Found in 2 comments on Hacker News
floppydisk · 2016-01-27 · Original thread
First of all, good luck! It's exciting to get your first major pitch to a big potential client. Hope it goes well and you guys close the deal. There's also some great advice in this thread.

With regards to your question, Zig Zigler had a great line about pitches in the Secret of Closing the Sale (http://www.amazon.com/Zig-Ziglars-Secrets-Closing-Sale/dp/04...). Put your best point up front and communicate your value to the client and save your second-best point for closing rather than hammering them in order from strongest to weakest. Reason being people tend to listen to the beginning and end of pitches and ignore most of what's said in the middle. Hammer your best value proposition up front and save your second-best one for last. I strongly recommend Zig's book for learning sales. You get a good idea of what goes into pitches and selling and how to deal with the various objections you will get as you try to close a sale.

Your job is to communicate to the client that the value your product provides outweighs its cost and you solve some of their major pain points. It sounds like you already know what they are so hammer them. Spend your time explaining what you do for them, not "we have a team of rockstars yada yada yada". I start tuning out at that point because everyone thinks they have a team of rockstars. I care more about the value you provide and your ability to deliver and less about your team of rockstars -- unless you have a major differentiator like the creator of a technology commonly used in the space on the team for instance. Solve my problem and tell me when you will have it solved. "We solve XYZ, saving you $BUCKOO_BUCKS and we can deliver it next week."

Good luck and happy hunting!

gregpilling · 2014-05-01 · Original thread
This is an excellent book http://www.amazon.com/Zig-Ziglars-Secrets-Closing-Sale/dp/04... . I buy used copies and give them to friends starting new businesses.

Used copies start at 1 cent, and I closed a lot of deals with the contents of this book. Very easy to read, with short humorous chapters.

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