Growth Curve … Making a pitch a winner,
No magic in the method, just hard work
In a gli t zy Manhattan event space 21 floors above the Hudson River, an Australian from Toronto is launching his new book, Pitch: What You’re Not Doing Makes All the Difference.
But Hamish McKenzie, surrounded by friends and business connections from three continents, doesn’t use this time to promote his book. That, he says, is not how you pitch things. Don’t talk about yourself, listen, he says.
So the main event at the book launch was a “pitch contest” featuring two entrepreneurs — one from New York, the other from the Netherlands — trying to “sell” their business concepts to a panel of experienced executives. The pitchers had each been coached by McKenzie after being selected in a global competition.
Both praised his presentation insights. Which is, of course, the point, as he told me that evening. “Why talk about yourself when you can get other people to do it?”
His company, McKenzie Pitch Partners, has a client list that includes blue-chip companies from Canada, the U.S., Europe and Australia. His reference client — the one mentioned on Page 1 of his book — is American Express Canada, which hired McKenzie to help them bid on supplying travel-management services to the Government of Canada. It would be the biggest deal in Amex’s history.
Hervé Sedky, then an Amex vice-president, says McKenzie changed their approach to pitching. Sedky and his 15-person team had intended to sell Amex’s trusted reputation in international travel. McKenzie told them to get over themselves and build their pitch around strategies and stories rooted in the client’s needs. Amex Canada won the bid, and called in McKenzie to advise on big pitches for years afterward. Their success turned heads at Amex’s Global Business Travel Division in New York, which implemented his process worldwide.
What’s so special about his methods? Not much. The magic is in what you stop doing. When companies pitch new business, McKenzie says the same three problems keep turning up: Viewing the client’s needs through their eyes rather than those of the client; taking the easy way out, by cutting and pasting text and whole sections from previous proposals; and failing to formulate a coherent strategy or a compelling story to communicate their message.
Most people faced with a new pitch can’t wait to drag out their slide collection. “Stifle the bloody impulse,” McKenzie says “You’re doing it ass-backwards.”
His process is called Pitch SSP (strategy, story, presentation). When responding to a request for proposal, he says the first step is to research your strategy. First, map out your client’s key decision makers, from CEO to procurement manager. Identify each individual’s two or three core needs. These are often different from the requirements in the RFP and often matter more, he says.
How do you suss out individuals’ needs? Call them and ask, “What are your top three criteria. Which one do you consider most important?” McKenzie says many pitchers hesitate to phone individuals, fearing they’ll be brushed off as a bother. But he’s found most procurement officers are glad to answer suppliers’ questions if it will produce more informed submissions. “If you do your homework,” McKenzie writes, “you’ll be surprised at how much valuable information you can glean in a 10-minute phone call.”
Once you’ve done your research, then you consolidate your strategy, then you articulate it. Developing your story takes as much work again. Says McKenzie: “It forces you to come up with a persuasive narrative rooted in your strategy, conceive a structure to frame it, make an outline to flesh out its key points, gather evidence to support it and create a master plan to maintain control over its development.”
After that, you still have to develop, rehearse and troubleshoot your presentation. Even Sedky admits the process can be a long, hard slog. But, he notes in his foreword to the book: “When we did the hard work up front, we wound up winning almost three times more often.”
The best reason for working hard is knowing many competitors won’t. At his book launch, McKenzie announced that 60 per cent of the entrepreneurs who entered his Pitch-Off contest submitted entries “that had nothing to do with the brief.”
The prize was $10,000 worth of McKenzie consulting services. Colin Kennedy, founder of Neuron Global, a provider of knowledge-management platforms that help companies find data faster represented New York. He did a great job of articulating the customer’s essential problem: “Where the hell is it?” As he said, “The experience of trying to find specific information is enough to drive you mad.” But he was less compelling about describing how his solutions worked.
The second speaker was Tim de Kraker, founder and CEO of BarDoggy in Midrecht, Holland. BarDoggy’s software app helps bars develop deeper customer relationships, and helps bar-hoppers find the liveliest (or cheapest) taverns in town. His slogan: “You have the right to control your nightlife.”
The judges praised both contestants, but awarded the match to de Kraker, noting all of his points were clear and well structured, with beginnings, middles and ends. When I interviewed him afterwards, de Kraker admitted he initially found McKenzie’s discipline hard to accept. “I was stubborn and tried to resist,” he said. “But in the end, I had to let go.”