How to Pitch Your Company to Close More Deals: A Complete Guide

Finding new clients for your business is an important part of growing and becoming more profitable. But to get new clients, you often have to pitch your business to prospects.

Whether you choose to pitch in person, over the phone, or via email, it’s important to maximize your chances of success in the limited amount of time you have with the prospective client.

Here are some ways you can practice better pitching so you get more clients faster.

In Person

Face-to-face pitching can be the most effective way to gain new clients and customers, but it also is the most time-consuming and expensive method. You only can have so many in-person meetings in a day, so you need to find ways to maximize each contact.

Here are 3 ways to make better in-person pitches:

Make a Personal Connection

While your product or service may be incredibly valuable and necessary for the person you’re meeting with, all the talk about what your business does won’t really matter much if you don’t personally connect with your prospect.

Rather than launching straight into your business pitch, find some way to personally connect with the prospect. This can be discussing something you both have in common, or it could be asking your prospect about their individual business challenges. Get the conversation going, and keep the focus mostly on the other person at first.

This strategy will help you develop that rapport and connection that’s necessary in a strong business relationship, and will make selling your product or service that much easier.

Actively Listen

When you’re talking with someone, it can be very easy to get distracted and lose the thread of the conversation. However, spacing out doesn’t look good to your potential customer and can cause them to walk away from doing business with you.

Instead, practice active listening. Sit or lean forward slightly when the other person is talking, keeping your eyes on them. Ask brief follow-up questions to clarify anything that you don’t understand, or repeat key phrases back to them to show you’re listening.

If necessary, take some notes that you can refer back to at a later time, but don’t let your note-taking become too distracting to the conversation you’re having.

Watch Your Body Language

Pitching your business in person has one element above communicating via email or over the phone: Body language. This can be both a blessing and a curse, as it’s easier for you to read how your prospect is thinking.

However, you need to pay attention to your own body language to avoid offending the person.

Sitting with crossed arms may be comfortable for you, but it can tell the prospect that you’re angry, annoyed, or disinterested, even if you’re feeling none of those things.

When talking face-to-face with a prospect, tune into how you’re sitting and holding yourself. Are you looking the person in the eye or is your gaze wandering? Are you slouching or sitting up straight? Does your posture show that you’re ready to listen to them or that you’d rather be anywhere else but here?

If you need to, practice focusing on your body language in conversations with your co-workers and friends. Have them bring to your attention any times that your body language slips and pay special attention to how you’re holding yourself.

On the Phone

A phone call pitch is second in effectiveness to in-person pitching. You still get that personal touch and connection, but you’re going to be able to make more phone calls in a day at a lower cost to your business.

Try these 3 ways to make your phone pitch more successful:

Smile

Even if you’re not feeling smiley, be sure to smile whenever you’re on the phone with a prospective client. That smile, as strange as it sounds, does translate to the other person’s ear and can give them a more positive view of your overall conversation.

Before you even dial the number, take a deep breath and put a big smile on your face. Maintain that smile even when you’re just listening to the other person talk.

And if you’re dealing with someone who is unhappy, smiling becomes even more important. You need to be able to maintain a steady, calm demeanor and smiling in the face of someone’s anger can help you keep your cool.

Find Common Ground

Just as in an in-person conversation, connecting personally with the prospective client or customer is important to helping you make a sale. The more the prospect feels you “get” them, the more they’ll trust you.

Start the conversation by introducing yourself, and then give a brief overview of your company and what you do. Then, ask the prospect what sorts of challenges they’re facing that relate to your offerings, and just listen.

Let the prospect talk and, as necessary, ask follow-up questions. Don’t work too hard to show

exactly how your business can solve the prospect’s problems right away. At this point, you’re focusing more on giving them a platform to talk about what they need, and you can swing the conversation back around to how you help later.

Do Your Homework

Whenever possible, get to know your prospect before a phone call. This doesn’t mean you completely internet stalk them, but a little cursory research is helpful.

If you’re going to be talking to the owner of a business, for example, do a little research on the business, its history, and what they offer their customers. This puts you in a better position to fully point out the ways the services you offer can help them.

The more up-front research you do, the better prepared you’ll be to answer their questions and propose solutions during your call. Not only that, but even a little work beforehand can help you foster a genuine personal connection with the prospect, making your work during the call easier. 

By Email

For many people, email is the way many business relationships get started. In some cases, you may never actually talk to a client on the phone or meet them in person, instead conducting all business through email.

Here are 3 ways to make your email pitches even better:

Check Your Grammar and Spelling

Even small mistakes in your spelling and grammar in a business email can quickly sink the deal. Taking a few extra minutes to carefully proofread any email pitches out before you send them is crucial.

If necessary, have someone else look over these emails before you send them to get a fresh set of eyes looking out for any mistakes.

To help avoid many common issues, resist the urge to write your pitches on your phone or tablet. Instead, sit down at your computer and type them out. This prevents you from falling victim to autocorrect and inadvertently sending a really embarrassing typo to a potential client.

Be Friendly, But Not Casual

When writing emails, there’s a fine line between a friendly business email and a too-casual email.

Avoid using slang or abbreviations, and limit your use of exclamation points and ellipses. While these may be staples of the emails and texts you and your co-workers send to one another, they’re not appropriate for sending in emails to potential clients.

On the other hand, you don’t need to use million-dollar words and phrases just to sound smarter. Use plain, descriptive language without getting too bogged-down in sounding overly intelligent. Your potential client will appreciate you writing at their level much more than if you’re using fancy language.

Stay Organized

Sending emails, especially if you’re answering or asking several questions, can quickly become disorganized. It’s much more difficult to ask tangential questions in an email without losing the whole thread of the conversation.

When writing your emails, do your best to keep them as organized as possible. Use bold type, bullet points, numbered lists, and subheadings whenever necessary.

These small organizational pieces will help keep your email organized and allow the reader to find different sections if they feel the need to revisit an item.

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