The Ultimate Guide to a Winning Sales Pitch

‍

Imagine yourself on December 31st. You just crushed your sales numbers, your team is awarded a company-sponsored blue-sky holiday, your business is humming, and the cash registers are going Ka-Ching.   As the VP of Sales or a Sales Director, the feeling would be nothing short of holding the 13 1/2-inch, shiny gold figurines, and delivering your acceptance speech.  It takes a lot to get there, and having your teams deliver the magical sales pitch is the foundation of your sales process.

This guide will explore the science behind delivering a white-gloved sales pitch.  

‍

What is a Sales Pitch?

Research has proved that 84% of B2B buyers buy from a Sales Rep, who understands their opportunities and challenges, and personalizes them.

In other words, a sales pitch is the ability of your sales reps to articulate the value proposition of your offering in a concise statement and demonstrate why it’s the best solution that is personalized for the prospect’s needs.  

‍

Where can Sales Pitches go wrong?

Every buyer knows their problems are unique, and they want a solution that feels tailored to them. A sales pitch is a key tool for building trust with your prospects, showing them how you can solve their specific challenges. But when delivered poorly, a pitch can be as painful as a bad dental visit, leaving your buyer frustrated and disengaged.

A good sales pitch is all about building trust and helping your prospects see that you understand their unique needs. Even experienced sales reps can stumble in their pitches.  Here are some common pitfalls to watch for and how to coach your team to avoid them:

1. Lack of preparation: Poor preparation signals a lack of understanding about the prospect’s needs, leading to disinterest.

2. Lack of authenticity: Prospects can often sense when a salesperson is being insincere or using a cookie-cutter approach that can lead to poor trust building.

3. Focusing too much on features, not benefits: Bombarding prospects with product features without context results in confusion. Many sales reps fall into the trap of listing product features without explaining how they benefit the customer.  This overdose of information can bore or confuse the buyer.  

4. Ignoring buyer signals: When reps monologue, (talk-to-listen ratio is skewed towards the seller) they miss vital cues from the buyer, damaging engagement.  

5. Not addressing objections: Failing to prepare for objections leaves the prospect unconvinced.

6. Poor timing: Delivering a pitch when the buyer is distracted diminishes its impact. A pitch delivered at the wrong time in the sales process can be ineffective. Making a pitch when your buyer is distracted or attending to call, would pretty much not get you the next meeting.

7. Weak or missing call-to-action: A pitch that doesn’t clearly outline the next steps is a missed opportunity.

8. Templatized follow-up Emails: Sending generic follow-ups weakens relationship-building efforts. We would hate this if one is on the receiving end.

‍

How to coach your Sales team for that Winning Pitch

There are two coachable moments that you could use while coaching your teams for that Winning Sales Pitch:  

1. What you Say
2. How you Say  

‍

What you Say during a Sales Pitch:

Today’s buyers are well-informed and equipped with competitive insights. Sellers must be prepared to answer the key question on every buyer’s mind: “WHY are YOU reaching out to ME?”. Mastering ‘what you say’ is essential to building trust from the very start.

1. Greeting: Start with a memorable icebreaker to capture attention.
2. Reason (WHY): Explain why you’re reaching out right now.
3. Opener (YOU): Show how you’re qualified to help the buyer achieve their goals.
4. Breakthrough (ME): Demonstrate your understanding of the buyer’s specific challenges.
5. Schedule: Set clear next steps on how and when to reconnect.

‍

How you Say it during a Sales Pitch:

There are 7 components of how to deliver a Sales Pitch:  

1. Tone  
2. Pace  
3. Volume
4. Language Style  
5. Non-Verbal Clues  
6. Listening Skills  
7. Empathy & Understanding  

When both these components come together, here’s how they look:  

How to match a Sales Pitch with your buyer’s personality?

One of the most powerful tools in a sales rep’s arsenal is the ability to understand and adapt to different buyer personalities. By leveraging behavioral insights, your team can tailor their pitches to resonate with each prospect in an authentic and trusted fashion.  

‍

DISC in B2B Sales has proven that buyers fall into any of these Personality Types intersections:

There are 16 Buyer Persona Archetypes that you would be pitching to, and having the superpower of how-to custom your Sales Pitch is GOLD!  

