How to create a pitch to convert ideal clients instantly

This episode is dedicated to every entrepreneur who struggles to explain what they do, panics and changes what they say every time they pitch and gets just as bored and confused by what they are saying as their audience does!

We’ve all been there – not every pitch is perfect, particularly in the beginning. But if you don’t make a great first impression you’ll be leaving a ton of money on the table.

Creating a pitch that is understandable, attention-grabbing, engaging and powerful enough to convert instantly is an art – but lucky for you I’m revealing how to master the art of pitching inside this very episode.

Listen on the player above or read the blog below:

How to create a pitch to convert ideal clients instantly

These are the elements to create a pitch to convert ideal clients. This is inspired by the countless pitches that I see daily which do not explain what they do. I can see these entrepreneurs are extremely talented, have a lot to give but are struggling to put into words how they can help their ideal clients.

Pitching can mean explaining what you do at the beginning of a talk, a podcast interview, or networking. This will show you how to create a meaningful and powerful pitch. Whenever I head to a networking event, including virtual, I get people messaging me at the time of my pitch asking me for a chat and to send them tools. When you get it right, it can be powerful.

Who are you pitching to?

This may seem silly but I’m asking you to be smart here. It’s about your niche but it’s potentially about a group of people you are talking to and amending your pitch for them. Don’t wheel out the same pitch each time. If you have the opportunity to speak to a group of people, use the opportunity to make the pitch bespoke to them.

If you know who you are speaking to then make sure you angle your pitch for them.

For example, in networking there is a varied group of people in that event. You need to be grounded in yourself about who it is that you serve and how you can help. Making your pitch generic to capture everyone does not mean you are going to get clients. When you speak to everyone, you speak to no one. Dive into the problem you solve for a particular type of person.

Know your niche before you go in with your pitch. The beauty of a networking event is that even if the people there do not resonate or need the solution you are offering, they may know someone who does. Still keep it super specific so they know who to recommend you to.

You also need to test out where you are pitching. If you are pitching into a space where your ideal client is not hanging out, you need to ask yourself the question: “am I hanging out in the right places? Am I being strategic about where I am turning up?”

Understand the kind of problem that you solve

Is the problem that you solve something more aspirational? Do you feed a need that they want to do something but are struggling to do it? Perhaps they don’t know what to do or have the pathway forwards. You need to understand how you talk to them and what angle you are going to go in at.

Is this a bleeding-neck issue? Something that needs to be urgently solved. Or will you be talking more about how they are going to get to their goal. The problem you solve needs to be something they are already aware about. You need to explain the transformation they are going to receive.

After you explain this well and meaningfully by being able to say I solve this particular problem for this particular person, you need to have everyone in the room nodding. Regardless of whether or not they are your ideal client. Crucially, they need to understand it. If they do not understand it then you’ve not got it right.

It doesn’t matter how many fluffy, beautiful and grandiose words that you use. If people do not understand it then they will not be buying from you.

Importantly, it needs to resonate with your ideal client.

Secondary issue

This is where the real value comes in. A pitch is not about selling, it is about adding value. The way you want to add value in a pitch is by giving the audience an epiphany moment. The “that’s why that isn’t happening” moment. You do this through the secondary issue.

The secondary issue is the root cause of what is going on. It drives urgency and demand for what you do. When people get why they can’t achieve what they need them to achieve, it adds value as it gives them hope they will get the results they want. It also creates a mind shift and gives a new understanding of the issues they are facing.

There is more to creating an effective pitch than first seems. You need to have these elements in here to bring out the full story.

Consider how long you have

Usually, you’ll have more than 10 seconds to fit all of this information in but if you don’t then you need to consider a different strategy. We need to be able to create curiosity and create impact in one fell swoop. My sales coach did this really well. She says “I help entrepreneurs make a shed-ton of money”. That is the conversation-opener.

If you only have a few seconds to catch someone’s attention, it’s not about explaining everything in 10 seconds, it’s about generating curiosity and leading them to want to have a conversation with you. That statement grabs attention, is quite Ronseal and opens up that conversation for more.

Say what others are not saying

For example, when I’m pitching I’ll talk about for entrepreneurs, particularly coaches and experts, this market is saturated. There are so many coaches and experts and it is really hard for people to stand out. That’s an obvious problem. All coaches and experts know they have this problem. The secondary issue is where I say that quite a lot of entrepreneurs are fobbed off with the USP of being themselves. Or they settle for this. And I’m here to tell you that is not why people buy.

Your competition is also nice people. It is not a logical reason as to why you should buy from one person and not the other. What we should be doing is taking a leaf out of business brands who have solid, tangible reasoning as to why you would buy certain products. We need to extract a USP, make it tangible beyond your personality and give them a logical reason to buy. Then I give examples and tell a story.

