ART OF THE SERENDIPITY PITCH
If you’re in sales, you know the drill. A hard to reach customer just happens to get on an elevator with you, alone. You both get on at the bottom floor and are headed to the top. It will give you a precious minute of uninterrupted one on one time with this impossible to reach customer. The clock’s ticking. What do you say that gets you the appointment, or better yet, a sale right on the spot?
In many ways, I’m old school when it comes to what you need in your selling tool box. Skills like active listening, strong questioning techniques and efficient time management are timeless. Perhaps the most important of these fundamental skills is preparation. Being prepared frees up the mind. It allows us to process information we are getting from a customer, without having to think about facts we should already know.
You’d think these key skills would be a must for today’s sales pros. Think again. In today’s selling environment, technology is making many salespeople lazy. Email and texts have served to erode the quality of writing skills. Smart phones and tablets flood us with data, but do very little to convert that information into knowledge. Attention to detail and well honed skills are a mark of the 20% of salespeople who are doing 80% of the business.
Point of View
When creating your serendipity pitch, it’s very important to think like the other person in the conversation. While the traditional version of this scenario focuses on you speaking with a hard to reach customer, what if the person receiving the information isn’t a customer? Imagine you’re attending a dinner party and one of the folks at the party (a lawyer) asks you, “So what do you do?” Obviously the information you provide to the lawyer will be different than the information you deliver to the potential customer. Both are important. While the lawyer may not be a potential customer, he may know someone who would benefit from your product or service. A well crafted serendipity pitch provides the lawyer all the information he/she may need to positively present you to their friend. It’s because of this fact that I always create two versions of my pitch. I create one for someone in the industry who fundamentaly understands the products I offer, and one for someone who isn’t and doesn’t.
Get to the Verb
I love this phrase! This one comes from my brother Art. He’s a very successful sales executive, entreprenuer and founder of the company where I work. I believe his phrase sums up the mind of the customer perfectly. Customers are busy, so get to the point.
What does Art mean by “the verb.” He means you need to give the customer a reason to listen to you, now! Who are you? What do you want from me? Why should I invest my time listening to you? How does what you propose/offer benefit my business? How much will I save with your solution? When may I expect these savings to my bottom line? When speaking to the lawyer you want to convert his casual and polite inquiry into genuine interest.
Ask for the Order
Don’t waste your minute with meaningless chatter. Get to the point, be confident and be direct about what you want. It communicates to the customer you value his time, you know your stuff and you believe in what you’re selling! Regarding the lawyer, ask if he knows of anyone who might benefit from your solution.
Sample Pitches
OK, since I’m a firm believer in leading by example (see my earlier post on Dead Horse Leadership), I’m going to provide you with two pitches as learning examples. At LexJet we designed a graphic that helps us focus on the key elements of our pitch. It’s called the LexJet Relationship Revolver and it includes the six “bullets” we want to communicate during our conversation.
Briefly, these are the descriptions of the bullet points:
• We sell products.
• We help customers.
• We build relationships.
• We create value.
• We share knowledge.
• We invest to continuously expand our capability to serve you.
Using these as a foundation for our pitch, here are examples of both.
Customer Pitch
“Good morning Mr. Jones. My name is Gene Lambert and I represent LexJet Corporation. I’ve been very persistent in earning an investment of your time for a meeting. I’ve dedicated my time learning more about XYZ Graphics. I’m prepared to prove to you how LexJet’s people and products will improve your inkjet printed graphics quality, reduce your production costs and improve your customer loyalty.
Our focus at LexJet is on the sale of digital inkjet graphic supplies and equipment. We help companies like XYZ Graphics (mention customers he may know or compete with) produce superior results with our free technical support and 100% money back guarantee on every solution we offer. The relationships will have with our over 10,000 customers are built on honesty, respect and a commitment to exceeding both your expectations and those of your customers. We invest heavily in training our people. This means you can rely on us as your technical partner in profit.
We offer products from the industry’s leading OEMs like Canon, Hewlett Packard and Epson. We also research and develop our own award winning lines of printable media, laminates, adhesives and printer ink. The knowledge we’ve gained as a manufacturer, distributor and reseller translates into solutions you can count on. We offer nationwide next day delivery via our 11 distribution centers so that the solution you need is there when you need it. We use our success to contiuously invest in people and systems that help keep us both on top.
Do you have 30 minutes now to help me learn more about you business challenges, or would 9:00am tomorrow morning work better for you?”
Lawyer Pitch
“I work for a great company named LexJet! We sell products that help our customers produce beautiful printed images for a variety of different markets. People that produce tradeshow graphics, digital fine art, point of purchase displays and signage count on us to provide them the products and expertise they need to make their customers love them.
LexJet is dedicated to providing its customers with the best relationship experience in the industry. We do that with our knowledgable people, our nationwide distribution network, our state of the art information systems and 100% Money Back Guarantee on every one of our products. Our commitment to training ensures our people know their stuff and our commitment to investment means we will be there when our customers need us.
Do you know of anyone who would benefit from the value we offer?”
Practice your pitch until you know it with out thinking about it and can deliver it confidently and naturally.
Summary
I started this article with the defintion of serendipity and that I prefer it over the term elevator. Now I’ll tell you why. Invest time learning about your customer. Be well prepared. Be confident. Practice until it feels natural. When you’ve done these things, the customer lucky enough to have stepped onto that elevator will be the one experiencing serendipity.
Have fun, make money…
Gene
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