Good for saving the day in job interviews, auditions, pitches to potential clients, sales meetings.
You were sussing out your goals and acceptable outcomes, figuring out not only what would equal a home run from your particular pitching situation, but if you didn’t hit it out of the park, what would let you walk out of the room with your head held high?
Here, we’re still on pre-pitch prep. See, like I said, pitching is about way more than a great cadence and a few witty lines when you’re on the joint. It’s about preparation, preparation, and more preparation. Let’s dig into your next pre-pitch Pitch Power.
Incidentally, there are a lot of stories about mops in this chapter, but don’t worry. You don’t have to sell mops to make this work for you. But if you have some sort of traumatic event in your past involving mops, consider this a trigger warning.
I’d had enough of the bone-chilling winter of 1993. I was headed south. Behind me was a grim, gray landscape and a season of the most epically shitty weather this English lad had ever seen—one nor’easter after another all the way from Detroit to Boston to Philadelphia. Ahead of me was Clearwater Beach, Florida. My partner, Swedish Mike, and I had spent months slogging through the sleet and slush, pitching products across the northern home-show circuit, when we got a call asking if we wanted to do a home show in Miami.
Let me think. I was twenty-four years old, had a van, money in my pocket, and was done with the cold. Hell yes, we’d work the Miami show! Florida had sun, girls, beaches, and no ice storms—I’d shine shoes with my tongue if I had to. We packed up our stuff, put Detroit in the rear view, and barreled down Interstate 75. We made Clearwater in twenty-four hours, and when we arrived, would you believe it was spring break? We were two European guys living in our van with a bunch of cash. Life was good.
One day, I drove by what was then called Home Shopping Club (now Home Shopping Network, or HSN) and thought, That’s where the real action happens. It was pitching Nirvana, where pitchmen like Ron Popeil and Tony Little made more money in a day than I made in six months. Someday, I thought. Someday. Then I drove across the state to work the Miami home show. Miami was great, and we discovered that two weeks later there was another show in St. Petersburg. So we drove back across the state and camped out back in Clearwater waiting for the show.
I was on my joint working my “tip” (pitchman-speak for my crowd) and selling my signature product, the Smart Mop. While I was going through my pitch (spin the mop around like it’s nothing, pile sand and ketchup all over the floor, pick it up, rinse it out, spin the head dry and drop it, toss it in a washing machine, slick as a magic show until the crowd’s muttering, “Holy shit, if only mopping my floor was that much fun”), I noticed a woman who’d been standing in the back, watching me pitch three times. I’d “bally a tip” (get people to gather around me), make my pitch, sell some mops, leave everybody laughing, reset my stuff, and bally another tip, and she’d still be there.
This really annoys pitchmen. I might let you watch twice because you need a second dose of Sully to buy, but if you haven’t bought by the third time, you’re either a competitor, an IRS agent, or working with the INS. I didn’t want anyone watching me, because people will record your pitch and “butcher” (steal) your intellectual property. I know because I used to do it.
I went right up to this lady and said, “I will not let you watch my pitch three times without buying.”
She said, “I’ve been watching you.”
“Who are you? A spyer or a buyer?”
“I’m a buyer for Home Shopping Club. You’re good at this. You should be on TV.”
I rolled my eyes. I’d heard this a thousand times. “If I had a dollar for everyone who told me I should be on TV, I wouldn’t be working this show,” I said. “I’m tired of hearing it. If I should be on TV, get me on television.”
She didn’t bat an eyelid, just handed me her business card: nancy kuni. “We’ve heard about this mop,” she said. “I think it may be a good fit for us. We’ll be in touch.” Off she went, leaving me holding her card in my hand. I was stunned. I’d been waiting for the opportunity to connect with the Home Shopping Club and there I was, talking to a buyer, and I’d been a jerk. It was all I could do to keep it together and get back to selling.
Fortunately, Nancy saw beyond my rude-boy obnoxiousness, and two months later I was sitting in the office of Home Shopping Club’s VP of Programming, Jeff Shimer, wearing maybe $30 worth of clothes and trying not to wet my pants.