This is where the added value comes in. Where they realise they have been sitting back and relying on their personality as their USP. This is where the penny drops with them. And that’s what you need to be able to give to the people you are pitching to so they too, can get that penny-drop moment.

It needs to be refreshing and new. As soon as you start saying the same thing that everyone else does, people tune out. You can’t be the same as everyone else. You need a fresh new message that no one else has. Then bring this into the pitch.

If you are missing this part, then you are missing out. I’ve bought from people who I may not like before because regardless of who they are, I know that their business can deliver. Obviously, you need to know, like and trust who you buy from but you don’t always buy from the people who you like the most. If they cannot demonstrate the value and give me the confidence or new edge that I’m after, I don’t necessarily want to spend my money with them.

Dropping in examples and stories

I mention that I drop in stories such as how I grew my adventure travel company from the ground up to multi-seven figures. This is slipped into the pitch. It is not done to be arrogant. As British, we don’t like to be arrogant but we do need to demonstrate our credibility. We can do this as part of the conversation within the pitch and in line with how you want to come across.

You can give examples of a client as it shows you get results for clients. Another way is to get another person to edify you first. Get someone to introduce you beforehand. I have worked with the head of a networking event. Before I begin my pitch, she has already told everyone that she’s worked with me, the results she has and that I have a book. She’s done this before I’ve even spoken so it’s positioned me from the start.

We don’t necessarily want to ask for this. For example, this can happen if you are doing a guest expert spot. They can read a bio for you so make sure you have the things you want to say in your bio.

One of the biggest mistakes I’ve made is giving complicated bios. What you’d hope is that the person reading it will take what they want and shorten it. However, so many people will read the bio word-for-word. At this point you will realise how many words you’ve given them, how long it’s going on for and when read out aloud that the words don’t flow as well.

If you are providing a bio, make sure that you checked this yourself by saying it out loud. Introduce yourself and check if you like it.

Using your call-to-action as credibility

You can also drop this into a call-to-action.

Jill Chitty adds her pitch well within her calls-to-action. She also joins us as an expert with the Elevate programme. This helps you to position yourself as the best option in the market. Jill created a session on LinkedIn. Inside Elevate, there is a lot of experienced business owners. All of us said this is the best training we’ve seen, has the most value and best transformation. This training is available for anyone who joins the group as the recording is available.

Jill has an incredible opt-in which is the Morning Cuppa Routine for LinkedIn. If you get into the habit of doing, you can attract and convert clients on LinkedIn. She uses this as part of her pitch.

You can be offering a free gift to grow your ideal audience. Tie in extra credibility where they can follow you or buy your book. A book is huge credibility. Or you can say ‘head over to my podcast’ which also boosts your credibility. You need to make sure you do have a call-to-action.

Before you give your CTA, you need to outline where your audience needs to get to. There is no one way to do this – sometimes you need to break a rule so that it works better. There is no hard and fast rules, you need to mess around with the order about how it’s delivered. Having a template can make things very dull. It needs to make sense as a story rather than being plug-and-play.

Get these elements in place and make the flow work for you

If you haven’t done this already, you want to explain where your ideal client wants to get to and what’s the transformation. If you are an aspirational business – helping people to achieve goals – then you may have already done this. Think about whether you capture them on the end-result or on the transformation.

If you started with the problem and then added in the value with the secondary issue to achieve that, you can either sandwich the transformation in between the problem and the secondary issue or you can reiterate it to the end.

For example, you can say: “if you want to achieve the result which is X,Y,Z but also the impact of this result”. The impact is sometimes left off the pitch, which makes it bland. It is important to make your pitch meaningful. We want to know the impact of both the problem and the transformation.

It helps your audience understand why they need to move from where they are at the moment to where they want to be.

Then you decide on the order you want these elements to go in. You can have your call-to-action at the start, middle or end. There are strategic reasons for doing this. If you’re in a networking event, there is no harm in leaving your CTA to the end. Look at this through the eyes of the context in which it’s happening. If people are likely to switch off later, move it to the beginning.

Practise

Say your pitch out loud and practise. The more you practise and say it out aloud, the easier it will flow and the more conversational it will sound. YOu will sound more confident and confidence goes a long way when it comes to credibility. If you are confident in what you say, people are far more likely to trust you.

Do make sure you are articulate and confident. Practise in front of the mirror and tweak it if it doesn’t make sense. You are taking people on a journey. But capture their attention from the word go. This is usually by describing who I’m talking to, the problem they have, and the outcomes they can resonate with.

You can capture attention in other ways, but you need to capture the attention of the right people rather than everyone. You want to pull in the people you can best serve.

We go through this in Elevate to make sure that you have all these elements in place and that you have a fresh message to capture the attention of your clients. Something that rocks the industry that you’re in and helps you stand out.

If you need help in standing out, fine-tuning your messages and coming up with these pitches, to be able to start converting more clients then do make sure you book a call with me.