Perfect Pitch

By Colleen Walsh Fong

If you have perfect pitch you can win lots of money to start your own business. Really.

Who Are YOU?

I just saw “The Who Hits 50” concert and Roger Daltrey’s great singing got me to thinking about perfect pitch and how it relates to professional writing and to growing a business.

Everyone has a pitch.

Kids pitch sleepover ideas to parents, play ideas to friends, and homework avoidance tactics to teachers.

Parents pitch all kinds of ideas to kids and fall back on rules when their ideas are vetoed.

The old-fashioned expression “pitching some woo,” meaning courting a girl, used to make me laugh. But I realize that anyone in business does it all the time whether they realize it or not.

Pitching By The Numbers

There are many different types of pitches used in business. They each have different purposes and so they’re made up of different components. These are the big three:

1. Elevator Speech Introduction--this pitch is usually given when you are asked to stand up at a meeting or conference and introduce yourself. It can also be given in a schmoozing one-on-one situation. An elevator speech should be a concise statement of who you are, what you do, why it’s different than anyone else, and how you can add value to the audience. Those four statements are all you need, and it’s best if you can say them, without rushing, in 30 seconds.

2. Cold Call--this pitch is given when you call a businessperson who you don’t know in order to make contact and get a meeting with the recipient. It should be brief, catchy, contain a question that forces an answer, and not too pushy. Remaining respectful of the call recipient’s time is important. He or she didn’t ask you to call and forcing a shoe in the door is a real turnoff.

Make sure you know the market you are cold calling within. Each business sector has its own culture. Some, like legal and financial, are formal and don’t take kindly to “go for the throat” tactics. Others, like tech, tend to be less formal and faster paced.

3. Electronic Pitches--these pitches take place on your website and are most prominent on your landing page. But each page of your site should contain a call to action, or CTA, to tell visitors what you want them to do.

Going Mobile

If you’re looking for funding for your start-up or young business you can take your pitch on the road. Pitch competitions are held all over the U.S. and around the world. Not singing ones like you see in the movie “Pitch Perfect” and on TV in “Glee”. But real money-awarding contests for business start-ups to sell their ideas to investor groups. Entrants pitch their business concepts. The most solid one wins the competition and a nice chunk of investment change.

Each competition has its own set of criteria that pitches must include to qualify for the prize. But some of the most common items are product description, target market, differentiator (what makes your product different,) return on investment, value proposition, and key players and their skills.

I found several in my area by googling “pitch competitions 2015 Atlanta.”

No matter which type of pitch you plan to make do your homework. Get the skinny on your audience and tweak your spiel to appeal. Practice it so you can do it without notes. Time yourself and tape yourself. Listen to your speed and slow it down if you’re racing through it, even if you have to prune your content to do so.

A good pitch can open many doors. Perfect yours for the best results. And be sure to contact me if you’d like some help.

Colleen produces custom copywriting and content for branding businesses of all sizes.