When I drove my van onto the HSC parking lot that day, my mind was racing. I’m not going to get a second chance at this. This is the one job interview that I cannot fail. I have no television experience. I have no idea of what’s going to happen. But I really, really want to be on television. I knew that Nancy had said enough good things to get me a sit-down with a guy who probably didn’t want to hire me. I also knew that if I was going to make this happen, I had to make him want to hire me. I had to deliver the pitch of my life.
Jeff was filling out a bit of paper when I sat down. He kept me waiting for a minute, then lowered his glasses, looked me over through narrowed eyes, and said, “So you’re the mop kid, huh?”
You’re on, Sully. “Yeah.” A wit like a steel trap, ladies and gents!
“I’ve got thirty-two professionally trained show hosts downstairs. I’ve been told that I need you to sell this mop. I don’t understand why I need you. Why do I need you?”
A beautiful question. A layup. I could see that Jeff saw me as nothing more than an interruption, but I was about to turn that around. I said, “How many mops have you bought?”
“Five thousand.”
“Five thousand? That’s $100,000 worth. That’s a lot of mops.” This was my moment, and I leaned forward in my chair. “Jeff, you don’t need me, but you need somebody like me. As far as I know, there’s about five of us in the country right now who know how to sell this mop, and the other four live in LA. I’m the one sitting in front of you. If you don’t use me, I will recommend someone else. I’ll even give you one of their numbers, and you’ll need to call them, because you will not sell five thousand mops without one of us.”
Jeff blinked. I could tell I had him “under the ether” (pitchman-speak for having your audience under your spell), so I pressed on.
“All I do is sell mops,” I said. “I live in my van down at the beach in Clearwater, and I sleep on top of these mops. For the last three years, all I’ve done is sell mops. I make my living selling mops. I live, breathe, eat, sleep these mops. Your show hosts, I’m sure they’re highly trained, but I GUARANTEE you that they will choke on the air today if they try to sell this mop. There’s a pitch, and I know it. I’ve got the secret sauce!”
You’re familiar with the term pregnant silence? I knocked up that silence and left it there, filling that office. After a beat, I went for the close. “I think I’m your best option. It’s your call.” God, the nerve of me, a snot-nosed little shit, telling this industry giant what was his call! But Jeff picked up the phone, called down to someone in the on-air department, asked if there was any airtime for the next day, hung up, and said, “Be here tomorrow at twelve o’clock. You’re on the air at twelve-thirty.”
I said, “All right,” and left.
To this day, it’s the best pitch I’ve ever delivered. I did what Jeff couldn’t have anticipated: I didn’t sell him. You don’t need me. You need somebody like me. There was no way I was leaving that network without getting a yes, and I got it. It changed everything.
I drove away, my mind going a billion miles an hour. What the hell? I’m going to be on television tomorrow! I’ve been pissing and moaning about this my whole life, and now I’m about to play in the Super Bowl!
I was confident, even arrogant, when I pitched Jeff, but that wasn’t what got me my shot on HSC. It was my Pitch Power.
I knew something about Jeff’s business and the problem he had on his hands with all those mops in inventory. In fact, I knew his problem better than he did, because he didn’t understand that his usual hosts didn’t have a snowball’s chance in Miami of selling five thousand mops. The Smart Mop was a classic street market pitch—an old-fashioned “take it apart, whirl it around, show it off while wowing the ladies with a twinkle in your eye” busker’s pitch. A smiling TV host who spent most of her time selling jewelry to old ladies would blow it. HSC would be stuck with unsold inventory, and direct-response merchants despise unsold inventory. They want to turn and burn.
I knew that, I told him, and he knew I was right. In the very next sentence, I told him that I was the solution to his problem. Then I told him that if he didn’t want me, I knew a few other pitchmen who could sell the mops, too. This told Jeff that I wasn’t just out for myself; I really wanted to cure his pain. I said it all with a lot more confidence than I felt, and Jeff respected my chutzpah enough to say yes. A few million products later, I’m still with HSN.
An old marketing adage goes “We do business with people we like.” That’s true, but who do we like? Among other things, we like people who “get” us, who understand the challenges we face, appreciate what we go through, and empathize with our troubles. That’s what this Pitch Power does, but that’s not all it does. I might like you and think you’re a swell person, but that still won’t make me want to hire you or give you money. There’s more to it than just knowing about somebody’s company.
