The Vital Differences Between Winning & Losing Sales Pitches

You can’t have sales success until you know how to make effective sales pitches.

In fact, pitching is the great divider between the top 1% of sales leaders and everybody else.

Until you make effective pitches, you’ll continue to get results like the other 99% of sales reps who don’t know how to effectively pitch, which includes:

• Jumping through hoops to develop pitches
• Constant pushback from potential customers
• Losing what could be easy deals

To help you become a part of the top 1% who close a majority of the sales deals in less time than everybody else, I’m sharing the key differences between winning and losing sales pitches.

Knowing how to make winning sales pitches is what opens the door to sales success, and therefore overall business success!

And believe it or not, going from making losing to winning pitches is simpler than you’d think...

Unless You Make Winning Sales Pitches, You Can’t Close Any Deals

Unless you make great sales pitches, you can’t close any sales deals, because great pitches effectively:

• Tell prospects everything they need to know to make a purchasing decision
• Make the prospect feel completely understood by you (maybe even better than they understand themselves)
• Make the prospect feel confident that you are THE person who they NEED to get to a better place

Every great pitch hones in on these three key points. 

Unless you address these points in your final pitch, then good luck closing the deal!

You can have all the other factors in order, including great testimonials, case studies, and killer social media content, but if you can’t make winning pitches, you can’t close deals.

If You Can’t Make Good Sales Pitches, Prospects Can’t Make Decisions

There is no such thing as a perfect sales pitch, but every pitch should lead prospects down a perfect pathway toward a purchasing decision.

By the end of the pitch, it should be a no-brainer to them that they sign with you! Never should the prospect have to go and check with their superior or contemplate their decision.

Instead, the pitch should end, the deal should go on the table, and the prospect should immediately sign on the dotted line.

At that point, they should have all the information they need to make a decision AND feel completely confident in doing so.

Here’s What Happens When You Start Pitching Like the Top 1%

The best sales pitches do more than help you close more deals.

On top of that, they also help you close bigger deals in less time and with less pushback from customers.

If you’re currently struggling with sales in any way, shape, or form, I bet that pitching like you’re in the top 1% will help solve your challenges!

Prospects Treat You as the Expert Who You Are

You are an absolute EXPERT at what you do! You’re not just another supplier or vendor on the block, but an irreplaceable expert who has special knowledge and insights that nobody else has.

Once you start pitching like the 1%, prospects begin to see you as the expert who you are. Instead of seeing you as an option, they’ll see you as somebody they can’t afford to survive without.

Vendors and suppliers are replaceable, while experts are irreplaceable! Use your pitches as an opportunity to frame yourself as an expert.

You Stop Getting Hit With Customer Objections

First off, top sales leaders who make effective sales pitches almost NEVER get hit with customer objections, because the pitch addresses every possible concern the prospect might have.

Not only that, but the pitch makes it obvious to the prospect that the sales team has the obvious solution they need to get to a better place.

This way, the pitch ends with a signature on the dotted line instead of tons of pointless objections.

Prospects Don’t Even Think About Negotiating

By the end of your pitch, because prospects see you as an expert and don’t have any objections to you, they won’t even think about negotiating because they’ll understand the total value in what you do.

On top of that, they won’t think about negotiating with you because they know that an expert would never negotiate, particularly on price.

Could you imagine a patient trying to negotiate the price of surgery with their doctor? Of course not.

Similarly, prospects won’t even consider negotiating with you because they believe in the value that experts bring to the table.

Your Entire Sales Process Gets Shorter

Because the best sales pitches address every concern the prospect might have and reduce the odds of negotiation, the prospect is likely to sign the deal right away.

As a result, the entire sales process gets shorter.

Instead of being left out to dry at the end of the pitch, you close out the selling process right away! This gives you the chance to dive right into solving the customer’s needs and focus on other matters instead of being left in limbo waiting for the prospect to make a decision.

You Close More Deals In Less Time Than Ever Before

Ultimately, pitching like the top 1% helps you close more deals with new customers than ever. And who doesn’t want that?

