Power Pitching: Get The Personal Edge by Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE

Whenever and whatever you're pitching, dozens of factors will figure in the
final decision of your prospects. All else being equal, you have the edge
if you can establish a personal connection. Connect emotionally and
intellectually, so they like and trust you more than your competitors. How
can you get your prospects to like you? Try these tips.

Focus and be sincere. If you appear nervous or unsure, you may seem devious
or incompetent. If your presentation does not respond to their concerns and
you just grind on with a prepared pitch, they will decide you don't care
about them and their problems. Look people right in the eyes and convince
them that you stand 100% behind the ideas, products, or services that you
want to sell them. Pick up on their concerns, and address them.

"Divide and conquer." If you're doing a presentation, shake hands with
everyone as they enter the room. Connect with them so you see them as
individuals, and you become more memorable to them too. (People are usually
more shy of groups of strangers than in one-on-one contacts.)

Use technology to enhance your presentation, not drown it. PowerPoint can
keep you on track, but it can't establish trust.

Keep it simple and memorable! When your prospects have a debriefing
afterwards, you want them to remember what you said more than anything your
competitors pitched to them. Break your talking points into snappy sound
bites that are easy to write down and remember. Make them interesting and
repeatable.

Steer clear of technical language and jargon. Rehearse your presentation in
advance with your spouse or an intelligent 12-year-old across the dinner
table. If there's anything they don't understand, it's too complicated.

Tell great stories. People are trained to resist a sales pitch, but no one
can resist a good story. Let's say you're trying to get money to fund your
software company. Tell a story about how the prospective investor's life
will change when you bring the product to market: "Imagine that a year from
now you'll come to work and use this software to do in 5 minutes what now
takes you 45 minutes. I don't know what that would do to your life, but in
all our test markets or pilot programs, people tell us . . . " Then add
more stories.

Take a lesson from Hollywood. Give your stories interesting characters and
dialogue, plus a dramatic lesson that your prospects can relate to. Don't
say, "Certain companies have used our software." Don't even say, "IBM has
used our software." Instead, say, "Joe Smith at IBM said to me, 'If we
don't increase sales turnover by 20%, we won't make our projections'. We
guaranteed them they could if they used our software. Six months later, Joe
called and said, 'You guys saved us.'"

If you are pitching a product that hasn't been built yet, build a story
about what it will be like for someone using it.

Everything else being equal, you're way ahead of any and all your
competition when your prospects relate to you, like you, and trust you.