There are actually three parts to this Pitch Power:
1. Know what the other guy cares about and let him know you know.
2. Really understand what troubles, frustrates, or burdens him.
3. Offer a solution.
1. Know what the other guy cares about and let him know you know. This one is simple. I’ve done it for years. Back when I traveled around to home shows, when I was in Philadelphia, I talked about the Eagles or the Flyers. When I went to Boston, I talked about the Red Sox or the Bruins. In Detroit, I talked about the Lions and Red Wings.
When I sold in Greenville, South Carolina, I didn’t talk about Ford Motor Company, because five minutes of research told me there was a BMW factory there and many people in town worked in it. So I worked the factory into my pitch. I’d say, “I hear there’s a BMW factory close by, so I know you all get big discounts on BMWs. I’m very happy that everyone in Greenville drives around in a BMW. That means you’re wealthy, so having a $20 mop isn’t a big deal, because you’re all willing to pay for quality. You drive the ultimate driving machine, and now you can own the ultimate mopping machine.”
This always got a laugh. We all knew it wasn’t true, but that didn’t matter. I connected with them over something they all shared. I wasn’t giving them the identical pitch I’d just delivered in Raleigh.
Know who you’re talking to. Before you go to a job interview, to speak to a professional group, or make a sales call, do your research. A great example of the power of this is my story of the Cuban mop. (More mops, Sully? Yes. I told you I had a lot of mop stories, but they’re relevant, so bear with me.) I would go to home shows in Miami, but the Cuban ladies would never buy from me. I couldn’t figure it out. Then one day I got smart: I asked a customer if Cubans used a different kind of mop. The lady smiled and showed me a Cuban mop—and it was a towel on a stick!
That’s it. It’s a T-shaped stick. You just wrap a towel around it, or if you really want to make it authentic you put a little hole in the middle of the towel and swirl it around the end of the stick. When you’re done mopping, you just put the towel in the washing machine. You don’t even have to touch it, and it cleans a giant floor area.
That’s what was killing my sales. A damned towel on a stick. I would bring out a sponge mop and show why the Smart Mop was better. I would bring out a string mop and do the same thing. But the ladies loved their towel on a stick, so I had no credibility. But instead of giving up, I saw this as my chance to make that crucial connection.
The next day, I went back to my joint and was doing my pitch with the usual gaggle of Cuban ladies standing there, unimpressed. Finally, I looked at them and said, “What’s the problem with you ladies?” Then I went into my demonstration. I demoed the sponge mop. Nothing. I demoed the string mop. Nada. Then I pulled out a big towel on a stick. Every Cuban roared. Instantly, they were with me. They loved that I had figured out how they lived and what they used. I also learned how to pitch in Spanish a little bit—“smart mop” is trapiador intelligente—made fun of my own ignorance and worked it into my pitch, and sales went crazy. Those ladies still thought the Cuban mop was better, but they were walking away with my Smart Mop in their hands and I had their $20.
Why? I took the time to get to know them, and they loved it.
2. Really understand what troubles, frustrates, or burdens him. This second part takes more work and deeper thinking. It’s not enough to memorize facts about your audience; you need to feel what keeps them up at night. Even if it’s something that seems trivial to you, it’s not trivial to them. It’s not enough to know that a tech company is losing business because its products are outdated. You need to empathize with the owners—to know they’re worried, because if things don’t get better they’re going to have to lay a lot of people off. When they sense that you understand why they’re scared, angry, or exhausted, people will really tune in and pay attention to what you have to say. That’s what worked for Trump.
No more mops—for now. Instead, think about radio host and financial guru Dave Ramsey. He’s built a national brand, speaks all across the country, and has a devoted audience of millions. Is that because he’s a financial genius? No. You can hear the same advice from half a dozen other people and read it in Kiplinger’s. People love Dave because years ago, he got himself buried in debt and went bankrupt. He’s talked about it openly. His listeners know he’s not some Wall Street stock trader. He’s made mistakes. He’s faced a mountain of debt and had to dig his way out. He’s one of them.
