How to Deliver a Winning Sales Pitch

Generic messaging, awkward over-familiarities, convoluted messaging – we’ve all been on the receiving end of bad, aggressive sales pitches that never seem to end.

But, despite their bad reputation, a good sales pitch can actually make a buyer’s life better.

An effective sales pitch can connect buyers with solutions that directly address their most pressing issues, while also helping them build solid business relationships.

If you’re a sales professional, you want to be able to deliver these kinds of sales pitches. These are the ones that close deals…

So, how can you maximize the potential of your sales pitch? This Apollo guide will teach you how!

The sales pitch 101

A sales pitch is a concise, personalized message given by a sales rep to potential buyers in an attempt to persuade them to agree to a deal and/or purchase a product. 

According to data from Saleshacker, a salesperson typically gets less than two minutes to explain how their business will benefit a prospect. This is also why it is sometimes known as an “elevator pitch”.

The goal of a sales pitch is to get your audience interested in a product or service and convince them that they need it. Great sales pitches focus on value and how that value solves a client’s problem.

Preparing for the Pitch

Tip #1: Research your pitch targets

Successful pitching always starts with knowing exactly who you are pitching to.

Creating a complete profile on your pitch target requires some research. Find out answers to the following:

• Who are they? How long have they worked in the industry?
• What does their company do?
• What problems are they facing?
• What are their motivations? What is their end goal?
• Who are their competitors?
• What are their purchase habits?

The goal is to determine their challenges, their goals, and how your product can solve them.

For deeper insights, tap into your CRM database and/or your sales engagement platform. These sales tools will offer you a better picture of your pitch targets.

Tip #2: Anticipate sales objections

Learning how to overcome the sales objections that you are likely to face will make your sales pitch that much more successful.

In preparing your sales pitch, think about its weak spots. Ask yourself: what objection might my prospective client bring to my offer? What issues might they have with my product or service?

Remember: the most common sales objections are surrounding: budget, authority, need, and time (BANT).

Rehearse the rebuttals you have for likely objections so that you enter your sales pitch ready to effectively and confidently address their concerns.

Tip #3: Dealing with nerves

Chest tightening, breaths quickening, stomach-churning; we all know this feeling of anxiety before speaking publicly and giving in-person sales pitches can make you feel especially vulnerable.

The trick is to learn how to manage it. Here are some practical tips for controlling your nerves before a big sales pitch:

• Develop an altruistic mindset. Remember that this sales pitch is bigger than yourself. It is about meeting the buyers’ needs and delivering solutions.
• Practice controlled, mindful breathing
• Avoid drinking too much caffeine beforehand. It can make you feel hyper-anxious and jittery
• Listen to calming music or your favorite podcast on your way to the sales pitch
• If you have time: exercise beforehand. Moving your body can release endorphins and lower your stress levels
• Recognize that it is unlikely anyone knows you are nervous or fearful. You don’t look as anxious as you feel!

Beginning the Pitch

Tip #4: Open the pitch with energy and confidence

First impressions are important. They can have a huge impact on whether or not a potential customer is open and receptive to what you have to say.

Open your pitch with enthusiasm, making sure you are communicating confidence and professionalism. It’s important to remember that you are communicating just as much (if not more) through your body language and tonality. 

Stand tall and straight. Make eye contact with who you are speaking to. Keep your body in an inviting and open position. And, if you are not delivering the pitch in person, pay close attention to when and how you are speaking, giving the potential client plenty of room to feel heard and understood.

All of these things communicate a level of confidence in what you are saying and what you are selling.

Tip #5: Develop an interesting visual

People engage more with visual information than written or verbal. In fact, in a recent marketing survey, 95% of B2B buyers said that they wanted more highly-visual content.

A successful sales pitch responds to this demand and utilizes clear images, diagrams, data displays, and other visual materials. Consider opening your sales pitch with a vibrant cover slide, an attention-grabbing graph, or, if you have access to one, a product video.

During the Pitch

Tip #6: Offer a solution to their problems

Emphasizing the prospects’ needs and offering your product as the solution is the fundamental purpose of any effective pitch. Everything hinges on your ability to present your product as an answer to all of their troubles.

When you are delivering your sales pitch, remember that your potential clients don’t care about your product, they care about what your product will do for them. Translate all of your product’s amazing features into your client’s benefits.