‍

To Check your Buyer’s personality type, copy your buyer’s LinkedIn URL or if you are meeting a group of people, copy their LinkedIn URLs in Skwill.AI’s AskWilly AI Sales Coach for a detailed report on buyer intelligence and insights.  

‍

For instance, if your buyer is of the Persona is a Captain or Archetype D (Dominance), the buyer would Exhibit confidence and Decisiveness in choosing technology vendors who align to their business objectives.    

Compared to a Buyer Persona who is a Harmonizer or Archetype IS (Influence, Steadiness), would seek technology vendors who foster teamwork and relationships in their organization.    

Going back to the two coachable moments, here’s how you can personalize the Sales Pitch and script for Archetype D or the Captain:  

How can AI help in Sales Pitches?

Proactive coaching represents the future of training. Preparing and coaching your sales representatives in advance, rather than reacting post-event, can provide a competitive advantage.

Embracing an AI Sales Coach shall assist your teams with powerful buyer personality insights, which are pretty much impossible to generate, at scale.  Here are four steps on how you can coach your teams to use AI tools like Skwill.ai Ask Willy:  

‍

Generate a Buyer Personality Insights:

As the adage goes, ‘Failing to prepare is preparing to fail’. Empowering your Sales teams with an AI Sales Coach enables them to go prepared for every meeting, thus keeping up your company’s brand and reputation as well.   With the LinkedIn URL of your buyers/prospect, tools like Skwill’s AskWilly can generate a Personality Profile before a meeting.  One can also gather Group insights if one is meeting more than 1 buyer for your Sales Pitch.  

At Skwill we curated this data based on over 1000+ B2B sales meetings along with pipeline and performance coaching data. The chart below gives the buyer persona that Sales Reps would most often meet  

Personalizing your pitch to avoid dead ends, endless questions, and getting stuck in the weeds is what would make a sales rep stand tall over peers.    

‍

Customize Meeting Agendas:

On reading a detailed personality insight report, a gold mine of insights on how to greet, organize your meeting, or dialogue on your Sales Pitch is available in a click. For instance, Skwill’s AskWilly GPT goes a step further in crafting a meeting agenda script and how to maximize your opportunity to get the follow-up meeting.  

‍

Adapt your Sales Pitch Communication Style:

Meeting a buyer personality Captain (Archetype D) or a Harmonizer (Archetype IS) would need a different sales pitch to be crafted.  An AI Sales Coach recommends how to give a winning pitch with a Script for your upcoming meeting.  

‍

Script follow-up Email Sequences:

An AI Sales coach can help save significant time spent on manual follow-ups.  Follow-on sequences can be pre-scripted and sent to the buyer, to secure that next meeting.  

The AI Sales Coach can craft a follow-up email sequence, which is very customized to what the buyer wants to hear.  

‍

Practice, Practice:  

Sales is a contact sport, and hinges on the game of practice. Uploading a Role Play video can help your Reps get valuable feedback on whether your script is compelling enough.    

‍

Conclusion:

Coaching your sales team to deliver winning pitches is an ongoing process that requires dedication, practice, and a deep understanding of human behavior. By teaching your team the fundamentals of an effective sales pitch, helping them avoid common pitfalls, and equipping them with the skills to leverage buyer personality insights, you’ll set them up for sustained success.

Remember that the most successful sales pitches feel less like a presentation and more like a conversation. Encourage your team to approach each pitch as an opportunity to understand and address the prospect’s unique needs and challenges.

Emphasize the importance of continuous learning and adaptation. The business landscape is always evolving, and so too should your team’s approach to sales pitches. Regularly review and refine your coaching strategies, incorporating feedback from both successful and unsuccessful pitches.

Finally, foster a supportive team environment where salespeople feel comfortable sharing their experiences, challenges, and successes. This collaborative approach will not only improve individual performance but will elevate the capabilities of your entire sales organization.

By implementing these strategies and maintaining a focus on understanding and adapting to buyer personalities, you’ll empower your sales team to consistently deliver pitches that resonate with prospects, build strong relationships, and ultimately drive sales success. Click here to take a 7-Day trial of Skwill.AI AskWilly.    

‍

About the Author:

Vidya Santhanam consults for growth at Skwill.AI. With 20+ years of experience in Coaching, talent management and Go-to-market, Vidya loves working with scaling companies to accelerate growth. In the past Vidya was the co-founder of Fitbots OKRs and exited the business in 2024. She loves birding and reading management books.