Crafting a Sales Pitch That Sells (7 Strategic Examples)

You're about to meet the prospect you've been chasing for months. Your mind goes blank as nerves take over. But what if you could turn that panic into confidence?

Whether you're a seasoned salesperson or just starting out, a well-crafted sales pitch can be the difference between striking gold and getting lost in the noise.

But with so much competition, how can you craft a pitch that stands out and resonates with your audience? Sales enablement platforms can be your secret weapon! These tools aggregate customer data and buying intent, helping you tailor your pitch to address specific pain points and goals. This way, you sound truly connected with your audience and result-oriented.

But there's a lot more to crafting a winning sales pitch that I'll cover in the article, so stick around till the end!

Why should you care about a sales pitch?

You might think, "Isn't a sales pitch just a fancy way of pressuring someone to buy something?" The answer is no.  

Effective sales pitches focus on the why behind your product or service.  They explain how you can solve customer problems and improve their lives. A  well-crafted sales pitch is a cornerstone of establishing yourself as a leader in your industry.

Here's why every business should invest time in crafting a compelling sales pitch:

• Cuts through the noise: Potential customer's faces are bombarded with messages. A clear and concise pitch helps your business stand out from the crowd and quickly grab their attention.
• Builds trust and credibility: A well-structured pitch that focuses on the customer's needs demonstrates your expertise and positions you as a trusted advisor, not just a salesperson.
• Boosts employee confidence: When your team has a strong sales pitch, they'll feel empowered to approach potential customers with clarity and conviction.

4 components of a great sales pitch

 There are 4 key components of crafting an impactful sales pitch that not only captivates your audience but also drives conversions:

• Highlight a clear pain point: A strong pitch starts with empathy. Begin by identifying a specific pain point your prospect is facing. This demonstrates your understanding of their challenges and establishes trust. Don't just assume you know their struggles; use sales enablement anecdotes to pinpoint a pressing issue with which they're likely to resonate.
• Offer unexpected value: People crave novelty. Go beyond simply addressing the pain point. Surprise your prospect by showcasing an unexpected benefit your product or service offers. This could be a unique feature, a hidden cost-saving advantage, or a way to differentiate themselves from competitors.
• Show social proof: Facts and figures add credibility. Back up your claims with social proof in the form of data, statistics, or customer testimonials. Showcase how your solution has helped similar businesses achieve success. Social proof validates your message and builds trust, making your offering more alluring.
• Include a strong CTA: Don't leave your prospect hanging. End your pitch with a clear and compelling call to action (CTA). This could be scheduling a demo, requesting a free trial, or setting up a follow-up meeting. Make the next step easy and enticing, guiding your prospect toward a buying decision.

Where should you do the sales pitch?

There are a multitude of avenues where you can deliver your sales pitch. Each offers unique opportunities for success: 

• Cold email prospects and present your pitch in a concise and compelling manner. Craft personalized messages tailored to each recipient to increase engagement and relevance.
• Cold call potential customers to deliver your pitch verbally. Be prepared with a clear script and key talking points to effectively convey your message and address any objections.
• Attend industry events like webinars, conferences, trade shows, or workshops relevant to your target market. These events provide opportunities to engage with a captive audience already interested in your industry. Pitch competitions to make meaningful connections and capture leads.
• Use social networking platforms like Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook to share your sales pitch with a broader audience. Engage in conversations, share valuable content, and showcase customer testimonials to establish credibility and attract potential prospects.
• Schedule 1x1 meetings with qualified leads to deliver your sales pitch in a personalized setting. Use these interactions to understand their needs, address concerns, and tailor your pitch accordingly. Provide demonstrations or product samples to showcase the value of your offering firsthand.

Adapting and utilizing various channels is essential for effectively reaching and engaging potential customers.

How to create the perfect sales pitch (7 steps)

We’ve focused on content (make it customer-centric), delivery, tech, and timing to give you an overview of what you need to consider as you prepare for your sales pitch.

Ready? Let’s dive right in.