Focus on communicating your unique selling proposition: what makes your product the best and how does it make their lives easier?

Tip #7: Back yourself up with data

Customers need to be able to rationalize their decision to purchase from you.

When a sales person includes data and statistics in their sales pitch, it not only gives them credibility, but it lets prospective customers know that their product works.

For example, instead of saying “Our product will save you time”,  you can say “Our product cuts the average number of days for project approval from seven to four and our customers have reported a boost in productivity by as much as 150%!”

This is a simple way you can incorporate hard data about your product into your sales pitch so that you can position yourself better against your competitors and help them mentally justify the cost of buying from you.

(Keep reading to uncover why Apollo.io is the go-to data and sales intelligence platform for salespeople looking to perfect their sales pitch.)

Ending the Pitch

Tip #8: End with a clear call-to-action

To successfully close your sales pitch you need to end on a clear call-to-action (CTA) in order to continue to move them through the sales pipeline. Tell the client what needs to happen in order for them to receive the results you just talked to them about.

Don’t wait for the prospect to create the call to action. This can often result in meetings ending early or losing them as clients entirely.

What do you want them to do? Read more information? Review a proposed contract? Subscribe to a newsletter? Sign the dotted line?

This is the time to let them know, clearly and definitively.

Tip #9: Be prepared to negotiate

Chances are you’ll have to use some of your negotiation skills once you’ve concluded your sales pitch.

Many sales reps falter at this stage. In their desperation to close the deal, they give too much away. But you’ve worked far too hard on your sales pitch to settle for an unprofitable deal.

Know your price. Before you enter into negotiations, you need to have an idea of when you’ll walk away from a deal. If a client can’t afford to pay what your product is worth, then they may not be an ideal fit to begin with.

On the same note, it’s also important to know when to accept a “no”. The best salespeople know how to accept rejection with grace.

Tip #10: Review and improve

Our tenth and final piece of advice: always be optimizing.

Take some time after your sales conversation to think about what went well, what didn’t, and what you can learn from it. There’s always room for improvement.

Sales Pitch Examples

Along with the above tips, we found a few notable examples of great sales pitches to help you create your own.

The Ryan Robinson Email Pitch

Content marketing consultant Ryan Robinson often contacts businesses to offer his services. He recently shared his go-to email sales pitch that has brought him enormous success:

This is an example of a sales pitch that provides great value upfront. Before ever making a pitch, he finds something of value to give to his prospect, such as a share on Twitter.

He includes what he did for them in his pitch and doesn’t give them information about himself and his services until the third paragraph.

This example isn’t something you can copy and paste because it is highly specific, but think about how you can emulate some of Robinson’s strategies into your own, unique sales pitch.

Bright wheel's Shark Tank Pain-Point Pitch

Our next sales pitch example is a Shark Tank success story.

Brightwheel founder and CEO Dave Vasen did research and found out that all of his potential investors are parents. He highlighted a personal pain point for parents of toddlers: not knowing what or how their kid is doing in daycare every day. He also used himself and his daughter as a case study and provided his audience with some statistics and visuals on the success of his product.

Brightwheel ended up raising $600k from this sales pitch!

What can we learn from this? Well, this pitch example does a great job of highlighting personalized pain points. Instead of going deep into the technical aspects of his product, Vasan focuses on the emotional, real-life benefits that come with his product.

Consider using some of Vasan’s strategies in your own sales pitch.

How Apollo.io Helps You Prepare the Perfect Sales Pitch

Apollo.io users have a distinct advantage when it comes to preparing the perfect pitch.

With Apollo, you can:

• Conduct in-depth research on your potential buyer using our extensive database and advanced filtering
• Instantly find verified email addresses and phone numbers so that you can set up and/or deliver your perfect pitch
• Seamlessly integrate Apollo with your CRM to manage new and existing leads with ease
• Analyze your business performance with Apollo Analytics to gather data-based statistics for a product presentation
• Manage sales communication before, after, and during your pitch with top-of-the-line sales automation and customized sales sequences
• Create target lists that help you determine the right people to pitch to at the right time
• And so much more

Let us help you write your first, winning sales pitch! Try out Apollo with a free account and watch how our sales tools exponentially increase the quality and performance of your sales pitches.