DASHBOARD 08 How to... be pitch perfect
by Mark Stephens, Owner at The F10 Group
Your prospect has just agreed to meet with you and provide you with an opportunity to make your proposition. So what do you do next? If you are making an important pitch to a
client, there has to be a very clear objective about where you are hoping to end up, so the end is the actually the best place to start your preparation! I like to set a range of objectives when
pitching, starting with the ‘ultimate objec- tive’, but also building in a ‘satisfactory objective’ as my back up and a ‘let’s aim to get something out of this’ objective. Once you are clear on what you want
to achieve, you will need to establish a road map of how you are most likely going to get there. Planning is essential to a positive outcome. A typical outline of how you might plan for your pitch, could look like this:
PRE-PITCH ● Research the client well: You must know your client’s main products, services, market place and recent history. ● Establish the client’s goals, and sell them solutions around these. ● Prepare appropriately for your pitch, with presentations, data, and facts and fi gures.
THE PITCH
● Introductions: You will need to sell your credentials and establish theirs. When you pitch to customers you have a very short amount of time to make good fi rst impres- sions, so that they feel confi dent in what you have to say. You need to radiate authority and a sense of confi dence right from the start.
● Establish the client’s needs: Use effective questioning (not the third degree). Show empathy towards them. ● Make a short presentation: Present your service and start to present the basics of a potential solution – a short concise eleva- tor pitch is vital. Use tangible tools, visual aids and product samples wherever possible. ● Highlight the USPs and ensure that you place enough emphasis on what it would be like working with you, as one of the benefi ts to them. ● Testimonials: Provide proof that you have been there and done it before. Inspire their confi dence with solid facts, not fi ction about what you have achieved. Make sure that you know your facts well. ● Q&A: Tease out any objections from them and deal with them there and then. ● Agree a course of action at the meeting: Confi rm what you have agreed. ● Summary: Re-confi rm each party’s obligations and commitments and book the next date in the diary.
POST-PITCH ● Follow up email: Provide the client with a one-page executive summary of what was discussed and agreed. Outline the issues, needs or pain that the client and the agreed commitments by both parties, including timeframes. ● Follow up phone call: Ensure that the email arrived and outline what you are doing and when you will next be making contact with them. Ask if any other issues or items have come up since your meeting. ● Actions: Your reputation is now on the line, so aim to exceed the client’s expecta- tions with superior delivery at every opportunity.
Good luck with your preparation.
Why HE is like... The Royal Family
There can surely be no doubt that higher education is ruled by its elders. Vice-Chancellors need experience, in academics and out, and the climb to the top is a slow one. Similar to the Royal Family, age plays a vital part in ascendance, with younger members of the ensemble able to ‘get away with’ mistakes with some level of tolerance and understanding; mistakes that would irrevocably tarnish the reputation of one higher up the ranks. With the shortfall in cash fl ow universities are facing up
to, has come the recognition that there need to be some major paradigm shifts in their expenditure and operations. In the Royal Family, there is a vague sense of unrest in the current system, and rumours of Charles abdicating, or even a disbanding of the institution are occasionally granted column space throughout the papers. Both bodies are under a slow-drip pressure to trial new, even radical ideas and bring their respective selves into the 21st century, but both are held back by the long-ingrained traditions and customs that have safeguarded them. Young, fearless upstarts come into HE brimming with
ideas and enthusiasm, but their ideas are knocked back by people above them, who’ve seen these ideas cycle through the system before, or don’t appreciate a pitch for the reinvention of the wheel coming from someone who can see opportunities but cannot temper them with the realities of the commercial university experience. New ideas need to be pitched with more than enthusiasm – with research, with consideration of old school values, but above all, with a collaboration that acknowledges the value of on-the-fi eld experience of long-standing peers.
Mark Stephens is Editor-in-Chief of Ask The Experts (
www.asktheexperts.org. uk), Managing Director of recruitment specialists The F10 Group, and Editor and contributor to Lessons Learned
From The Recession. The book contains 60 diverse chapters, each written by
highly successful business leaders from around the world. Lessons Learned From the Recession is free to download now at Ask the Experts eBook library. Paper- back copies are also available at half
price by entering the code BLC1000 (RRP £12.99) at the checkout.
Quote of the Month My greatest achievement is…
“Undoubtedly, the number of buildings I’ve brought back from the brink of dereliction. But I’m equally proud of the people who’ve worked with me along the way; I’m proud of how they’ve de-
veloped, what they’ve achieved, and the positive impact they, and our work, has had on communities through- out the UK.” Tom Bloxham, Chancellor of the University of Manchester and Founder and Group Chairman of Urban Splash Group
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