Here’s
the Pitch
Regardless of the business you’re in or the product you
sell, common wisdom holds that you must work harder to land more sales pitches
and that you will make only a couple of sales from every 100 pitches. Thus,
sales is a numbers game that depends only on effort and volume. That sounds
like a pretty difficult way to make a living, because it depends on the idea
that – no matter how good your presentation skills – you are destined to strike
out most of the time. Instead, you need to learn this crucial secret: As a
presenter, the success of your pitch is less about your presentation skills and
more about how you get and hold your audience’s attention.
Crocodiles and Business
To boost your pitch success percentage, take a moment to understand
some basic neuroscience. The brain is divided into three parts. The first and
deepest part is the “crocodile brain”: The “croc brain” responds first to all
incoming messages and reacts in a fundamental way, with raw emotion and a fast
fight-or-flight reaction. The second part is the midbrain, which responds next
and gives meaning and thought to the input it receives. The last response comes
from the neocortex – the part of the brain charged with making sense of
complexity and with solving problems. This poses a challenge for presenters.
You develop presentations and pitches in your neocortex and construct your
sales argument as a complex problem to solve. Then you share your solution with
your audience. Your audience members, however, receive your message through the
croc brain, which responds one of three ways: losing interest, deciding the
message is a threat or passing the information on to the midbrain in a
condensed form. Sales pitches always face this cognitive process unless you are
selling “a product so sexy it’s irresistible,” like a Ferrari.
Making a Pitch Your Audience Will
Catch
To impress the croc brain with your message, use the
“STRONG" process. STRONG stands for: “setting the frame, telling the
story, revealing the intrigue, offering the prize, nailing the hookpoint and
getting the decision.” When you go into a business meeting, you must first set
the frame. Try to establish a framework – a set of conditions – favorable to
keeping your audience’s interest. Your audience members have likely seen
several similar presentations. They will try to frame the meeting to get it to
end as quickly as possible without having to engage with you. In terms of the
cognitive science at work, “the stronger frame absorbs the weaker,” and whoever
sets the frame prevails. For example, consider the last time a police officer
pulled you over for a minor driving infraction. The cop had a number of tools
that created an advantage over you – like sirens, lights and a uniform. As the
officer walked toward your car, you probably reacted with an elevated heart
rate and the desire to explain yourself; the cop was in charge before even
asking, “Do you know why I pulled you over?” The police officer controlled the
frame. In a business situation, you need to control the frame and understand
the frames that other people present to you. Those who feel they are more
important than others in attendance will use the “power frame.” Such people
expect you to defer to their status. Defuse this tactic with a “power-busting
frame” that includes a “mildly shocking but not unfriendly act.” For example,
if your audience member demonstrates personal power by doodling on your
handouts, take your handouts back to demand attention. You also will encounter
the “prize frame.” The task in this frame is to determine who is the prize in a
given discussion. You always want that prize to be you. If the main client you
plan to pitch to is absent from the meeting or running late, make yourself the
prize. Instead of pitching to staff subordinates, offer to wait a short while
and then say that you will need to reschedule for a later date at your office.
While this might unnerve you the first time you try it, you are reframing the
discussion to make clear that the information you will present is a prize worth
pursuing. Another important frame is the “time frame.” Whoever controls the
timing of the meeting controls this frame. Watch for signs that your audience
is losing interest – at that point, they control the time frame. Keep control
of the timing of the meeting and wrap things up before your audience cools and
wants to move along. Finally, there is the “intrigue frame,” which is often at
war with the “analyst frame.” Remember that the croc brain governs emotion and
interest, which are “hot cognitions,” while the neocortex handles problem
solving, which involves “cold cognition.” You want to keep your audience
members involved in a hot cognitive process for as long as possible. When they
can analyze the puzzle you present and reach their own solution, they’ll lose
interest. Maintain a sense of intrigue and challenge throughout your
presentation to keep the hot cognition active. Accomplish this by telling a
brief story in which you are the star. The story should pose some sort of
“risk, danger and uncertainty,” and a plot that forces you to solve the problem
in the story in a limited amount of time or face serious consequences. The
element of risk and the looming threat of bad results create necessary tension.
You want the people in your audience to feel that they must know how you will
solve the problem. Their emotions remain
active as they journey through the story with you, and their analyst frames
will not come into play.
Establish Your “Status”
How others view your
status determines your ability to master a dominant frame and control the
interaction. You don’t gain status by being nice. If you lack “high status,”
you won’t be able to get the audience focus you need to throw your pitch.
