💡Product Circle ⭕ Chat - How to craft a sales pitch to stand out and win
💡Product Circle ⭕ Chat 15 with April Dunford on Positioning and the Sales Pitch.
Product Circle Chat is runs every second week as a Zoom call that anyone can join to talk all things product, product management and problem solving. Creating value for customers and the business.
“Your target market is the customers who buy quickly, rarely ask for discounts and tell their friends about your offering” - April Dunford
Topics discussed are from the Product Circle Chats Trello board.
This Product Circle Chat was run 29 February 2024 at 9am (Sydney Australia time).
Product Circle Chat 15 - Topic
How to craft a sales pitch to stand out and win
✨ Positioning & Storytelling ✨
💡Great question from Michelle Lia to April Dunford on whether to use the Hero's Journey framework in storytelling and positioning products for Sales?
In the Hero's journey, the 🦸♀️ hero is the customer. The customer embarks on the epic quest, and they meet a guide, and that's you, and the guide gives them the the call to action, or whatever, and then they they go forward and they achieve success and they avoid failures.
The problem with hero's journey is if you look at the arc that way, it works well for things like a customer case study, for example, and show the current customer situation, what they then did, and how it looks after. Or pitching to VCs. Or telling the story of your product vision and strategy.
✨The Hero's Journey is focussed too far into the Future✨
In as Sales conversation the response may be "Oh, well, that's great, I'll you know. Call me in 5 years, when all that has happened. I'll buy something from you then" 🚪
The customer is pretty likely to delay a purchase.
✨Storytelling in the Sales Pitch is about the Present✨
We cannot sell the future too much today because of the customer's propensity to just delay. So we have to be very careful when we're talking to sales and marketing, and we're teaching them how to tell the story. We've got to stay really in the present.
👀 But the answer isn't the Product feature walk through
💡The Sales Pitch starts with:
1. The Set up = Market:
⭕ insight
⭕ alternatives
⭕ perfect world
2. The Follow Through = Your Solution
⭕ Differentiated Value
HelpScout - Traditional Product Walkthrough
HelpScout - Sales Pitch
✨ Positioning is not Strategy ✨
Positioning is all about right here right now. Why pick us over the other guys right now?
Positioning is the great story we tell to make sure that we're selling so that we make revenue so that we survive to execute on the product strategy.
💡 Where is the intersection between Jobs to be done and Positioning?
April: So I'm listening to some guy talk about the milkshake story, and he's like people are going through the drive through by milkshakes. We don't know why. And then we find out that. Oh, they're having it for breakfast, because they're bored on the drive, and whatever. And I thought, no man. You know what you know what they figured out. It's the job. Yes, right? But also what they really understood was the ✨competitive comparable✨
Product Circle Chat 15 - Video
Product Circle Chat 15 - Speaker
Product Circle Chat 15 on 29 Feburary 2024 was presented by April Dunford
April Dunford is the GOAT on Positioning for scaling tech companies.
She wrote “Obviously Awesome - How to Nail Product Positioning so Customers Get It, Buy It, Love It” and “Sales Pitch - How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win”.
April has spent 25 years in leading marketing, product and sales teams. She’s worked with over 200 companies on positioning including Google, IBM and Epic Games and is a former repeat VP Marketing and Product and currently a consultant
You can find April on her “Positioning with April” Podcast, follow her on Linkedin and visit her Website.
Product Circle Chat 15 - Slides
coming soon
Product Circle Chat - Q&A
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Let’s Keep Talking Positioning
Join the Context and Framing - Product Positioning Masterclass and let’s discuss how to create a Product Positioning for your Product.
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