When is the right time to pitch? Almost never
Business owners, when is it right to go to the time trouble and expense to pitch for new business?
How about never. Does never work for you?
That sounds extreme. But let’s think it through.
Generally speaking, doctors never pitch for business. Why is this? Usually it is because we trust their expertise and value their work – making us or our loved ones better. There are few things more valuable than that. As a result, we sit in waiting rooms waiting for them to see us, their clients. It is rarely the other way around.
If you have been asked to pitch – or received a Request For Proposal – it is, in some ways, a bad thing. It suggests that what your firm does is undifferentiated from the competition, you are not regarded as a leading expert and what you offer is not of high value.
So you have to compete with other firms just like yours in a beauty parade. Not good.
Firms that still pitch do so, I think, for a variety of reasons.
They are not differentiated, they have not convinced prospective clients of their expertise.
But they also misunderstand what pitching is.
They believe, they actually want to believe, pitching is a competition of ideas on a level playing field. This is entirely wrong.
Pitches have many functions: benchmarking competition against favoured suppliers, covering for the fact the client has no real clue what good is, a desire to look “fair”, an opportunity to compare costs and drive them down.
They are most definitely NOT a competition of ideas on a level playing field.
Next time you are asked to pitch try these four courses of action instead.
- Don’t do it. Instead get a conversation going. On the phone or better still in person, where you can explain the expertise of your firm, outline your process, make clear that you don’t solve clients problems for free. You can build rapport and go into the relationship as an equal not a serf.
- Derail the process. Find a way to stop the clients’ process and instead make them adopt yours.
- If you must pitch, know this. Someone in the pitch has an unfair advantage. If it is not you, make it you: ask for special treatment: delays, meetings with senior leaders, new dates. You need to see the client give you special treatment. If you do not receive it…
- Don’t pitch.
If all that is hard to remember, think about this adage from the recruitment sector: no one goes in through the front door.
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About the author
My name is Andy Pemberton. As well as training how to win pitches, I am an expert in data visualization. I guide global clients such as Lombard Odier, the European Commission and Cisco on the best way to use data visualization and then produce it for them: reports, infographics and motion graphics. If you need your data visualized contact me at andy@furthr.co.uk or call 07963 020 103
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