Dave Ramsey could’ve kept his past quiet. He could’ve packaged himself as a financial genius with no flaws. But he’s smart. He knows nobody relates to that guy. So he turned his past into an asset: a way to let his audiences know that he gets them and feels their pain.
3. Offer a solution. Knowing your audience and understanding why they hurt are both crucial. But this Pitch Power is “understand their pain (and be the cure).” I’m not talking about the band The Cure, either. What puts you over the top is holding up your hand and saying, calm as God, “I think I have your answer.”
Two years ago, I got a phone call from a former HSN buyer who had gone on to work with Nutrisystem. She had watched my production company go from zero to sixty in no time, and now Nutrisystem was searching for a new company to produce its television advertising. She thought I should throw my hat into the ring. This was exciting but intimidating.
Nutrisystem, as you probably know, is one of the biggest players in the food delivery–weight loss space. Their executives would be seeing presentations from the cream of the New York advertising world, agencies with Madison Avenue addresses that would land armies of people on the beaches of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, bearing Euro-names and wearing black turtlenecks. Then there would be me, Sully, the OxiClean guy.
I knew that Nutrisystem had a healthy respect for direct response, but I also I figured they would have a healthy dose of skepticism about what I do, because some of my work falls into the “cheesy” infomercial category. But I also knew that they knew I could move the needle—that I knew how to sell—and that they were smart enough to care more about results than anything else.
You’ve heard of a “puncher’s chance” in boxing? Well, as far as I was concerned I had a pitchman’s chance, and that’s pretty good. Plus, if I got the account it would be great for business.
I agreed to give it a try and went to work.
I had watched Nutrisystem’s advertising and I knew what I was up against: big ad agencies with big budgets. But the problem with big agencies is that they approach every client the same way, like a guy trying to get a beautiful woman into bed by showing off his Ferrari. They make it about style, not substance. Agencies talk about how they need to “elevate the brand.” I wasn’t going to elevate the bloody brand. I would keep it simple. I would talk about selling.
My plan was to walk in with hard numbers and specific strategies and pitch Nutrisystem’s pants off. I had little to no experience with weight loss, but I know what it’s about: looking good naked. That’s pretty much the bottom line, isn’t it? For the average person, after you hit about twenty-two, looking good naked is a battle. I would pitch what I was good at: back to basics. I would break the ice. Have a conversation. Build a relationship. Leave without the order but play the long game.
My good friend Paul Moriarty came along with me and we set up in a meeting room. Then I couldn’t get my PowerPoint presentation to work, and there was no place to plug in my MacBook. To hell with it. I pulled out a few sheets of paper and pitched the ABCs of what makes a great direct-response commercial. In my experience, a lot of companies get lost when they complicate what is a simple process. Their agency will tell them, “You need to get away from pitching. You’re beyond that. You’ve grown.” Wrong. The object isn’t to win creative awards for your agency; the object is to sell. I told Nutrisystem, “You don’t need to get away from pitching. You need to go back to pitching. You need to get back to basics. Get people to get off the couch and pick up the phone. What made Nutrisystem great in the beginning? Go back to that.” I gave them a solution.
The Nutrisystem team got what I was saying right away. “Yes!” they said. “That’s what we need, back to basics.” They came to Tampa and we shot a commercial for them, but the magic happened when we worked on Nutrisystem for Men. I wrote the script and I definitely got back to basics: “Hey, guys, can’t get into your pants? Got a beer belly going on? I’ve got one word for you, Nutrisystem. Put down the pie, get off the couch, pick up the phone and call Nutrisystem today.”
It was straight talk, pitch talk. It’s a very simple commercial, probably the simplest commercial I’ve ever written. If you watch cable news, you’ve seen it. I don’t know why it’s so good. I wish I did, because I’d do the same thing every time. But it’s a knockout hit, and our relationship with Nutrisystem has been a win for them, for us, and for their customers. I even got to direct the great Dan Marino!
Understanding the other person’s pain and dreaming up a way to fix it tells them that you care enough to put in the time. That you’re mature and perceptive enough to stand in their shoes. That you’re not just delivering a canned pitch that was the same yesterday and will be the same tomorrow. We live in a world where nobody listens; we’re all too busy staring at our phones. This Pitch Power lets the guy on the other side of the table know you’re paying attention.
