And why that won’t save you
by Frans Nauta, founder ClimateLaunchpad
In my opinion pitch technique is kind of hyped-up. I’ve seen people give terrible –terrible – pitches, seen them make every mistake in the book. But they did it in front of customers that had real problems, a real pain. And you believe me: they got meetings after that. As long as you’re able to communicate you understand their problem, you’ll get the meeting.
It’s nothing like in the movies
So different from what you see in TV Series or every movie, or every book about entrepreneurship where there are these drama moments where a brilliant pitch saves everything. Honestly? I’ve never seen that happen in real life. Of course, sometimes people get brilliant pitches. But that’s because they first put massive work into thoroughly understanding who their customers are. That is work that comes before mastering the art of pitching. It’s never the brilliant pitch that saves or changes everything. You need to have a very good proposition, and you need to have it for a specific customer.
It’s about understanding your customers’ pain
The best pitches are not the ones that say ‘look how brilliant I am’. The best pitches are the ones that convey you understand your customers’ pain.
The most valuable tip I ever got from a speech trainer was this: ‘The trust the audience has in you as a speaker is directly related to your understanding of audience’.
Empathy and listening are much bigger qualities for an entrepreneur than being a brilliant pitcher. The perfect pitch is a result of you having empathy and being a great listener. Only then do you understand what your customer needs and wants to hear.
At ClimateLaunchpad we teach our participants how to find the perfect customer – ánd how to get inside their heads.
7 steps to perfect your pitch
Okay. So you did the work. You know your customer inside out. You know his pain, heck, you can almost feel his pain yourself. And you know how you’re going to solve that for him. Then, and only then, you get to the point where you need to focus on building confidence by perfecting your pitching skills. Let me talk you through the 7 steps to prep yourself, they are all in these two video’s I created just for that:
Never forget what the real prize is
Know your customer, practice your skills, go out there and pitch your socks off. Never forget though: the real winner is not the one winning competitions. The real winner is the one building a business.
Frans Nauta