If you enjoy doing the pitch 'tap dance' then you're far from alone. It's an adrenaline rush. Who doesn't enjoy giving the competition a damn good thrashing!? When you win it's wonderful...But it's also costly, time consuming and, unless your're the inevitable runner with the inside track, often a folly.
The 3 Valued Things principle is that if you're a true expert in something then you'll have been able to have enough conversations with a prospect to turn up with three things:
1. Something so aligned with their desired outcomes that they can immediately buy from you
2. A longer term plan that gives them comfort you 'get' how to deliver their longer term outcomes
3. A piece of insight - knowledge share - that they can pass on and that keeps them relevant and looking great to their boss.
So it's fascinating to see this 2020 stat from Sales Insight Lab that only 7% of top performing sales people report pitching. They know that having a clear B2B market positioning, holding genuine expertise about this positioning, and having upstream conversations with prospects to ensure that they can hit desired outcomes is a winner vs. pitching.
So if the prospect won't talk to you, walk away. Focus on your upstream of pitch B2B marketing strategy. Because they are talking to someone else. You're probably pitching purely to satisfy your own performance needs. Ouch!
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