If you’ve tried everything else in the book to make more sales only to no avail, then this is your shot at having success this time around!

Put everything else aside to focus on your pitches. Start acting like you’re a part of the 1% by putting your focus on pitches so that you can generate the results that only those of the 1% know about.

Here’s How 99% of Salespeople Make Losing Sales Pitches

Want to know why your sales pitches never end victoriously?

It’s probably because you’re making losing pitches like a majority of salespeople do. By losing, I mean that the pitch doesn’t end with a signature on a dotted line.

Here’s what a losing pitch looks like and what NOT to do if you want to start making successful sales pitches.

They Make Pitches About Themselves Instead of the Potential Customer

Who is selling about? Is it about you or your potential customer?

Of course you know it’s about your potential customers and their needs, but I bet that up until this point, your pitches have revolved around YOU, your company, and your offerings instead of the potential customer’s problems, wants, and needs.

For example, I bet that you spend the bulk of your pitches talking about your offerings, service or product features, and overall capabilities. But where does the prospective client fit into this?

Pitching is supposed to be about the PROSPECT, not you and what you bring to the table.

Whenever you do this, you’re seen as a vendor who lines up to be judged by prospects for their capabilities. As a result, prospects will compare you against other vendors and select which one they like most.

The more you make pitching about yourself, the more you’re seen as a vendor and the less likely prospects are to opt for you.

Pitches Are Long and Confusing

The hard truth about humans is that we have the attention spans of goldfish, and your potential clients are no exception to that.

Despite this fact, most salespeople draft long and drawn-out sales pitches that lose the prospect’s attention in a matter of minutes.

Not only do they make them exceedingly long, but they also make them extremely confusing. Instead of focusing strictly on the prospect and their problems, they talk about factors that barely matter to the conversation.

In the end, the prospect ends up bored and confused.

Nobody likes sitting through long and confusing pitches, not even you! That said, why do you continue to draft terribly long and confusing pitches that lose the prospect’s attention in seconds?

They Create a Totally New Pitch for Every Prospect

Do you have all the time in the world to create new sales presentations for every prospect? Of course you don’t.

However, why do you still create totally new pitches for every single prospect?

All this ends up doing is eating up time that could be spent focusing on more important matters, such as cold calling new prospects or getting to know your current prospects more.

Your time is absolutely precious, so why waste it creating new presentations for every single prospect when you could be doing something else?

Pitches Are Straight-Up Facts Instead of Emotions

I’ll give it to you straight: No prospect cares about the tech specs and special features of your product/service.

Don’t believe me?

Imagine walking into a computer store looking to buy a new laptop. Your goal is to get a laptop that’ll support your work processes. However, when you’re met with a salesperson, rather than selling you a supportive laptop, they start hitting you with terms like CPU, SSD, and RAM... 

All you wanted was a laptop that would help support your challenging work processes, but now you have to think about all these different product features that you don’t know anything about!

Most salespeople sell 100% facts in their pitches. All this ends up doing is losing the prospect’s attention and making them question whether or not they need a product/service with all these fancy features.

Rather than selling facts that prospects don’t care about, salespeople should focus on fulfilling emotional desires.

The Pitch Is a 1-Way Street

Traditional two-minute elevator pitches might work on Shark Tank, but they don’t work in the real world.

Why?

Shark Tank-like pitches are a 1-way street in which the sales team does 100% of the talking while their prospects sit in despair, totally uninvolved. All this does is make them feel like they’re back in a college lecture hall!

Nobody likes being lectured to in college, so it’s best not to do it during a pitch either.

This Is How the Top 1% of Sales Leaders Make Great Sales Pitches

Here’s how the top 1% of sales leaders make winning sales pitches! By winning, I mean that they close each pitch with a signature on the dotted line.

Believe it or not, but it isn’t difficult to start upping your pitch game. Rather, it’s a means of scaling back the complexity so that you’re able to portray a clear message to prospects.

Going from sales pitch zero to one hundred is simpler than you think!

