How to Optimize Your Sales Pitch and Better Engage Your Audience

Oftentimes, business professionals are so technical in explaining their products or services that they forget they need to appeal to the most important people...their customers. It is not enough that you have a good product; you have to have your sales pitch right. In this digital era, businesses need to step up their game and improve their sales approach both in person and online. Sales professionals need to customize their sales pitch to appeal to their target market in a lively and interactive way. You must exude confidence in your product and with yourself.

In this episode, The Five Echelon Group's Founder/CMO Eric Dickmann has a conversation with sales expert and SalesPitching Founder-Nick Capozzi about sales pitch and having better engagement with your target customers.

Nick Capozzi is a sales expert and Founder of Sales Pitching. He is a public speaker from Phoenix, Arizona, who has more than twenty years of experience developing sales presentations and increasing revenue for globally recognized brands. He and his team at SalesPitching work with business owners who are visionaries and technical experts  but have become de facto heads of business development and sales. Over the years, Capozzi has helped numerous businesses rebuild their sales presentations to engage potential customers and help them adjust to selling remotely and close more deals. Work with Nick Capozzi now if you want to transform your business and enjoy long-time results!

Problems With the Sales Pitch

Nick Capozzi believes that all components in your company's sales pitch should be able to tell a story. Many people miss out on the opportunity of having a good sales pitch with their clients because of their misaligned sales presentations. When you take that sale pitch online, you should consider asking yourself these four questions:

• How are the presentations structured?
• How does the sales page look like?
• How does my sales page tie into my sales pitch?
• What is the story I want to tell my market?

Capozzi also points out that it is not enough for businesses to talk about their product or service's features and functions. They need to build an emotional connection and establish trust between them and their clients. Customers want businesses who understand their needs and demands. You may have a right product or service, but without building rapport it's difficult to make the sale.

In Nick’s 20 years in the cruise industry, he was able to interact and train people of different nationalities. This allowed him to realize that we must build connections with people wherever we go. People often are so worried about saying the right things that they forget to listen and understand the person they are talking to. Remember that your goal is to build a loyal customer base that keeps buying over time. The more you get comfortable conversing with clients, the easier it will be for you to make a sales pitch that's appealing.

Nick shares his typical process when engaging with clients and businesses. He advises us that when you write any presentation script or sales pitch, you should be writing it to be spoken instead of writing it to be read. Doing this will help make your interaction with clients more fluid because it sounds more natural and understandable than scripted and hard to follow. It's best not to stick to a single script but make sure it's customized for each client. Some people prefer to talk faster with you, while others require more explanation. As a salesperson, you have to learn how to adjust to your clients of different ages, cultures, and nationalities. Your sales team has to understand the need to make adjustments in their communication strategy so that both parties will be in sync when engaging in a sales conversation.

Speaking First, Writing Down Second

A good practice to improve your communication skills is to listen to one of your virtual meetings and evaluate the times you had grammatical errors, verbal inconsistencies, or even unnecessary redundancies.  Being aware of your errors will give you room to develop your delivery skills and sales pitch strategy. Capozzi has been coaching people on delivering their messages but has noticed that the majority of them are so afraid of missing out a key subject area of their talk, that they become overly conscious and focused on tackling everything listed in their script. They forget to connect with the people who really matter- the audience. In his talks, Nick usually discusses his product or service for a short period of time first and then lays the breadcrumbs for the audience to ask their questions afterwards.

Making Your Product Story Interesting For Customers

The founder is usually the one who is the most excited and confident with his/her product or service. However, they can often too enamored with what they are selling that their pitches sound extremely technical and boring. To improve one’’s delivery skills, Nick advises us to record ourselves explaining a concept or a process for a dedicated amount of seconds or minutes. In that way, whenever people ask about technicalities, you can easily refer them to watch your pre-recorded video guides instead of spending long periods complicating a simple concept. It's a simple way to keep from going into the weeds with technical explanations.

How Do You Tell and Sell a Story at the Same Time?

The way you tell your story and the sales strategy used to market your product differs from industry to industry. You cannot sell software services the same way you pitch pet food. Different products have different markets, and recognizing their differences will help you and your team adjust your strategy to make your approach more relatable and successful. Many businesses believe their prices are lower than the other competitors but frequently the reason people select higher-priced products is that the company is more reputable...they've told a better story. Capozzi reminds us that like watching movies, creating something artistic and creative is what people want. It's the emotional connection! Rapport is essential when it comes to making a sales pitch and building a marketing presentation. You have to tell a story that connects on an emotional level.

