Episode #158: The One Minute Pitch

If you have been following me for a while, you know how down I am on pitching. This is the standard modus operandi in japan. Turn up to the meeting with the buyer and bludgeon them with detail and data on your solution. Ask no questions but keep throwing a ton of mud up against the wall hoping some will stick.

I always stress you need to get permission to ask questions in Japan and then you need to have a good questioning formula which will allow you to uncover the buyer’s needs. Once you have achieved that you make a judgment on whether you can actually help them or not. There are occasions though where we don’t have that window to the client. This is where the one minute pitch can help.

This will typically be when there is very little face to face time with the buyer. I go to a lot of networking events and the time available to chat can vary. Often it is very short, because you are filtering the people you meet, to see if there is an opportunity to have a longer, more valuable conversation back at their office. We don’t want to get caught up in a riveting conversation, that sees us manage to meet just one person at the event. Like in the fairy tales, one of these frogs will turn into the beautiful princess, once they are kissed by the handsome prince. We just don’t know which frog to kiss, so we need to kiss them all.

As we apply our filter, we realise we have a beautiful princess here and we need to grab their attention to smooth the path to a follow up meeting later in the week in their office. This is where we need a brief pitch to grab interest and apply the hook for the next meeting.

Numbers are always good for grabbing attention. While chatting they may look at your business card or meishi and ask what your company does. This is very common in Japan. Instead of going into a spellbinding recitation of the incredible history of the firm, the triumphs, the awards, the accolades, try throwing out some mysterious numbers. They are mysterious because they are in isolation and therefore it is impossible to have any idea what they represent. This piques the client’s interest and curiosity.

So, as an example, when asked what we do, I might say something like this, “Let me give you four key numbers to explain what we do – 108, 64, 100 and 95. 108 is how long the company has been going since Dale Carnegie launched his soft skills training firm in New York. 64 refers to the number of years Dale Carnegie Training has been teaching in Japan. 100 counts the number of countries where we have offices on the ground to help clients with global businesses and 95 refers to fact we conduct 95% of our soft skills training here in Japanese language”.

In this power packed short burst I have pointed to the fact we teach soft skills, the robustness and reliability of the business in the USA and in Japan, sustained over many decades, our capacity to match the breadth of their coverage across the globe and the fact most of training is in Japanese, when most people think we only teach in English. At a reasonable clip I can get through those numbers and their explanation in 30 seconds, which means I have plenty of opportunity to take my time, use pauses for effect and let some of those numbers sink in. Following this, my immediate question to the client would be , “what do you do for helping the team with their soft skills at the moment?”. This will lead into a conversation to gauge whether there is any point in having a further chat. If there was, I would just say, “Sounds like we might have something to help you grow the business. I will reach out to you after this event and please allow me to swing by and show you what is available to help your business”.

I wouldn't add anything or explain anything further, because I want to have that face to face meeting in their office, in order to get down to the details of their business needs. The one minute pitch is just an entry point to getting them to accept my email outlining some times for us to get together. Think of some numbers which would work for you and three or four are enough, so give it a try!