ShareThisYou're on an elevator. Standing next to you is the CEO of a company you'd like to do business with. You have 30 seconds to introduce yourself, your company and your product. You want to make a good impression. Go.
It's called "the elevator pitch."
Michael Renzi teaches it to his professional sales class at Bryant University's Executive Development Center. At a recent session, Renzi had class members prepare their elevator pitches and then try them out on each other. Then Renzi and other class members offered their critiques.
"Remember, we're all friends here," Renzi told the class, which consisted of about 16 students grouped at four tables.
Some buried the hook - we can save you money - at the end of the pitch instead of showcasing it near the beginning. Sometimes the words were fine, but the body language was not. Some pitches offered too much information. Some presented too many options.
"This is not supposed to be a sales pitch. It's an identity pitch," Renzi said, adding that over time the elevator pitch can be adapted to different environments - a cocktail party, for example, or a trade show.
Renzi said there is such a thing as a natural ability to relate to people, which can be a tremendous help to a sales person. But he also thinks there are sales skills and techniques that can be taught, and that's what he does. "There's not one way to do it, there's not a silver bullet," Renzi said. "Everyone has their own style ... but it's a profession, just like any profession."
Renzi began his career as a systems engineer and marketing representative for IBM and has since held marketing and corporate education jobs at a variety of companies. In 1987, he founded Strategic Training Concepts, a corporate training company.
"Everyone is selling, all the time," Renzi said. "You're selling your ideas, you're selling yourself every day."
Most of the students in Renzi's class said they were taking the course as part of a certificate program in business management. They represented a wide spectrum of employers.
Mike Dufour sells industrial pumps. Dufour said he started selling industrial pumps about a year ago. Before that, he said, he had an auto body shop.
"I honestly never thought I'd enjoy being an outside salesman as much as I do," he said.
Renzi said he likes to include a lot of classroom participation in the three-hour course, such as the elevator pitches. "The class has to be interactive. That's the way people learn, by doing things," he said.
There was "qualifying," for example, which is determining who potential customers might be. Renzi emphasized that qualifying is a constant process as market conditions and corporate structure change. Renzi used slides in the class to illustrate his points. Under "qualifying techniques" he wrote ASK ASK ASK and under "when" he wrote "ALWAYS."
With the help of the class, he wrote down a list of qualifying questions about potential customers. What are their needs? What is their budget? What's the time frame? What's the location? Who's the competition? What's their vision for the future?
"The first thing to do is ask," he said. "Maybe they're not going to tell you. But it's amazing what clients will tell you if you ask."
He also talked about the bread-and-butter work of sales, making calls, which can be in person, by phone, by e-mail, or by letter. And that includes the dread cold call, when you make your pitch to complete strangers. Back when he was working for IBM, Renzi said, the company set aside "cold call days" for its sales force to knock on corporate doors.
Cold calling is less common now, Renzi said, as salespeople use networking to develop contacts. But he has noticed a recent technological wrinkle to cold calling - instant messaging when you visit a Web site. "It's the new cold calling," Renzi said. "You get a message and there's someone on the other end."
The key to any sales call, cold or not, Renzi said, is preparation. Know what you want to say, aim for specific results, and be ready for potential concerns or objections. "In some ways you're asking people to make a change, and people don't like dealing with change," he said.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