Setting the Tone of the Conversation

Nick points out that oftentimes, business professionals fail to consider the conversation's tone, making the presentation with customers boring or even awkward at times. Your goal should be to make your customers comfortable when talking with you and always looking forward to your future interaction. According to Capozzi, how you approach your clients on calls or in-person changes the whole dynamic of the following minutes of your conversation. It's all about bringing the energy up and engaging people!

If you want to be good at sales and really crush your targets, you've got to bring energy and get people enthusiastic and excited about what you're pitching. If you don't bring your A-game in your sales pitch, they'll feel discouraged and become easily distracted. You might be on a Zoom meeting but they could be replying to an email, or surfing the web. You've got to focus and be engaging with your clients to keep them excited and looking forward.

Having a Better Engagement With Your Virtual Market

To better engage with your virtual audience, you have to learn how to read people's body language. Business professionals have to understand that understanding their customer's non-verbal cues can help them to connect with customers. It might be challenging or sometimes even feel impossible to build rapport with the hundreds or even thousands of people you are dealing with, but if you manage to make personal connections with your clients, your business can go farther. Establishing trust with your customers is a step-by-step process that takes time. You don't have to panic if your first attempt at building rapport with your customer is not as good as you hoped. You have to keep trying to perfect your sales pitch and be confident in you delivery.

What are the Things I Need To Do To Keep My Customers Engaged?

There are many different ways you can connect with people. There's the marketing message on the website that can be enhanced with some video content. You can also put your sales pitch on PowerPoint or Keynote and even use a sales email approach to reach out to potential clients. Despite the many channels that you can use, some salespeople still have difficulty with customer engagement. According to Nick, many business people struggle with pitching their goods and services online because of their lack of personalization. He says that we are often tempted to copy and paste our messages instead of customizing them to engage the readers. Most of the time, people don't respond to bland and repetitive text; instead, they are more likely to participate in conversations that are fun, informative, and easy to read.

For as low as $10 per month, Nick Capozzi uses Loom to customize creative "Thank You" messages for his new clients and existing customers. Loom steps up your game by helping you personalize content that can make your customers feel special and appreciated. In just less than forty-five seconds, you can create customized content that it tailored for each client interaction.

Tips in Interacting With Your Audience

When people put together a presentation, they sometimes want to be too much like Steve Jobs. They want to do something that's way over the top and fancy for their skill level. Capozzi reminds us that our interaction is much more important than the actual sales pitch and message we convey. According to him, whenever he has talks at conferences, he ensures that he makes time to approach the audience and interact with them for a bit before the discussion. Walking around the audience builds rapport between and focused during the presentation.

Many salespeople succeed because they are personable. Nick encourages us to be a little playful and casual with our audience. If that goes against how you are wired, then maybe it shouldn't be you initiating the presentation. It should perhaps be someone on your team who can build that kind of rapport and have a little bit of that playfulness first. After all, it is much easier for you to deliver your sales pitch to a happy and energetic audience. CreateHYPE lists the 10 tips to help you become a more confident salesperson:

• Value yourself
• Know your targets and your benefits
• Demonstrate value
• Consider your brand
• Find your passion
• Sell something bigger than your product
• Build relationships
• Have some fun
• Set a sales goal
• Change your mindset

Live Stream Replay

FAQ

• All components in your company's sales page should tell a story.
• Rapport is essential when it comes to making a sales pitch and delivering a marketing presentation.
• Most of the time, people don't respond to the bland and repetitive; instead, they participate in conversations that are fun, informative, and easy to understand.
• Interaction with the audience is much more important than the actual sales pitch and the message we convey.

Episode and Guest Links

Eric Dickmann - Founder/CMO of the Five Echelon Group, can be found online on Twitter or his personal website.

• To learn more about Virtual CMO, strategic marketing consulting services, or anything else discussed here, please contact The Five Echelon Group.
• The Five Echelon Group's  Resources to Restart Your Business
• If you have feedback, questions, or are interested in being a guest on the show, please contact us here.

Nick Capozzi  - Public speaker, sales expert, and Founder of SalesPitching can be found online on LinkedIn and Twitter.

• Discover what you need to know about setting up and running a hyper-profitable sales team with SalesPitching!