Status is about taking the “alpha” position, the one with primacy and the most
authority. If you don’t seize that position, you will fall into the “beta trap”
of being subordinate to the alpha. Nobody listens to or pays attention to the
beta. You must have status in order to persuade and to close. Pitch meetings
are almost perfectly designed to put you in a beta position. First there’s the
lobby, where a gatekeeper greets you and asks you to take a seat. The wait
demands that you cede control of the timing of your visit to whoever comes to
escort you to the meeting. Such “beta trapping” continues throughout the
meeting, keeping you at a disadvantage. “Your position in the social hierarchy
is an artificial measure of your worth to others, a construct based on your
wealth, your popularity within society at large and the power of the position
you hold.” To assume the alpha position, manipulate the variables. Start by
ignoring the rituals that exist to put you in the beta position. Do not be
deferential, never join in pointless premeeting chatter and don’t let anyone
tell you what to do. Also, ignore your customer’s status. Look for ways to
boost your frame and to shift the conversation to areas where you can
demonstrate expertise. Make yourself the prize and encourage your customer to
acknowledge your alpha status
The Pitch
Many salespeople let a pitch go on for too long. To keep
your listeners’ croc brains engaged and the hot cognition going, limit your
pitch to about 20 minutes. To introduce your idea, discuss “why now.” Speak to
your presentation’s urgency by examining the economic, social and technological
forces that affect the aspect of the client’s business that your pitch
addresses. This is an important step in establishing “movement,” another
neurological trigger to maintaining interest – the brain is wired to see
movement and change, not stability. This technique also allows you to grab your
audience’s attention, which is crucial to maintaining control of the pitch. You
need to create both “desire and tension” in your audience, and that requires
understanding their neurochemistry. Both of these emotions are linked to the
production of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain. Dopamine transmits the
pleasant feelings a person gets when anticipating a reward. The brain creates
norepinephrine in response to tension. Manage the creation of these two
chemicals, and you’ll have your audience members’ attention. Then, you can
deliver your secret sauce, which is “the unfair advantage you have over
others.” This sets you up to offer the deal, which takes the least amount of
time in your 20-minute pitch. Deliver it in four steps: 1. “Introduce yourself
and the big idea: five minutes.” 2. “Explain the budget and secret sauce: ten
minutes.” 3. “Offer the deal: two minutes.” 4. “Stack frames for a hot
cognition: three minutes.”
Bringing It Home Your final step is to keep your audience
members in hot cognition so they stay emotionally excited about your idea. Once
they are enthusiastic about the concept you’re offering, demonstrate your alpha
position by reinforcing your power through the frames you use, one after the
other, stacking the intrigue, prize, time and “moral authority” frames. The
powerful moral authority frame shows up quite often in daily life. Think of
your doctor, whose approach might be “the most powerful frame in the world.”
The doctor commands all the cues that demonstrate clout. A physician has specialized
knowledge that can mean the difference between life and death, or sickness and
health. To attain that knowledge, doctors dedicate a significant part of their
lives to education, and they earn commensurate salaries. When you encounter
your doctor, you are likely wearing a flimsy gown, while the doc is dressed in
business attire or a white coat. You accept your physician’s recommendations
almost as commands. By taking a piece of this moral authority and applying it
to your pitch, you can gain some part of the automatic response you give
doctors or others with moral authority. Avoid looking needy as you pitch: “It’s
incredibly bad for frame control. It erodes status. It freezes your hot
cognitions. It topples your frame stacks.” Neediness can torpedo your pitch;
the croc brain sees it as a threat and shies away just when you want it to
engage. Neediness can be hard to avoid, because it arises from the natural
human tendency to seek validation – to want feedback from your audience that
says your pitch is acceptable. Avoid closing your pitch with statements such as
“So, what do you think?” or “We can sign a deal right away if you want us to.”
To combat neediness, use “the Tao of Steve,” a philosophy from the film of that
name, which is based on the qualities of actor Steve McQueen, TV’s Six Million
Dollar Man Steve Austin and Hawaii Five-O cop Steve McGarrett. The heroes
evince three lessons: 1. McQueen shows how to “eliminate your desires” – Don’t
want something. 2. Austin shows how to “be excellent in the presence of others”
– Show expertise. 3. McGarrett shows when to “withdraw” – Stop while your
audience still wants more. In other words, keep your cool while your audience
is thinking hot, demonstrate your area of competency and stop even though your
audience still wants more. Keep a sense of humor about your pitch. Remember the
example of frame control that presidential candidate Ronald Reagan exhibited in
his 1984 debate with his opponent Walter Mondale. While Mondale wanted to take
control of the campaign through a frame that focused on Reagan’s advanced age,
Reagan deflected this with the famous comment, “I will not make age an issue of
this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent’s
youth and inexperience.” Mondale was 56 at the time. Reagan became the alpha by
taking control of the frame with good humor and a likable attitude. The
American electorate embraced his pitch and awarded him a second term.