They Make the Pitch All About the Customer’s Desired Outcome (IMPORTANT)

Here is the single most important factor of a winning sales pitch: The pitch MUST show prospects that you understand the greater outcome that they’re trying to reach, the pain point standing in their way of reaching that outcome, and exactly how to overcome that pain point so that they have a clear pathway towards the outcome!

That’s all that it takes!

Too often, salespeople think that pitches are all about showcasing how their product/service will help fulfill a need to solve a pain point. However, that’s not the case.

What is the case, is that prospects see pain points as hurdles standing between where they are now and where they want to be (AKA, the desired outcome). That outcome can be anything from being the most dominant company in their industry to solving world hunger.

The key is to show prospects that you’ve got the magic that’ll remove hurdles (pain points) from their path so that they can successfully reach that outcome.

But Brian! Don’t the prospects need to know more about my product/service? How can they make a purchasing decision when I’ve barely talked about myself?

Prospects don’t care how they reach their desired outcome, rather, all they care about is that they get there! So, if you spend 90% of the pitch honing in on the outcome they want and 10% talking about how you’re going to get them to it, that’s enough.

The more you make the pitch about the prospect and their desired destination, the better.

Sales pitches are all about your prospects and the outcome they want to reach! Spend 90% of the pitch diving into the prospect’s desired outcome and 10% on how you’re going to help get them there by knocking down a hurdle in their way.

Pitches Are Short, Sweet, and to the Point

Top sales leaders understand that a single, very hard punch is more likely to knock somebody out than several soft punches in a row.

That’s why they make their pitches short, sweet, and to the point to give the biggest blow to the prospect!

Instead of wasting time that doesn’t need to get wasted, they grab the prospect’s attention with a killer opening line, jump straight into the prospect’s desired outcome, and close on a pathway that’ll show the prospect how they will get from where they are now to their desired outcome.

Top sales leaders rarely deviate from talking about anything that doesn’t have to do with the prospect’s desired outcome because they know that doing so will only cause confusion.

Rather than wasting time and confusing prospects, top sales leaders jump right in, get straight to the point, and keep things short.

Pitches Are Repeatable

Top sales leaders create a single sales pitch outline or template that can be replicated for all their different prospects.

This comes as a shock to many sales reps; they think that every prospect deserves their own unique pitch.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a unique pitch for every prospect, but I am saying that the outline should generally be the same: Open with a killer line, jump right into the prospect’s desired outcome, and show how you’ll take them from where they are now to that outcome.

This way, pitches are easily repeatable so that you don’t have to spend as much time developing them.

Each Pitch Tells a Story

Not to be dramatic, each one of your prospects sees themselves as a hero in the midst of an epic battle to reach their desired outcome.

An effective sales pitch leans into this storyline to harness the prospect’s emotions. Because at the end of the day, prospects make purchasing decisions based on emotional pulls rather than facts.

An effective pitch is outlined as a story in which the prospects are on a mission to make some greater impact on the world, but they’ve got these demons, or pain points, making it challenging for them to make that impact. What they need is some magic elixir to help them slay the demons so that they can be the heroes they want to be. That magic elixir is the solution you bring to the table!

By framing your pitch along with this same storyline, you’ll enthrall the prospects to make a purchasing decision!

The Pitch Is a Conversation

Effective sales pitches are casual conversations between decision-makers and salespeople- that’s it!

Sure, they’re formal sales meetings, but the pitch should feel like a lighthearted conversation between two friends wanting to help one another.

This way, the situation feels less like a pressure cooker! Salespeople will relax, and when they relax, the prospect is more inclined to trust them.

Unlike a 1-way Shark Tank pitch, top sales leaders make pitches like a casual conversation between two friends casually hanging out together.

Final Thoughts on Differences Between Winning & Losing Sales Pitches

The differences between winning and losing sales pitches might seem small, but they make all the difference in whether or not you close sales deals.

Not only that, but your ability to go from consistently losing to winning sales deals is a matter of going from making losing to making winning pitches.

It doesn’t matter from which angle you look at it; becoming a sales pitch boss will help you achieve your sales and overall business goals–whatever they might be!