria that align buyer expectations and readiness for your product.
Follow-through Phase:
Introduction: Concisely introduce your product and company, placing your solution clearly within its market category.
Differentiated Value: Emphasise unique product capabilities and their direct business outcomes. Use targeted demonstrations to show how features deliver these outcomes.
Proof: Provide evidence, such as case studies, measurable results, testimonials, or third-party validations to reinforce credibility and mitigate buyer risk.
Objections (Optional): Address common concerns proactively and pricing, integration complexity, and adoption challenges and to minimise lingering buyer hesitations.
The Ask: End with a clear next step, guiding buyers toward concrete actions that continue the buying journey, such as deeper technical evaluations or stakeholder meetings.
Effective pitches begin with solid positioning based on clearly identified competitive alternatives, unique capabilities, differentiated value, best-fit customers, and defined market categories. These elements naturally integrate into a compelling narrative that builds confidence and reduces purchase anxiety.
Pitch effectiveness is enhanced through testing and iteration. Initially trial the pitch with experienced sellers, refine based on feedback, and then broaden training across teams. Common pitfalls like generic insights, neglected discovery, irrelevant proof points, or outdated information should be actively avoided.
Beyond sales calls, the pitch structure effectively translates into explainer videos and buyer guides, using visual aids to reinforce differentiation and demonstrate strategic fit within customer ecosystems.
Ultimately, the hallmark of an effective sales pitch is its ability to help buyers confidently navigate complex decisions. The winning pitch is always one that shifts from simply selling to genuinely helping customers make informed, confident buying decisions.
Quick Links
Office Politics in Product Management · Article
Conversational Interfaces · Article
How Stanford teaches AI powered creativity · Video
Prioritising craft at Figma · Article
Systems thinking for Product Managers · Article
Collaborative Filtering for Implicit Feedback Datasets
Hu, Koren, Volinsky · 2008
This paper specifically addressed collaborative filtering with implicit feedback (e.g. responding to your clicks, views etc), rather than explicit ratings (responding to how much you like a thing). The real-world implications of this paper were huge and it spawned enhanced algorithms that provide more accurate recommendations in e-commerce and streaming services.
Book Highlights
The central idea is ask for feedback, and when you do, be ready to listen and act on what you learn.
Adam Connor and Aaron Irizarry · Discussing Design
Whereas seeing four one-star movies is not necessarily as good as seeing one four-star movie, a four-ton rock weighs exactly as much as four one-ton rocks.
Douglas W. Hubbard · How to Measure Anything
In contrast, those that seek to create blue oceans pursue differentiation and low cost simultaneously.
Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne · Blue Ocean Strategy
It is the duty of machines and those who design them to understand people. It is not our duty to understand the arbitrary, meaningless dictates of machines.
Don Norman · The Design of Everyday Things
Quotes & Tweets
Product teams work on a faster cadence. We don't have time for perfect research. And that's okay. We are trying to mitigate risk, not seek absolute truth.
Teresa Torres
Models perform better when they are threatened with physical violence.
Sergey Brin