Step 1: Press the pain point

This Shark Tank pitch for an app used by kindergarten teachers to share information with parents taps into an emotional pain point: Parents don’t know what their kids do all day.

The guy pitching introduces himself as a parent and talks to the Sharks as parents, effectively saying, "I am one of you. I felt your pain, and this is the solution I created to that problem." His pitch also includes cute videos and pictures of kids, which doesn’t hurt.

This pitch is so effective because it’s entirely customer-focused. It begins by emphasizing the problem—an essential focus for any good pitch—and goes on to briefly address all the benefits of the solution without worrying about the tech at all.

Remember, people buy for emotional reasons. So, it makes sense to focus on benefits rather than features. Those benefits might differ for different customers, so don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach to creating your pitch. If it’s customer-centric (and should be), then you might need to change the focus of your pitch when talking to different types of customers.

Step 2: Know what you’re selling – it’s not a product

Have you heard the expression ‘sell the hole, not the drill’? It’s that whole features vs. benefits thing again, and, in this case, it’s based on the premise that people don’t buy a drill because they want a drill. They buy a drill because they need to make a hole.

The Brightwell pitch above is a great example of selling to the problem, and so is this clip of Mark Cuban talking about how he sold basketball tickets for a losing team.

Cuban understood that going to a basketball game isn’t about watching a team win or lose; it’s the whole experience. Somewhere to take your kids, make memories, soak up an atmosphere, and feel like you’re part of something bigger than yourself. That’s how he pitched tickets, and that’s how he made sales.

When you write your sales pitch, consider what your product means to people and all the broader implications that impact might have. Don’t just say your product saves time; give examples of what that time-saving means. Don’t just say it saves money; consider what it could be spent on.

Step 3: Engage your audience

If you want to build enthusiasm for your offering, you must show enthusiasm. Your customers want to hear it in your voice, see it in your face, and read it in your body language. If you’re nervous, your customers will feel nervous – and nervous customers don’t buy. If you’re bored, your customers will be bored. If you don’t want to be there, neither will they.

Your presentation style is a key factor in the success of your sales pitch, so it’s crucial that you engage with your customers. Connect with them on an emotional level – whether that’s with warmth, humor, or empathy. You need that emotional hook to reel them in.

If you want to know what engaging looks like, look at this guy pitching Party On Demand at Startupfest. 

Sure, it’s not everybody’s style, but there’s no doubting his enthusiasm for his product—and it’s clearly infectious, judging by the audience's reaction.

Step 4: Use storytelling techniques

Storytelling is a fundamental aspect of sales pitches. We use it to paint a picture of what life could be like with our product, to dramatize the pain point customers are already experiencing, to build engagement, and to elicit emotional responses to seemingly emotionless objects.

It works because storytelling conventions are so engrained in the human psyche that we’re all programmed to respond to them – not just emotionally, but chemically. We look for characters to identify with, situations we recognize, and journeys we can relate to.

We know that all stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. So, we understand that we ought to be listening for that arc, which (hopefully) means we’re engaged with what you’re saying while we wait to hear the outcome.

David Phillips gave an excellent TED Talk about the magical science of storytelling and why it’s so effective. The whole thing is worth a watch, but skip to the six-minute mark for a great lesson in the power of storytelling – how it increases focus, memory, and creativity.

Step 5: Use slides wisely

It is tempting to put everything you want to say into a slide deck to prompt you as you pitch. Equally, with all the potential of modern technology, you might want to say it with video, but we advise against that.

Sales is all about the relationships formed between people. If you read off a screen or put it all in a video, really, what you’re saying is, "You don’t need me." And if they don’t need you, they won’t buy from you.

That’s not to say slide decks aren’t useful. Used wisely, they can emphasize and illustrate your point. Take a look at this example from Dragon’s Den. These guys are using their slide deck to illustrate their sales story. (Note: They also use storytelling techniques, push the pain point, know what they’re selling, and are reasonably engaging.)

In the first slide, they even use the image as a punch line to illustrate the pain point Brand Yourself solves – and it gets a smile out of the typically severe Dragons. The slides showing what the product offers are pretty clear and interesting, but the entrepreneurs don’t spend time researching what’s on screen. It’s not necessary.

