Types of sales pitches every salesperson should know

Who wants to sit through a 30-minute sales pitch?

Anyone? Didn’t think so.

Consumers today have more options than ever, plus the ability to research whatever you’re selling right from their phone. Perhaps most importantly, they have less time and patience to sit through traditional sales pitches where you list off all your product features and offer a “great deal” to close.

Sales and customer relationship management are entering the new Relationship Era, and the process of nurturing partnerships is about to change—fast. It’s time to throw out the old playbook of what you thought a sales pitch is supposed to look like, and try these six new types of sales pitches designed for how people make buying decisions today.

1. The one-word pitch

Arguably the most important type of sales pitch is often the hardest to perfect: the one-word pitch.

A single, powerful word that best describes your brand, this one-word pitch should be used by everyone in your organization—wherever possible.

The one-word pitch isn’t just a sales fad used in out-of-the-box marketing strategies. In fact, this type of sales pitch is used by huge businesses like Google (their one-word pitch is “search”), and influential people like Barack Obama (his one-word pitch was “hope,” back in 2008).

But how exactly do you find your one word?

It may be simple, but it's not easy—think of one word that describes your brand’s:

• Values
• Aims or goals
• Products

So, here at Copper, our values are to be real, fearlessly creative, and forward-thinking.

We could use any one of those three main values, or choose something like “driven” which could mean all three.

If you need a little help, there’s always thesaurus.com for finding synonyms that might sound more unique and impressive.

Got your word? Great! Now it’s time to use it.

Plaster your one-word pitch everywhere for the world to see, and embed it within the other types of sales pitches listed here.

Once people associate the word with your brand, your potential customers will recognize you instantly. Or as we like to call it, the sign of a great sales and marketing campaign.

2. The social media pitch

Chances are, you’ve tried to master a short pitch that can be used on your brand’s social media profiles. Trying to get it right (and crafting a perfectly optimized post for each platform) can be tricky—and that’s without mentioning the ever-changing algorithms.

Platforms like Instagram are no stranger to an algorithm change. Just do a quick Google search and you’ll see how many account owners are reporting that the Instagram algorithm is “destroying” their business.

However, it’s not all doom and gloom—a concrete social media pitch should withstand the test of time (and many algorithm changes), which is why we’ve listed the social media pitch as one that every sales professional should master.

A short, 280-character sales pitch is enough to conform to most platforms' character allowances, but that’s not much room to tell someone everything they’d need to know.

Include only the essential details. Take your original pitch—from a traditional sales presentation—and cut the fluff.

Think of a social media pitch like a virtual elevator pitch: you’ll want to include the basics of your brand, and make it interesting enough for someone to ask more.

However, with over 3.196 billion active social media users, you’ll need to make your social media pitch pack a punch if you want to see results.

How can you do that, exactly? Again, simple but not easy: keep it unique and pique your potential customer’s interest.

3. The elevator pitch

An elevator pitch is a type of speech about your company or brand.

No more than 30 seconds in length (it should be short enough to cover in an elevator ride, hence its name), it’s a type of sales pitch that every sales professional should have up their sleeve.

That’s because it’s often given in business networking events (here are some email follow-up tips) or added to connection requests on LinkedIn.

Elevator pitches should describe the basics of your business, with a bit of pizazz. Instead of saying what you do, elevator pitches tell someone why you do it—putting you in a better position to close a sale.

Take a look at this example. Although it’s used by a college student, it acts as a fantastic basis for sales reps to build their own elevator pitch:

“Hi, I’m Jaime, I am a junior here at NYU studying psychology, and I am interested in pursuing a career in Human Resources.

Based on my interest in HR, this past summer I interned on the recruiting team at Company X which was a great experience. On campus, I am involved in the HR Club and the Finance Club which gives me great exposure to learning more about Human Resources and also about the Finance Industry.

Post-graduation, I’d like to join a top company in the finance industry working on either the recruitment or training team.

Based on that goal, I’d really like to spend my summer interning at [your company] in the [role or program name]. I think it would be an amazing place to work and help me gain valuable experience in the [industry name].”

When preparing your elevator pitch, remember, practice makes perfect.

Rehearse your pitch out loud and try to memorize it. Not only will this prevent “umm”s and “aah”s from interrupting your flow of conversation, but delivering your sales pitch confidently will also help you gain your prospective client’s trust—and generate a sale.

4. The cold call pitch

Messaging apps are everywhere—but people still talk on the phone, and it doesn't look as if it's going away anytime soon. That's why cold call pitches still need to be perfected. It's often someone’s first experience with your brand, and we all know that first impressions are important in sales.

So, follow this approach when preparing your pitch: open strongly, and avoid waffling too much. (That could potentially bore your customers and lead to a hang-up.)

Don’t open your cold call pitch with “Hi, I wanted to chat with you about our product and its awesome benefits”. Let's face it: no one likes a hard sell.

Instead, take a conversational approach. Respect their time.

Do they sound rushed, are they busy at work, or telling you they don’t have time to talk right now? Reschedule your call for a time that suits them.

Not only will this set the tone for your next chat, but it'll also give you a chance to prepare (and personalize) your next cold call pitch.

5. The email pitch

Sending an email pitch to potential clients on your sales journey? This is also one of the first impressions they’ll get of your brand, and it won’t come as a surprise to learn they’re important.

In fact, cold emails helped Ryan Robinson land a $10,000/month retainer, proving they’re a key type of sales pitch that all sales reps should perfect.

But with the average person receiving 121 emails every day, you’ll need to make an impact if you want the sale.

The simplest way to do this is to perfect your subject line. It’s the first part of your sales pitch that a person will see and you’ll need to optimize this field if you want someone to open it—and we haven’t even reached the conversion stage yet.

Perfecting your subject line isn’t as complicated as you might think. In fact, you could supercharge your cold email open rates by mentioning something related to the company—like their recent mention in the news, or one of their latest launches.

Consider this: “Hey, NAME—congrats on the new hire” was one of the four subject lines that generated $4 million in revenue.

Compliments. People love them.

6. The follow-up pitch

Have you tried to contact a prospective customer multiple times, only to hear radio silence? Whether they’re too busy to return your calls or forgot to add it to their to-do list, don’t sleep on the power of a sales follow-up.

Delivered by email, phone call, or voicemail message, this type of sales pitch is crucial if you’re really looking to master the full sales process.

Why? 80% of sales are made on the 5th to 12th contact. If you give up at the first attempt, you could be missing out on lots of opportunities to make that all-important sale.

However, when you’re creating a follow-up pitch, it’s important to keep it brief.

Let the prospect know who you are, where you’re calling from, and why you’re so keen to chat with them. Something like this could do the trick:

“Hey, NAME! I think our tool could really help your company streamline sales processes and get you more out of your G Suite account. Shall we schedule a quick demo next week to see if this is something you’d be interested in?”

It’s to-the-point and addresses the customer’s pain point.

But how do you end this type of sales pitch? The answer isn’t clear-cut—especially if you don’t know the reason behind why they haven’t responded to your previous contact attempts.

You might want to try something like this:

“If you’re not the right person to be contacted about this, I don’t want to bug you—I’d really appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction.” could be the solution to their lack of a response, and you'll have a better chance of talking with someone more likely to convert.

Perfect these six types of sales pitches to close more deals.

Are you ready to refine your sales processes and master each of these sales pitches?

Remember: practice makes perfect. Don’t let your pitches rot in an old Google Doc—make sure you’re always referring back to them and tweaking the parts that don't seem like they're working. Good luck!