Why success depends so much on presentations and the pitch 

For professional and financial services firms, success depends so much on presentations and the pitch. Teams on the front line are responsible for delivering the business through the impact of their words and emotional engagement with clients. Individual’s skills vary and each presenter has to play to their strengths, but do the corporate messages get lost in the process and are audiences left with a clear understanding of the most important takeaways?

Lead generation and sales team’s win ratio

Defining key messages at a corporate and product level and ensuring they are understood and shared throughout the organisation will not only ensure consistency, but will have a direct affect on your lead generation and sales team’s win ratio.

Explaining complex ideas and processes

Opportunities to get direct and truthful qualitative feedback from potential clients on the quality of pitches are rare. In our experience of researching audiences for lost and won pitches, it is in most instances a lack of clarity in explaining complex ideas and processes and a tendency to focus on what the teller is interested in rather than the audience that results in pitch failure.

Building trust

Presenting is all about building trust, at both a personal and corporate level and this requires a natural flow, focus on the audience and an understanding of their needs. In order to seal the deal, the sales team needs to ensure that the takeaways of the pitch are the main messages you want to make. The challenge is to pin point the key messages that convey exactly how you differentiate yourself from competitors and the value you bring to the market. Whilst these things may seem obvious, we’ve found that many organisations struggle in getting the story right and telling it in a way that is compelling and memorable.

Converting leads into business

Converting leads into business is easier when people are already familiar with you and your offer. A lot of trust has to be built to take potential clients from a cold sales lead to selecting your services and consistency in messaging at every touch point along the journey is an important element in building that trust. Prospects are very likely to waver when they find promises made by the first sales contact are contradicted by someone at a later stage. A small percentage improvement in conversions at each stage of the sales process adds up to a significant improvement in the ultimate number of pitches won.

Fuelling and maximising lead generation

While crafting messages and improving the sales teams’ ability to deliver them is just one element in building the trust demonstrated in our graph, there’s a great value in perfecting every aspect of your pitch team’s approach. Messages serve as a backbone to all forms of communication and a strong set of messages work as a marketing and selling engine, fuelling and maximising lead generation.
Article by www.slamglobal.com