There’s no situation in life where that kind of meaningful connection won’t help you get the kind of outcome you’re after. But it’s extra handy in circumstances where the audience might see one person after another after another for hours (or even days), until the candidates become a blur. You’ll find that frequently in interviews for sought-after jobs and open auditions for paying acting gigs.
What people usually forget is that after enough time, the people asking the questions in those situations are begging someone to stand out and solve their problem. They’re tired, bored, and hungry and they’re dying to tell someone “You’re hired!” so they can high-five each other and go home. Remember, the guy across the table isn’t jerking you around or making you answer awkward interview questions because he’s a sadist who likes torturing people; he wants to find someone who can meet his needs. Why walk into the conference room or walk onstage as one more anonymous face, praying they’ll choose you, when you can make it impossible for them not to choose you? One way you do that is by coming to the table with ideas and answers that nobody else has and that you tailor to your audience.
Forget interviews and auditions—let’s talk about selling. If you’ve ever sold anything, you’ve encountered sales resistance, that suspicious narrowing of the eyes and tightening of the voice that come when someone knows you’re going to try to convince them to part with their money and buy something they probably don’t want. Overcoming sales resistance with brute force is brutally hard, but there’s a way to make it easier: make yourself a solution, not a salesperson.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve pitched someone that my entire goal for the meeting was to share information I knew they would value. That was it. I didn’t care if I walked out with a signed contract, and I usually didn’t. But I made myself a little bit indispensable. I offered ideas and expertise and didn’t ask anything in return. People love that. I built trust and polished my reputation as an expert. More often than not I would get a return invitation, and at that meeting there was a better than fair chance that I would get the sale.
Selling this way is playing the long game. It’s not going to give you the quick buzz of a fast commission. It’s growing relationships, not writing orders. But that’s why it works. If everybody else is coming in with the same canned pitch and call to action, be the one who offers great, workable ideas, no strings attached. They’ll remember you, appreciate you, respect you, and in the end, buy from you.
Other scenarios where this Pitch Power helps good triumph over evil:
• Vying for a raise or promotion. What better way to prove your value than to dig deep into your employer’s operations and come up with an innovative way to save or make money?
• Trying to get the seller of a home to accept your offer. It’s not uncommon for prospective buyers to write letters to sellers to sway them in their favor. Try it, but don’t be generic. Learn about the history of the house and the neighborhood and refer to it specifically. If your realtor has shared a challenge that the seller is facing, try to offer a mutually satisfying solution.
• Pitching a literary agent. Writers’ conferences frequently have “speed pitch” events: you get five minutes with a New York literary agent to convince them to represent you and your book. Know the publishing world, know the agent, and make your pitch about them—how you can make them money, make their job easier, that sort of thing.
However, if there is one thing I’ve learned on my journey from street markets and county fairs to corporate boardrooms and VIP suites, it’s that nothing goes as planned all the time. The risky part about strutting into a meeting, sure that you bring with you the answer to all your audience’s problems, is that sometimes, despite all your work and research, your answer is dead wrong. Embarrassingly wrong. Two seconds from being escorted out by security wrong.
How do you keep a miscalculation from becoming a catastrophe?
• Be extra conservative. Do extra research. Spend more time if you can get it. If you’re not 100 percent sure that your ideas will be well received, don’t share them. You might still get what you want anyway based on your presence and personality. Read the room (it’s hard to do when you’re nervous, so give it time): based on what you know, are the people you’re pitching likely to respect your effort even if your ideas are off base, or will they be offended? Trust your gut and act accordingly. (By the way, that’s just one of a hundred snap judgments that you’ll become better at the more you pitch. Like most things, they take time, but eventually they become a reflex.)
• Have a Plan B. Come to the table with more than one idea that addresses the pain of the company or individual you’re pitching. That way if one gets you the stink-eye, you can pivot to something different. This is common in situations where a contractor is presenting a creative idea: a logo, an ad campaign, or a landscape design, for instance. If you’re a smart professional, you will have Plan A, but if the client looks like she’s about to come unglued at your first idea—voila! You whip out Plan B and with a little luck, the day is saved.
