How to Structure Your Sales Pitch for Maximum Impact
Any sales professional's primary goal is to exceed their targets every quarter. But is it easy for B2B reps to fulfill their sales quotas in an ever-changing market where many skilled sales professionals at your competitor brands are fighting for the same spot?
Not really!
Nearly 20% of sales teams said standing out from the competition was their biggest challenge last year. While many factors contribute to this, not being able to create the' perfect' sales pitch is a distinct challenge for many B2B sales teams.
But what is a ‘perfect’ sales pitch anyway?
For some sales professionals, a sales pitch is an exact replica of their product documentation. But too much product information compiled in a presentation is not a sales pitch, let alone call it ‘perfect’.
These pitches lack some of the most critical elements, including storytelling, visual elements, and research. They are half-baked documents that hardly convince prospects.
Are you wondering how to create a sales pitch that resonates with prospects and convinces them to take action? Your search should stop here! In this blog post, we will explain the anatomy of a ‘perfect’ sales pitch.
What does it take to create a killer sales pitch?
Creating a killer sales pitch is not rocket science if you follow the right approach. Here’s how to start your journey of creating a great sales pitch:
Research about your target audience's pain points and how to fix those challenges
A few years ago, generic research frameworks were effective for sales reps. Sales teams followed the same framework over and over: go to the prospect’s website, assume their potential pain points, and create a sales pitch that addressed these challenges.
But here’s the thing: B2B prospects are smarter than ever. 96% of prospects perform their research before speaking to a rep.
Therefore, they already know what your product is capable of. They might have even tried out your product and know what works in their favor and what doesn’t. If you want to convert them into a paid customer, you must go the extra mile and provide them with specific information per their buyer journey.
A sales pitch should focus on the specific points the prospect seeks. To do this, segregate your buyer journey into two broad phases:
- The discovery phase is where your sales team reaches out to the prospect to explain the product features
- The “Book a demo” phase is when the prospect directly books a demo call with your sales team
A sales rep’s research approach will also change based on these two phases.
Research approach for the discovery phase
- Examine the buyer's LinkedIn and Twitter profiles to understand their role, latest posts, and engagement to identify their challenges
- Look into relevant Slack and Reddit to understand if the prospect has recently posted any requirements. For example, we found this post on Reddit where the prospect mentioned their requirements. For a sales rep offering a similar product, this could be the sign to reach out this prospect with your pitch:
- Check review portals like G2/Capterra to find out what your competitors' users are saying and their likes and dislikes. Whenever you find a frustrated user who’s not happy with your competitor’s product and is likely to search for an alternative product, that’s your chance to reach out to them with your sales pitch.
In the G2 review below, a frustrated customer is a good prospect for a pitch addressing their current challenge:
- Finally, look into the prospect websites to understand their product better so you can personalize your pitch. Identify what problems the prospect’s product solves, what tools it integrates with, and who the target buyer persona is. These datasets will personalize your sales pitch beyond generic factors
Research approach for the “Book a demo” phase
A prospect who directly schedules a demo call has already performed research about your product and is interested in moving ahead. In fact, 71% of prospects prefer doing their own research before talking to a sales rep. These are high-intent prospects that you wouldn’t risk missing, and a sales pitch backed with generic information about your product won’t cut it. A great way to go about it is by checking your prospect’s queries captured from your website AI chatbot.
With conversational platforms like Alltius, identify how a customer explored your product, the specific use cases that they explored, the flow they followed while exploring the different parts of your website, and so on. When you have all this information, address it in your sales pitch.
Buyers' journeys are non-linear, and many other phases will be in between. So, be clear about what a prospect is looking for and research along the lines to create the perfect pitch.
Build a narrative for storytelling from these findings
Now that you have all the information you need: the prospect’s buyer journey, their critical questions and pain points, and what solutions they are looking for, it's time to convert these datasets into a story.
Let’s take the use case of productivity software. When developing a story out of the collected data points, try to answer three major questions:
- Why - Why should a prospect care about your productivity software?
A potential answer could be: Our productivity software is an all-in-one software where you manage your documents, track projects, enjoy multiple views, and use relevant templates to help your team stay productive.
- What - What are its unique use cases that resonate with the prospect?
A potential answer could be: The productivity software is perfect for marketing teams handling multiple projects, such as organic marketing, paid marketing, and product marketing. It has built-in templates for these teams to manage their projects and tasks efficiently.
- How - How does your software make a difference?
A potential answer could be: Our productivity software has built-in AI support to automate your workflows with “If” and “Then” triggers. This will free up project managers’ time spent manually assigning tasks to the team members.
