Types of Pitches 

As an entrepreneur, you will often find yourself in scenarios where pitching is the necessary step toward
acquiring a partnership, receiving funding, earning PR, or gaining any other potential advantage for your
business. The goal of the pitching process is to match a party’s needs with the capabilities of your product
or service. The pitching process can be broken down into three distinct steps: securing a meeting,
pitching, and closing. Understanding these steps can lead to better results with leads which in turn will
create a better environment for your business. For the sake of scope, we will focus primarily on the first
two steps of the pitching process.

Securing a meeting

The first step of the pitching process is to get your foot in the door. The key to getting quality leads is to
leverage your network and connect with a colleague who is capable of making a warm introduction to a
potential lead. Cold calling can serve as a time-consuming process that yields disappointing results;
having a warm lead can make a world of difference. Once you have been connected properly with a lead,
you can focus on what you want to say to the lead.

When sending off an email to a lead, embrace the phrase “less is more”. Regardless of the quality of your
product, or the strength of your team, sending over a long-winded email to a potential lead can deter them
from doing business with your company. Keep things short and sweet and give them just enough
information about your value proposition to entice them to schedule a meeting.

Pitching

Steve Jobs coined the structure of having three key points for any sale. Employing this structure prevents
the audience from being bombarded by too many ideas and also grants you enough time to delve deeply
into each of your three points. When you walk into a meeting, keep these main points at your disposal to
present.

When you’re in the meeting, make an effort to listen more and talk less. Posing questions to your
audience will allow you to better understand their needs and how your business can fill that gap. Although
you’ve prepared three ways that your business can fit unique needs, your audience may only be
interested in one of the three functions of your product. Listening will prevent you from wasting time and
will allow you to focus on building a functional relationship with your potential partner.

If you have done these steps properly, you’ll be in good shape to close!

© 2020 Entrepreneurship World Cup