• Push back. I’ll address this in greater depth when we talk about the Pitch Power, but for now it’s enough to know that sometimes, the person on the other end of the exchange will either be wrong or testing you. In either case, the question usually isn’t whether or not your idea is a good one but how firmly you believe in it. Take a page out of the traditional sales handbook and anticipate objections. Why doesn’t your approach work? How could you improve it? Could you work on developing your ideas further and schedule a second appointment? In my experience, almost any situation can be spun into an opportunity provided you have the confidence to do so.
When I was working the gray, sodden weekend markets of England and Wales, all I had was my general knowledge of the “punters” (English pitchman-speak for customers) who came to shop for tea towels and buy socks from the usual group of traders. They were typically working class and tight with a quid, but receptive to a clever line and a bit of patter. That was all the research I could do.
You can do a lot more. As you’re working to develop this superpower, research is your secret weapon.
• Begin with Google. Whatever the pitching situation, find and read everything you can about it and the people involved. Read company websites, newspaper articles, shareholder reports, and Yelp reviews.
• Talk to live people. This is where we separate the men from the boys. Too many people stop at online searches and chicken out at calling casting directors, ex-employees, journalists, or customers. But your mission is not only to learn facts but to get inside the other guy’s problems, and the best way to do that is to talk with people who know what they are. Do not skip this step. A few calls and a few beers could yield information that will change your life. Pitchman tip: spend extra effort to get face time with people who are true insiders. Not everybody’s information is of value.
• Learn the business. You might have written a terrific screenplay, but if you pitch it to a producer without knowing that the last four films in the same genre were box office flops, you’re going to look like an ass. Whether you’re buying a car, making a speech, or asking out an attractive co-worker, know the backstory and the lay of the land.
• Uncover the feelings. We think we’re all rational, but emotions are what really motivate our actions. The pain or frustration that your audience is feeling? That’s what they want you to fix, even if they don’t know it. Is your audience desperate for an innovative idea for a tech product? Bored with every guy who’s fed her a line at a club? Angry at sales reps who’ve tried to manipulate them? Situation + emotion = problem. Fix the situation and change the emotion and you’re a hero.
• Have a plan. You could sit down across from the CEO of a big company and say, “I know how to fix your business.” But then there’s the whole “escorted out by security” thing. Once you have facts, empathy, and an idea, a solution means having a detailed plan of limited scope. Don’t try to fix the whole world; fix one commercial, product, or deal at a time. Be specific about how you’d do it. Explain why you can do it—and why you’re the only one who can. If the other person asks for more details, that’s a good sign. Get more time and get back to them.
But maybe more important than all of these is this: keep your eyes, ears, and mind open, always. You have no idea when pitch-perfect facts will appear; I’ve picked up intelligence that gave me an edge on the competition in everything from reading random newspaper articles to accidentally eavesdropping on conversations at restaurants. Useful information is everywhere, and it’s all fuel for your Pitch Power. Use it.
SCENARIOS FOR USING THE “UNDERSTAND THEIR PAIN (AND BE THE CURE)” PITCH POWER
Q: A new information source about someone you’re about to pitch pops up out of nowhere and you’re not sure it’s reliable. What do you do?
A: In my experience, having bad information about a prospect is worse than having none. So don’t believe everything you hear, especially in this era of “fake news” on social media. Unless the source is someone you know, disregard it.
Q: Your bold, risky solution to a company’s or customer’s problem falls flat midpitch. The person says, “That’s really not an issue for us.” Oops. How do you recover?
A: Highlight the effort, not the outcome. “Well, even if I got the details wrong, you can see that my intention there was to be a problem solver. Everything I do is about making things better for you. That’s how I do things—service, service, service.” Who can dislike that?
Q: The person you’re pitching is a cipher. Despite your best efforts, you haven’t been able to find out a thing about him or her. Does this Pitch Power still work?
A: Sure! You just have to do your research on the sly. “Paul, I like helping other people solve their problems. Tell me, what here at Company X keeps you up at night? What are you guys most worried about? Because I think if I knew, I could really help.”