You wrote a new pitch last week. Days of work. Practised out loud. In the car. In front of the mirror.
Yesterday you used it seventy times.
What those seventy produced
- 22 hung up. Not interested.
- 18 didn't answer.
- 14 voicemails.
- 10 not available, call back later.
- 6: "send me some information and a checklist."
And by half past eleven this morning you hadn't called anyone.
Your manager calls that a lack of discipline. You know better. Your pitch isn't working, you can feel it. This is the cold feet no one names out loud: you don't dare any more.
And those six?
You send them a proposal. You follow up. Again. Maybe once more, at a different time of day, because maybe you called at a bad moment.
And then you blame yourself. My timing was wrong.
No. Your pitch was wrong.
A pitch does one thing only: it gives reasons to want it. Nothing else.
But maybe that client had no shortage of reasons. Maybe something else was missing. And what that something else is, you don't know — because no one ever taught you.
Why that isn't your fault
You are working with an outdated method. Pitching comes from a time when you had the information and the client didn't. That time is over. For good.
Your client has already looked you up. Seen your company. Compared your competitors. He knows your price bracket before you say your name.
So more arguments? A better pitch? That isn't where the problem is.
What’s often missing is something else
Stake, trust or urgency.
No stake? Discover it. Not yours. THEIRS.
No trust? This is about you. More arguments only make the decision feel bigger and riskier. The risk is YOU.
No urgency? No pitch in the world will make them ready to buy today. The client decides. NOT YOU.
So stop looking for better lines. Learn to discover what’s missing first.
The fourth match
You strike a match at a campfire. The first that doesn't catch is nothing. Nor is the second. By the third you start looking. And then there is the fourth, which is different: there you are no longer making fire, you are proving you can make fire.
Your best argument becomes a sales pitch. Your good intention becomes a technique.
I once called a client four times about the same quote. The fourth time he no longer picked up. I thought he was being rude.
The exercise
Take those six from yesterday. Or last week's six, it doesn't matter.
Write one word behind each name: stake, trust or urgency. Which one was missing?
If you can't fill it in, you know exactly where your work lies. That isn't a shortcoming. It is the question no one ever asked you.
The closing question
If it isn't your lines, what does a decision depend on?
That is session 3: stake, trust, urgency — and the spark.