How to build your sales pitch

We know a core part of a sales process is having a sales pitch. Or a sales story. Or a sales narrative.

Whatever it’s called these days.

You can’t just use your investor pitch deck for this. Buyers want their problems solved now. They don’t care about how big the market it, or what’s your vision 5 years from now.

Using an investor deck as a sales pitch only leads to one thing - delayed deals. “Talk to me when you’re able to do this….”

So how do you put a sales story together, in the early days, that will get prospects to think differently? Let’s go!

Table of Contents

• What is a sales narrative?

• Developing your unique point of view

  • P.S. these types of videos will be exclusive to th …

• Components of a sales pitch

  • Polarizing Insights

    • P.S. These types of videos will be exclusive to th …

  • Positioning the market

  • The real problem

  • The ideal world

  • Your solution

• Example Sales Narrative

What is a sales narrative?

A sales narrative is a story that your prospects will resonate and empathize with. By articulating the problems they have in their world, it will start building trust.

Your story should really set the context as to why you exist.

It should explain the void in the you’re solving in the market.

When you have a good, compelling story like this, your prospects will be more receptive to hearing about your unique differentiators throughout your sales process and demo.

Developing your unique point of view

Before getting into the mechanics of building a sales narrative, it’s important to think about your unique point of view on the market.

When you’re brand new, and nobody knows who you are, they will not move their budget over from a competitor to you unless there’s a compelling reason.

Your unique point of view should be polarizing - it should get strong yesses and strong nos.

It will influence how you go to market and how you build your product.

P.S. these types of videos will be exclusive to the membership community

Components of a sales pitch

I’ve created quite a few sales pitches so far in my career. Some resonated. Some didn’t.

I’ve also received 100s of pitches as a buyer and from coaching founders.

There are a few frameworks I keep coming back to because they just work.

What I’m going through now is a combination of 3 things:

1. April Dunford created an easy framework in her book Sales P!tch that translates your positioning into a sales story. I highly recommend you read it.

2. Challenger has a commercial teaching framework that I’ve used for pitches, webinars, and thought leadership content. It’s really effective at explaining your POV.

3. Chris Orlob, when he was at Gong.io, had a great framework for a polarizing nexus that really resonated.

So with these frameworks, time, and experience, this is what I came up with that works well in the early stages of your startup.

There are 5 main components of an effective sales pitch.

1. Polarizing insight - what’s your unique point of view on the market. This presents your positioning from the start.

2. The alternatives - list off pros and cons of different ways to solve the problem.

3. Reframing the problem - the problem behind the problem. They why. The void in the market.

4. Ideal world - the objectives, goals, and results they want to get to. The new way of doing things.

5. Your solution. This can be a light demo, a slide, or just verbal. Focus on what makes you unique.

Polarizing Insights

Polarizing insights are all about attacking the status quo.

Pick an enemy (not your competitor). That enemy should be your prospect’s status quo. And attack that enemy.

Some folks will say you’re wrong, but a big chunk of folks will think you’re right and will be interested in what you have to say.

Use a collection of your experiences, observations, prospect calls, customer calls, and market trends to help you compile this polarizing insight.

P.S. These types of videos will be exclusive to the membership community

Positioning the market

When positioning the market, you don’t necessarily want to talk about a specific competitor unless you have to. Try to stick to groups of alternatives.

Every alternative has it’s strengths. You want to highlight this. You can’t just say that every option is bad - prospects won’t believe you.

When thinking about cons, try to think about the weakness within their strengths. Try to find a problem with what they are good at.

The real problem

Reframing the problem is all about identifying the void in the market.

Why hasn’t the problem been solved yet by current alternatives? This is the question you are trying to answer.

This should naturally point to your unique differentiators.

The ideal world

The ideal world is all about presenting the Objectives, outcomes, results, and capabilities gained…

Without talking about your solution yet.

You’re not sharing specific features. You’re talking about what the prospect would ideally want in order to solve the problems they have.

Your solution

Now you get to talk a little bit about yourself.

This is usually done through a demo, but could be a slide deck or just verbal.

You solution should focus on the unique features and differentiated value from your positioning exercise.

Example Sales Narrative

Here’s a rough example of a sales narrative for SalesMVP Lab.

Let me know what you think of the newsletter! Always want to cover topics that you care about.

For more practical early-stage sales tips, connect with me on LinkedIn.

If you’re looking for more hands-on help implementing your first sales process, reach out for coaching packages.

P.S. Starting the waitlist for summer group coaching cohorts. Reply if you’re interested.

P.P.S. Coming soon - the only upskilling community for founder-led sales. Ask me about details :)