PT Barnum, Qantas, You and Me?
STARTED YESTERDAY… NOW TO YOU..
I’m sitting in the Qantas Club waiting for my delayed flight from Melbourne to fly back to Perth.
‘Safety Over Schedule’ has been Qantas’ mantra this week.
The Chilean Ash Cloud now a wing on a Jumbo looking suss..
I’ll take the Safety thanks… No problems.. I’ll get home just that little later..but at least I’ll get home..
But that’s not what I wanted to write about this week..
THE PITCH.. THE PITCH.. THE PITCH
On Tuesday and on Wednesday working with the clients in Melbourne and Sydney, yet again, the power of raking over and analyzing the Pitch and Proposal process, we uncovered literally $1,000,000’s in better ways of doing things..
In Sydney the client was pitching for $1.5 million in business. They were very concerned the revenue was going to be cut based on what their client had told them.
With the rejigging of the pitch, (to better follow the Pitch Science Formula we teach), their client was over the moon and the account looks to not only be all green light, but even the possibility of a bigger spend..
“They absolutely loved it… talking the complete package on the spend.. great work!!” was the sms to me after the meeting..
What are you doing to make sure you are following The Science of the Powerful Pitch??
I can almost guarantee it, in 99% of cases you will be talking TOO MUCH ABOUT YOURSELF and NOT ENOUGH ABOUT THE CLIENT..
I can also almost guarantee, that you will have the RIGHT PARTS IN THE WRONG PLACES when you do the pitch.
PITCH HEALTH CHECK OFFER
If you have a team of 5 or more who are involved in Sales or Business Development, I’m offering to the first 5 companies a 30 minute ‘Pitch Health Check’ Phone Coaching session (valued at $297). Hit reply and write ‘Pitch Health Check’ in the subject line and I’ll get back to you.
EVERYONE HAS A PITCH
No matter what type of business you are in, there will always be that critical moment when a prospective client will ask you (often all so very casually) ‘and what do you do Leigh? (Insert your name here..)
And what you say in that moment will either open the door to the next step of possibility or slam it shut…
What comes out of your mouth in that moment will excite, engage and interest them.. or it won’t. It’s really your choice. You choose your words.
Qantas has cleverly chosen ‘Safety Over Schedule’ this week.
Three very powerful (carefully chosen) words they are repeating over and over again.
It is a pitch… a positioning statement that they are using to position themselves in the mind of their target market.
Toyota used ‘Oh what a Feeling..’
Coke used ‘Coke is It..’ and ‘The Real Thing..’
McDonalds were using ‘MMMM… I’m Loving it’ and ‘just that little bit fancy..’
At Blue Rocket we used ‘its not Rocket Science but it is Science..’
Taking that in a slightly different direction at Leigh Farnell BEST BUSINESS I’m using ‘be the best business you can be..’ but I still will keep testing and improving it… ‘Innovate or Die!’ might just be too in your face (what do you think?)
WHAT MAKES YOU DIFFERENT?
Both you and I want our positioning statements to position us as different.
You don’t want to be seen as the same as your competition. Why?
Because you’re not the same as your competition.
You have different standards. Different personalities. Different versions of customer service, cleanliness, quality, responsiveness, education, value etc etc and you need to get that across in your pitching.
I was saying to a client the other day..
‘There are hundreds of trainers, coaches, consultants out there these days telling, training, pitching their wares. Almost none of them have both a business background and an education background.
Many of them are very good at telling you ‘what they used to do when they were in business’ but almost none of them are experts at creating learning environments where people actually learn or transform.
Almost none of them are experts in Adult Education.
Most are ‘stand and deliver – Sage from the Stage – rather than ‘Guide from the side…’ coaches..’
The client said ‘Leigh, you’re absolutely right, I’m pretty sick that ‘stand and tell’ speaker/trainer/consultant and so are our people…’
WHY DON’T YOU TELL THEM?
One of my old mates and colleague of over 20 years asked me the other day ‘why don’t you put your University Qualifications on your marketing materials or business card?’
I said: “do people really care?”
He said, ‘well if you spent 8 years at University studying Human Performance, Psychology and Social Psychology in the Workplace; what makes high performing people, high performing workplaces and high performing teams, don’t you think your business prospects might want to know that?’
‘Pertinent, pointed, poignant and powerful question’ I said back to my old friend.
Thus, I might just start letting people know these things I had stopped telling them about 15 years ago…
We can all learn and take things to the next level can’t we?
NOT UP TO SCRATCH
I actually went to a meeting during the week planning for a conference I am speaking at later in the year in Queensland and they told me they had been to see one of the speakers they were planning on using, only to see them then tell them they weren’t what they wanted.
This speaker must have been somewhere between devastated or at least a little put out but the problem was, they were another example of someone thinking they could just get up on stage, tell a disjointed collection of stories, talk about what they did in their business or when they were a Manager in some large company, and think they were either educating or entertaining or something in between.
It didn’t cut the mustard and they are no longer on the bill.
SO WHAT?
What does this have to do with you?
- Get your positioning statement clear
- Make sure you position yourself different to your competition
- Plan and Practice and Review Your Pitch
- Make sure everyone on your team can tell your company story the best possible way
- Find out what your prospects dislike about dealing with people in your industry, then make sure you DON’T do it.
- Make sure people know what makes you different from your competition (Have I already said that? Well it’s so important I thought I’d say it again..)
- You never make as much money as when you are in the situation where people ask you and the people on your team ‘and what do you do Bob?’
PS: One of my old mates (who tells me he deletes these emails) said to me the other day ‘Farns, you are a Shameless Self Promoter’. I said ‘Thanks , I’ll take that as a compliment….’
Try business without it.
As the great PT Barnum once said ‘Without promotion something terrible happens. Nothing!’
See you next week.
