How to Make a Sales Pitch That Truly Works [+ Examples]

If you’re a mover or shaker in the business world, you know what an elevator pitch is.

Picture the scene: you hop on an elevator. An investor or prospect joins you right before the doors close. The elevator music is relaxed, but you aren’t. You only have a brief elevator ride to deliver your sales pitch, so you have to make it perfect.

Maybe you’ve been there. Maybe you’re new to your industry and haven’t yet. Either way, it’s a scary thought that your career could rely on this one moment with a single sales pitch.

If you’ve failed at one before, don’t give up. Failure is a part of success and we’re here to guide you through your next steps.

Writing a pitch is more than sending some ideas via email. That’s where we come in. Keep reading to find out how to write a pitch so that you can evolve in your industry.

What is a Sales Pitch?

Even if you think you know what a business pitch is, now’s the prime time to refresh your memory. You can’t move on to writing a pitch without the basic information.

A sales pitch is a concentrated sales proposal. No matter what your role actually is, think of yourself as a sales rep when you deliver your pitch. During your proposal, you have to describe your business.

The whole process shouldn’t take more than one or two minutes, which is why it’s often called an “elevator pitch.” You have to give your presentation in the time it would take for a single elevator ride.

This is the way that pretty much everyone presents their sales pitch ideas now. Businesspeople are busy. They don’t want to sit through an hour or more of someone droning on about their rough concept. That shows the pitcher doesn’t have the basic facts or confidence in their success.

Value the time of others. If your sales pitch works, you’ll have time later to figure out the details.

A product pitch is another example of a sales pitch. But instead of marketing your business idea, you have to sell your prospect on a specific product or service.

How to Start Your Sales Pitch

Like many other parts of life, starting your sales pitch is the trickiest part.

It’s like the first line in a new book: if it’s boring, you don’t want to read it. You don’t buy it or you put it back on your bookshelf.

So you need to entice your prospect right off the bat. If you don’t, they won’t listen to why your business or product matters.

Here are some basic guidelines to follow when you start your pitch:

Start with the problem. Everyone has a problem. And they’re all unique, too. So how will you solve the problem with your business, product or service? This draws in your potential buyer because they want solutions just as much as you want to make sales.
Tailor the beginning of the pitch to their vertical. You have to put in the work and research your prospect’s vertical market. What is the target audience they sell to and what does that niche market need? If you have a broad idea, it’s boring and impersonal. Cater to their vertical specifically, and do it at the beginning.
Offer stakes. Don’t make your whole sales pitch about what your offer could do. Instead, focus on what they could lose if they don’t accept your offer. There’s no need to intimidate them when you offer stakes. Be subtle, but hint at the stakes right away.

What Would Be an Ideal Sales Pitch? (Sales Pitch Examples)

The ideal way to deliver a sales pitch is in person. If you do have to draft a sales pitch via email, ensure that it’s only about one or two sentences. That translates to around 30 seconds instead of the traditional one or two minutes.

Keep in mind that you technically market yourself when you pitch. So a brief personal experience with what you’re selling is fine. But it’s not about you, it’s about how you can improve their quality of life or business.

Below you’ll find three personal selling examples to elevate your sales pitch. Here, we mainly focus on product pitches, but you can use these for a typical business pitch as well.

1. Start With a Question Pitch

Starting a story with a question isn’t as much of a schtick as you think it is. Sure, it’s popular. But it’s also a way to emphasize the problem that you’re going to solve.

Your question shouldn’t be open-ended. Instead, ask a yes-or-no question. Make sure it’s one that addresses your potential customer’s goals or pain points.

Let’s look at a specific example if your sales pitch was for a product. Pretend that you want to sell a deluxe type of power drill. You want to sell it to a first-class hardware manufacturing company.

A basic question pitch might look something like: “Do your customers return power drills way too often because their batteries die after just 20 minutes? That’s a lot of lost revenue for your business when you could sell drills with 12-hour battery life.”

It’s a yes-or-no question. They can answer the first sentence quickly. Their customers either do or do not return power drills a lot because of the poor battery life.

This also catches your prospect’s attention. You turn your product features, like a long battery life, into a benefit for the buyer. If customers are happier with the product, the manufacturer has more money in their pocket.

2. Tell a Story Pitch

If you have more than one or two minutes for your sales pitch, consider telling a story. The moral of your story needs to be how your product, service or business helps the customer achieve their goals.

The story is not about you in the traditional sense. It isn’t about when you founded your company or your first sale. Avoid topics like how you met your business partner or your hours of operation.

Instead, tell a story where your buyer is the main character or protagonist. You can sell them a product that solves an ongoing issue within their business. Their whole team is happy and has their boss to thank.

