Delivering Your Pitch at Land Forces (Part 1). Hint: don’t talk about your dead grandpa’s jacket
Meeting people at a trade show like Land Forces is much like dating. But without the awkward moment when someone compliments your jacket and instead of being a normal human and saying ‘thank you’, you say ‘oh, it’s belonged to my dead grandpa. He loved it and I wear it to feel close to him.’ And you fill the silence by adding ‘I mean, he didn’t die wearing it… or anything.’?
TRUE STORY.?
Anyway, when you meet someone at Land Forces they will have, at most, 15 minutes to stop and chat. That means you need to be prepared and practised.??Over the few weeks we’re going to show you how to prepare for, conduct and follow up after engaging with your target audience. Part one is all about The Preparation.
Pace it out
You’ve got 15 mins. Don’t be that arsehole who won’t leave because you’ve got 18 slides on your presentation. I would argue you shouldn’t have a presentation at all. But, that’s just me.?
15 mins goes VERY quickly. Here’s what it should look like.?
Yes. Only ONE THIRD of the time should be you pitching.?
If you pitch for the entire 15 you miss two crucial things
Worse than that, by talking for 15 mins at someone’s face you’re that annoying guy at the party who just talks and talks and talks and everyone around them slowly disappears until even the plants are all dead and that’s probably how Grandpa died in the first place.?
So, what do you do with your 5 mins?
Demonstrate how you solve their problem?
Look, it sounds a bit wanky. I know. But think about a 4WD.?
领英推荐
When people buy a 4WD they buy toughness, the ability to go off-road where no one else can, the ability to monster-truck smash dickheads in the Woollies car park. The problem the 4WD enthusiasts have is ‘I want adventure! Safe, reliable adventure!’ Toyota responds with an ad showing how the Land Cruiser gets you to the most remote, ridiculous locations, and back home safely.?
Toyota doesn’t sell the product, they sell the solution. Think about your product in the same way - what problem does your company solve? Answer that and you have the starting point for your pitch.?
Yeah, okay, but how do you deliver that in the meeting? Well, that’s part two. For now, just figure out what problem you solve.?
Not every customer has the same problem
You might be looking for partners, customers, market intel, export opportunities, someone to join your team for the upcoming Extreme Ironing world championships. Whatever. Just remember, not everyone you approach has the same problem. So you should have a few pitches ready to go. If that’s just way too much to think about then figure out what your overall goal for the show is and focus on that one pitch.?
Your Homework
Figure out what your customer’s problem is and how your product specifically solves it. This gets you thinking about your product’s benefits, not just its features. Is it manufactured locally? Is it smarter, stronger, faster, lighter, cheaper, more reliable than what’s being used now? How are you doing it differently?
Remember
Features:??? Four big wheels on a car
Benefits:??? Adventure! Safety!
Sign up to the GDIS Newsletter ‘Such a Tool’ for Part II: How To Structure Your Five Minute Pitch (Hint: Don’t Talk About Your Dead Grandpa), and Part III: The Follow Up (Hint: Film an Interpretive Dance of Your Company’s Quad Chart).
The GDIS Newsletter ‘Such a Tool’. Impressively infrequent. Marginally useful.