Pitch Anything: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal: An Innovative Method for Presenting, Persuading, and Winning the Deal

PITCH ANYTHING

PITCH ANYTHING

An Innovative Method for

PRESENTING, PERSUADING,

AND WINNING THE DEAL

OREN KLAFF

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For Dad, true north

Contents

Chapter 1
The Method

Chapter 2
Frame Control

Chapter 3
Status

Chapter 4
Pitching Your Big Idea

Chapter 5
Frame Stacking and Hot Cognitions

Chapter 6
Eradicating Neediness

Chapter 7
Case Study: The Airport Deal

Chapter 8
Get in the Game

Index

PITCH ANYTHING

Here’s the “big idea” in 76 words: There is a fundamental disconnect between the way we pitch anything and the way it is received by our audience.

As a result, at the crucial moment, when it is most important to be convincing, nine out of ten times we are not. Our most important messages have a surprisingly low chance of getting through.

You need to understand why this disconnect occurs in order to overcome it, succeed, and profit. This book tel s you how.

I Am Not a Natural

I pitch deals for a living. My job is to raise capital for businesses looking to expand rapidly or go public. I am good at it. When companies need money, I get it for them. I have raised mil ions for deals involving Marriott, Hershey’s, Citigroup, and many other household names—and I continue to do so at a rate of about $2 mil ion per week. From the outside, the reasons for my success seem simple: I offer wealthy investors profitable deals that involve Wal Street banks. But others do that, too. Yet I raise a lot more money than they do. They compete in the same market. Do the same types of deals. Pitch the same kinds of facts and figures. But the numbers show I am consistently one of the best. The difference isn’t luck. It is not a special gift. And I have no background in sales. What I do have is a good method.

As it turns out, pitching is one of those business skil s that depends heavily on the method you use and not how hard you try. Better method, more money. Much better method, much more money. It’s no different for you. The better you are at advocating your position, the more successful you wil be. Maybe you want to sel an idea to investors, convince a client to choose you over the other guy, or even explain to your boss why you should be paid more. I can help you get better at it using the five methods in this book.

Pitching a Master of the Universe

Over the years, I’ve pitched to—and closed deals with—some of the iconic businesspeople of our time, including founding members of Yahoo!, Google, and Qualcomm. But the story of what I can offer you cannot real y be told without my explaining the day I went to pitch one of the guys Tom Wolfe would describe as a “master of the universe.”

“Jonathan” (never Johnny or even John) is an investment banker who controls vast sums of capital. He gets between 600 and 800 pitches a year; that’s three to four every business day. He often makes multimil ion-dol ar investment decisions based on no more information than a few e-mails on his BlackBerry.

As a dealmaker, this guy—and I have absolutely no intention of giving you his name; he sues everyone and anyone at a moment’s notice—is the real deal.

There are three things you must know about Jonathan. First, he’s a math phenom who can calculate yield curves in his head. He doesn’t need spreadsheets. He can instantly analyze what you are pitching him. Second, he’s seen more than 10,000 deals and can detect any kind of flaw or BS no matter how wel hidden. Third, he’s tough talking and, at the same time, witty and charismatic. The upshot: When he’s pitching you,
his
chances are good. When you’re pitching him,
yours
aren’t. Yet, if you want to be taken seriously in venture capital, you need to have done a deal with this guy. And so, some years ago, when I was working to raise money for a software company, I arranged to pitch Jonathan and his investment team. Given their reputation, I knew if I got them on board, it would be a lot easier to raise money from other investors who were stil undecided.

They’d say, “Hey, if Jonathan signed off on this, then I’m in too.” But Jonathan knew the power of his endorsement—and he wasn’t going to give me an easy win.

As my pitch got underway, he made things difficult. Maybe it was for sport. Maybe he was having a bad day. But it was clear he wanted to take—

and keep—control of the whole presentation. I didn’t realize this at the start, however, so, I began, as I always do, by
framing
(frames create context and relevance; as we wil see, the person who owns the frame owns the conversation). I explained exactly what I would—and would not—be talking about, and Jonathan immediately started giving me a type of resistance cal ed
deframing
, which is exactly like it sounds.

For example, when I said, “We expect revenues to be $10 mil ion next year,” he cut me off and changed the frame with, “Who cares about your made-up revenue projections. Tel me what your
expenses
are going to be.”

A minute later, I was explaining, “Our secret sauce is such-and-such advanced technology.”

And he said, “No, that’s not a secret sauce. That’s just ketchup.”

I knew not to react to these comments. I pressed on.

“We have a Fortune 50 company as our largest customer.”

He interrupted with, “Look, I’m done here in nine minutes, so can you get to the point?”

He was real y making it difficult. You can imagine how hard it was to use al the right techniques:
setting the frame, telling the story, revealing the
intrigue, offering the prize, nailing the hookpoint, and getting the decision.

Col ectively, I cal these the
STRONG method
(you wil learn about these soon).

Some 12 minutes after I began, what I had hoped was going to be my best pitch ever instead showed al the signs of being my one of my worst.

Put yourself in my situation. After just 12 minutes of your presentation, you’ve been told that your secret sauce is ketchup. Told that your projections are made-up numbers. And that you have nine minutes left to actual y make a point.

I was faced with the
presenter’s problem
: You can have incredible knowledge about your subject. You can make your most important points clearly, even with passion, and you can be very wel organized. You can do al those things as wel as they can be done—and stil not be convincing.