The Most Offensive Word In Selling
By Bill Brooks on 25 Jun 2007 at 09:59 am
The word “pitch” offends me and it should offend you, too.
Why?
Would you want to get pitched? When I hear that word, I’m confident some prospect is about to suffer from an attack of sleaze.
Anyone in sales knows that the opportunity to meet (in person or over the phone) with a prospect or customer is a rare treat. Give it the respect it deserves. Don’t demean your prospect by hurling an unending stream of canned or memorized words at them. Don’t pitch. Instead, carefully choose your questions, observations and tailored presentation. Then remember to reserve any recommendation until you:
- Understand exactly what your prospect wants and
- Are certain you can provide it.
Stop calling a professional sales presentation a “pitch.” I, for one, believe that word is one of the reasons our profession has a bad reputation. Help me eliminate it.
If other professions want to continue to use the word (PR, advertising, etc.), that’s their problem. Let them suffer the fallout. Frankly, they already have.
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Spot on.
I figure the best thing to do with a new lead is to ask them questions which inform you of what they need, what they might buy, and then you can suggest that if you can show that you solve their problems, they might choose to buy it.
Anything else is pushing.
Its not often that you know more about a customer’s problems than they do, so sit back and listen.
Absolutely. I blogged this point last month too :
“Consider the real thing in baseball, where the phrase came from. We’re likening our interactions with prospects to throwing a hard object, from us to them, at a hundred miles per hour!”
It’s poisonous language (and sadly I still find myself using the word - though thankfully in this one respect I do not “walk my talk”)
Great reminder to eliminate words that have negative connotations . “Close” is another word sales reps use that is inappropriate. It conjurs up “deal is done/situation is over”.. when in reality the sale has JUST begun when client says Yes. And by the way, I’ve never “closed” any sale in my lifetime,instead I provided information that solved a clients problem and they made the right decision to “BUY/START OUR Relationship”.