The Dragons can read it for themselves if they want to, but their attention is – rightly – focused on the gentlemen speaking.

Step 6: Test your tech, then test it again

Ask anyone about their experiences with PowerPoint presentations, and they will undoubtedly talk about the frustration and awkwardness of PowerPoint failures.

Sometimes, slide decks just flat out don’t work, or computers time out; the mouse runs out of batteries, or the screen is inexplicably blurry and unreadable. These problems cut your presentation time in half, and suddenly, you have to skip over slides that seemed unmissable when you put them in the deck.

PowerPoint can be a nightmare, but there are a few things you can do to prevent some of the basic failures: Test your tech, practice your PowerPoint, and test and practice some more—on location when possible. We love tablets for delivering presentations because the intuitive swipe and tap cut out the mousey middleman and make for a much more fluid experience.

But what happens when things go wrong despite your best efforts? That is the main reason not to lean on your slide deck to tell your story for you. If it only enhances your presentation and doesn’t work, then it's no biggy. You can carry on without it.

Though your gut may want to wait and see if the error can be fixed, your customers are unlikely to stay with you while that happens. It's better to continue with your presentation and ensure that your words are so engaging that you don’t need pictures. You can always email the presentation over to your customers if there is something in particular you need them to see.

People root for the underdog. So, if you can win them over in spite of technical failings, chances are that’s going to be the start of a beautiful relationship. The best thing to do is keep going. And don’t worry—it happens to the best of us.

Remember the iPhone X launch?

He styles it out. Many, many people still bought the iPhone X. Apple’s world did not end.

Step 7: Right message, right time, right place

Delivering a killer sales pitch involves being the person with the right message at the right time in the right place.

You might pitch in a meeting scheduled months in advance or off the cuff at an industry event. Regardless, your success will usually come down to knowing your product and your customers—and getting to them at the right time.

So, how do you do that? A lot of research.

Keep abreast of where your prospects are at – both in terms of business and physically (which events they are going to). Watch for signs they may be interested in your offering and make the most of them. Connect with them on social media to add value, not pitching over LinkedIn Messenger. Make sure there’s plenty of positive, educational content, putting your name under their noses. And when your time comes, seize the day.

It’s difficult to find a real video of that online. So, our final video is a clip from "The Pursuit of Happyness," in which Will Smith’s character is cold-calling.
He takes a risk that pays off, putting him in the right place at the right time.

Sales pitch do's and don'ts

Crafting a winning sales pitch requires a delicate balance. Here's a breakdown of what to do and what to avoid to ensure your message resonates and drives results:

Do

• Speak their language: Infuse your pitch with data-driven insights relevant to your prospect's industry or challenges.
• Master the art of storytelling: Weave a compelling narrative that showcases your product's capabilities through relatable scenarios. Hone your brand storytelling skills to make your pitch engaging and memorable.
• Keep it concise: Respect your prospect's time. A well-structured pitch should be clear and concise, delivered within a limited timeframe.

Don't

• Focus on yourself: The spotlight belongs to the prospect. Avoid "I" statements and steer the conversation towards their needs and goals.
• Drag on: Time is of the essence. Avoid lengthy pitches that drag on. During initial interactions, avoid getting bogged down in intricate product features. Keep the focus on the core benefits your solution offers.
• Bring up pricing prematurely: Price discussions are best left for later stages of the sales cycle. Focus on building value and establishing trust first.
• Be a one-size-fits-all salesperson: Tailor your pitch to each prospect's unique situation and challenges. Generic pitches fall flat; cater your message for maximum impact.

It’s time to crush your sales presentation!

You need customer-centric content that tackles problems not products; an engaging delivery that draws your audience in; storytelling techniques that keep them on the hook; and a slide deck that supports your pitch – without taking over.

Then practice, practice, practice until you’re confident you can do it at any time and anywhere – you never know when the opportunity might arise.

Discover how G2 can elevate your sales engagement and drive revenue growth.

This article was originally published in 2019. It has been updated with new information.