💡Bonus: Add a social proof. For example, 50+ marketing teams are using our productivity software to complete 100+ projects, and we have an average rating of 4.6 across all review platforms.
That’s all. Now, combine it all, and you have your sales pitch.
Sales pitches don’t have to be generic or an awkward experience. Explore how Alltius makes crafting compelling pitches that convert 30% more a breeze.
Be prepared to identify and address objections
No matter how on-point, a sales pitch will always invite some objections. These objections could be about:
- Pricing vs. features or users
- Inability to establish trust despite providing social proof
- The prospect’s need is not urgent
- The competitors are too strong, and making a mark is difficult
Ensure that your sales pitch has some answers to address these objections. For example:
- If pricing is an objection and the prospect has budget constraints, offer them a discount
- If they are unable to trust your brand, provide them with more testimonials, preferably from industry leaders, to win their trust
- If the prospect’s need is not urgent, again offer them a short-term discount to trigger the urgency
- If competitors are stronger and you are a beginner, a great way to attract the prospect is by offering them a free trial so they explore your product and make a decision
Design your sales pitch to handle predicted objections and use effective CTAs to redirect prospects to appropriate destinations.
Practice to get better at your craft
There’s hardly any sales professional in the history of B2B sales who perfects their sales pitch at the very first attempt. The key to improving it is through practice and honing your pitching skills over time. Hence, keep practicing these steps, and your skills will evolve.
What are the components of a killer sales pitch?
Structuring a sales pitch is tricky. Even with all components, proper structuring makes a significant difference.
Below are the must-have components that make or break your sales pitch. To make it easier, we are explaining it with a mock sales pitch for the same productivity software:
- A solid introduction to set the context right
The first impression is the last impression regarding a sales pitch deck. If you grab the prospect’s attention in the introductory paragraph, they will stick to the end. Set the context of the entire sales pitch within the introduction itself.
Here’s our take on this 👇
⭐Pro tip: Explain the impact your product will create clearly. Add numbers like “Our tool has successfully reduced XX hours spent on repetitive tasks” to hold the audience’s attention if possible.
- Reiterating the problems
Remind the prospects exactly why they are here and what they are struggling with. As you re-iterate the problems, they will anticipate the solution even more eagerly.
Here’s our take on this 👇
⭐Pro tip: Keep the problems as specific as possible. Remember, you want the prospects to relate to these problems; that’s when they’ll be interested in the solution.
- Providing the solution through an effective value proposition
The value proposition is the sweet spot between the challenges faced by the prospects and your solution. It is all about how you position your product. It should be a compilation of your target audiences, their pain points, services, and potential benefits.
Here’s our take on this 👇
⭐Pro tip: The most straightforward way to write a value proposition is to follow this formula:
[Brand name] helps [buyer persona] solve [key pain point] with [product/feature name] and achieve [ benefits].
- An actionable call-to-action (CTA)
The CTA should match your target audiences' intentions and emotions, not just the usual "Book a demo" or "Sign up." It could be -
- Start a 7-day free trial
- Read our case studies
- Watch our interactive product demo
Anything that helps the prospects to make faster decisions.
⭐Pro tip: Spice it up with some social proofs. For example: “Read how we helped Brand X achieve X% increase in [key metric].”
- Objection handling questions and answers
Address the common objection handling questions and invite the potential buyer to ask more questions. Answering these questions appropriately will be a game-changer, as prospects usually use these objection questions as the key drivers behind their purchase decisions.
⭐Pro tip: Providing free access to potential users or offering a hands-on interactive demo of the product helps address most objections.
- Follow-up plan
While prospects may not agree with your proposed follow-up plan, keeping one will establish that you value this deal. The pitch should include a potential follow-up calendar on the next steps. If the prospect is serious about the purchase, they will try to abide by the follow-up plan.
⭐Pro tip: Send placeholder call invitations and allow the prospects to propose a different meeting schedule based on availability.
Sales pitches don’t have to be generic or an awkward experience. Explore how Alltius makes crafting compelling pitches that convert 30% more a breeze.
How do you divide your time while delivering a sales pitch?
Suppose your sales pitch deck is ready. What’s next? How do you plan to present it? 82% of sales professionals believe that building relationships and connecting with people is the most important part of selling. Your sales call should strike the right balance between building relationships with prospects and communicating your product’s value.