Here’s a simple framework to remember for this type of pitch technique:

Draw attention to that ongoing issue or shift in their business. It should be something that matters to most of the internal employees
Identify the antagonist
Hint at the resolution. Present it like it’s the yellow-brick road to the land of plenty. It shows your prospects that if they buy, they could live in luxury
Touch on some of your product’s features. Tell them how those features are like the elixir to prosperity
Explain the real-life results. Everyone loves when a story with a happy ending turns out to be true all along

3. The Data Pitch

Think back to a time when you browsed for a new product or service, like a phone.

Most wireless carriers have a lot to say about why their cell service is the latest and greatest. By the same token, a lot of them don’t have any hard data to back up their claims. It’s hard to know who to trust in those situations.

Your sales pitch is the first time you can prove your reputation. That’s why you have to use concise data from a reputable source. It proves that you’re trustworthy enough to do your research. It also shows prospects that you realize they’re smart enough to notice.

Let’s say that you’re pitching a perfume made of non-irritable and clean ingredients.

You don’t want to say that “a bunch of people love clean products.” Yes, a bunch of people probably do love clean products. But imagine the results you’ll get when you instead say something like:

“98.8 percent of consumers say they prefer clean ingredients to processed ones.”

Or:

“79 percent of fragrance company consumers have had at least one allergic reaction. 100 percent of them say they only buy clean products now.”

Specific and measurable statistics give your prospect proof of why your product can help.

Here’s How to Make a Sales Pitch

So you have a few ideas and examples. But you need to put it into action. Now we give you six steps to follow for a sales pitch that truly works, no matter what example you follow.

Ensure That it’s Short and Clear

Remember that the entire reason you need to write a sales pitch is because it’s time-efficient. It also needs to have a clear focus. This way, you make sure that all of the information is there without wasting time.

A short and clear pitch means you have an intrigued prospect.

You don’t tell them all of the details. It’s like this: you give them a sample of the main course. It was only one bite, but it was delicious. They want more, so they order the full dish.

In your pitch, the most important part is to identify your prospect’s pain points and cater your solution to them. Know your target audience, address their challenge and tell them how your product fixes it.

Leave the rest out for later.

Explain Who Your Customers Are

Your prospect has to know who your product targets. If they don’t, they won’t see where your revenue comes from or if you’ll even have an interesting market.

This is where you should give specific details.

You don’t have much time, so don’t give all of the following details to your prospects. But when you research your customers, note information like:

Level of education
Income range
Whether they’re single, in a partnership, or married
Hobbies and preferences. This might include their favorite color, favorite shoe brand, whether they prefer to jog or go to exercise classes, and more
Where they live
Their job or career
What social media platform do they use the most

Lay Out Your Customer’s Pain Points

Pain points are the challenges that your customer has to face in their market.

Put them all on the table. Then focus on the most specific one that your product or service solves. Think about what pain points they have with your competitors. Also, consider which ones they might have with you.

Then fix it. Acknowledge how you can and know the right data to reference.

Describe How Your Product Addresses Their Needs

You’re getting close to the end of your sales pitch. This is when you need to eliminate doubt and pack a punch.

Your prospect knows what you’re offering, who your target market is, and why they need your product. Now tell them why they should buy from you instead of a rival.

Paint a Picture of Success

Think about the storytelling example from before. This is where you can show your prospect the wide-scale benefits of your product.

If you sell tech services, for example, explain how your new app gets results in the long run. Maybe it decreases the amount your prospect pays for overtime every week because it takes away employees’ busy work.

It might boost office morale because it measures and announces sales rep success.

Your sales pitch is a quick look at your product or business and how it helps its customers. Everyone wants long-term results. If you can provide them, you’re golden.

How Do You End a Sales Pitch?

The best way to end a sales pitch is the simplest way: powerfully.

There are a lot of ways to do that, but here are some ideas:

End it at the beginning. Bring up your first selling point and wrap it up with a solution
Offer stakes again. You could invite them to act or give them an opportunity to succeed with you
Ask them to RSVP. You want them to think of your pitch as a chance to attend a great party that ends in business growth. It’s not a task, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance
Repeat your key points. Use the same words from earlier in your pitch to emphasize the importance
Inspire them. You could use a relevant quote from an industry professional or a customer success story

Conclusion

The concept of how to pitch an idea is nerve-racking. You have a lot of other tasks on your plate as a businessperson and entrepreneur.

That’s why Selling Revolution is here to give you the extra push to excellence. For more helpful tips like these ones, visit our blog.

Our results-driven team helps you increase leads, level up your sales training, and retain top talent. At the end of the day, we’re inspired by your success. If you want us to get you on that path to success, book a call with us today.