To achieve that, distribute time in the following way:
- Don’t spend more than 10% of your time in the introductory part, and state your agenda quickly
- Spend up to 30% of the call asking discovery questions to the prospect to customize your sales pitch further
- The next and most important part is explaining your solution and making sure to spend at least 30% to 40% of your time. Be ready to explain ROI impacts to make a difference
- The closing phase is where you try to get a verbal agreement from the prospects to establish the fact that you understand their pain points and you have the solution to address it and spend at least 30% of your time in this to win their trust and plan next steps
Best sales pitch examples
A sales pitch entirely depends on the products you are selling, your industry trends, and your audiences. Different sales professionals have different flows and styles for telling their product stories. When it comes to creating a sales pitch, switch from the “Practice makes perfect” mindset to the “Practice makes a habit” mindset. As you evolve as a sales professional, your skills evolve, you build your systems, and your sales pitches go from good to great.
But we have a good sales pitch example in mind - Slack’s product launch video from 8 years ago.
Though it was uploaded a while ago, it still satisfies all the sales pitch best practices like:
- Pinpointing the challenges faced by traditional workplaces
- The visuals beautifully capture how messy traditional workplaces can get and how Slack streamlines everything
- Positions Slack is a one-stop solution to all workplace challenges while explaining how it does that
- Explaining the benefits of replacing traditional workplace with Slack, loud and clear
- An explicit “Sign-up for free” CTA
Tips and best practices to create a better sales pitch
The average B2B sales close rate in 2023 was 29%, which is not much. Add a long sales cycle to that, and sales reps are again frustrated and clueless about how to win more deals within a short period.
Well, a personalized sales pitch eases the process.
Here are a few tips that worked for us in terms of creating and presenting a sales pitch:
Be confident and communicate your true self
Be confident in your attitude so the prospects trust in you and, therefore, your product. If a sales professional appears less confident, it is a lost battle even before you start presenting your sales pitch.
Some standard practices to show confidence are maintaining eye contact with the prospect, sitting straight, shaking hands, etc. But above all, wear your personality to stay authentic.
Use simple language, avoid jargon
Breaking down complicated concepts for the prospects is always a good idea. Especially in B2B sales, where at least three decision-makers are involved in two-thirds of business teams, you must expect each decision-maker to possess a different level of knowledge.
Explain your product in the simplest possible way and avoid technical jargon - you must practice these to simplify the sales pitch presentations. Also, talking less and allowing the prospects to ask their questions make a huge difference in persuading the prospects to buy your products.
Don’t play the guessing game with B2B prospects
Honesty goes a long way in any profession, and sales is no exception. If a prospect asks a question you don’t know the answer to, the more innovative way to approach it is by admitting that you don’t know and replying simply with “I don’t know, but I will get the correct answer for you” goes a long way. Lying or answering based on guesswork may end up offending the prospects, and they may decide not to move ahead with your brand.
Become pitch-perfect with Alltius
With Alltius’ AI sales assistant, your sales team can craft personalized sales pitches, outreach emails, cross-sell pitches in seconds, aligning perfectly with customer needs to improve conversion rates by 300% or more.
With Alltius, sales teams have an expert AI assistant to rely on for their calls and daily activities, reducing the need to be present in multiple channels at once. Alltius’ AI assistants are extremely easy to use and require no training to set up and maintain.
Core Features for Sales teams:
- Lead Qualification: Use Alltius AI sales assistant to score leads & identify ICP leads, thus helping to prioritize high-potential prospects.
- Personalized Outreach: Alltius’ AI sales assistant can use CRM data, previous emails and sales enablement content to craft personalized email which boosts conversion rates.
- Pitch Generation: Alltius can craft tailored pitches for the sales team based on prospect information, company documentation and use case details within seconds.
- Objection Handling: Alltius provides the sales team with answers to all objections within seconds during the sales call.
Pros
- Alltius.ai emphasizes security and compliance with certifications like SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001.
- Can be used by your team with minimal training and effort.
- Can be set up in one-day.
- Offers a free trial.
- Completely customizable platform.
- Offers white-label AI sales assistant software.
- Product team has AI experts from CMU, Google, Amazon and more.
Conclusion
A good sales pitch engages your prospects for a brief period, but a great sales pitch helps them take action.
Your sales pitch is the combined effort of your sales and product marketing team to represent the product’s value most convincingly so that the customers are instantly sold.
Research your target audiences, identify what’s bothering them, and present a solution that answers all your prospects’ questions. That’s how you create a ‘unique’ sales pitch, if not ‘perfect’.
Sales pitches don’t have to be generic or an awkward experience. Explore how Alltius makes crafting compelling pitches a breeze.
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