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How A Pitch Can Grow Your Business

Written by: Jill Hart

Article Overview: I believe that the concept of creating a pitch can also apply to the home-based business world. As entrepreneurs, we can put together a summary of our business that will not only explain what we do, but grab the attention of whomever we’re speaking with.

How A Pitch Can Grow Your Business

When someone asks you about what you do, do you have a ready answer? Or do you stumble and stammer trying to explain your business?

I was recently at a writer’s conference where one of the main focuses was learning to create a successful book pitch. My instructor emphasized what a good pitch can do for a writer. She explained that when an editor asks an author about their writing project, they have one shot at sharing their pitch and getting the editor excited about their project. A great pitch makes a great first impression and can translate into a book contract. On the other hand, a pitch that is not well thought out can cost an author the chance of selling that project.

A good book pitch is a summary of the author’s idea, but more than that it’s a summary with a sizzle. At the conference, I learned that many authors spend hours crafting and memorizing their pitch. Then, when asked about their project, they are able to give a quick, concise synopsis that not only explains their idea, but makes the editor want to learn more.

I believe that the concept of creating a pitch can also apply to the home-based business world. As entrepreneurs, we can put together a summary of our business that will not only explain what we do, but grab the attention of whomever we’re speaking with.

A good business pitch summarizes the business concept in one to two short paragraphs, usually a total of 50 words or less. To begin, write out a list of the five most compelling aspects of your business. Try to think about your business as if you were on the outside looking in. What would interest you? What would make you want to learn more?

Try to answer these questions:

• Who is my target market?
• What are my top selling products/services?
• What about my company makes it stand out? If I were looking at starting a business, what would interest me about this company?
• Why did I choose this company?

Put your answers into sentences and you have the beginning of your business pitch. Try to keep your sentences short and use simple words. You want anyone who asks to be able to understand your answer, not get lost in your words. Take special care to describe what you like about your business. These same things will generally appeal to others as well.

While you want to keep your pitch simple, you also want it to give a picture of your business. Let’s say, for example, that you run health and wellness business. You wouldn’t want to use the statement, “I run a health and wellness business,” as a reply about what it is that you do. You want to add in a short description and catch the listener’s attention. For instance, you might say, “I operate my own business. We offer products such as chemical-free shampoo and natural snack foods to help others lead healthy lives.”

When I began my website, I was often caught off-guard when someone asked me about it. I would fumble for words and struggle to express exactly what it is that I do all day. I usually walked away from conversations like this feeling frustrated, and I’m sure the person I was speaking with was more confused than they were originally.

After learning the art of pitching, I can now give a short and snappy reply. “I run a Christian-based website for work-at-home moms,” I’ll say. “I offer resources to help them in their search and am able to make an income by offering advertising.” This usually leads to more questions about my website, which is exactly what I hope for. It gives me an opportunity to talk further about my business to those who are interested.

The next time someone asks you about your home-based business, remember to share your pitch with them. Take the time to hone your pitch to be as short, yet descriptive as possible. Over time, you’ll find yourself refining your words and your answers will become well-crafted summaries that pique the interest of anyone who asks. Word of mouth is one of the easiest ways to build your business and your pitch is a great way to get others talking.

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Article Tags: home based business, home based business, pitch



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My entry - 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read - this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody. 2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto. 3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succ - Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succeed Ronna Lichtenberg 2005 From the inside cover: "As a woman, you probably feel uncomfortable when it comes to promoting yourself and asking for what you want." WHAT IN THE HECK IS THIS, I asked myself when I read that. Women are the fastest growing business owners in the US and Canada, there are t housands of women executives and CEOs - though not as many as might be expected, admittedly, yet the book opens with this surely out of date stereotype. However, as she continued to give examples of women who had high paying jobs but were routinely not paid as much as men because it hadn't occurred to them to ask for raises, etc., I decided it was probably true for a majority of businesswomen... Anyway, more of the info from the jacket: "Other books have told you how to get what you want by being more like a guy. Pitch Like A Girl tells you why its an advantage to be who you are and how to do better by bringing more of yourself to work." The TOC: 1. Pink and Blue 2. The Quck-dry Chapter 3. What's In your head that's not in his 4. The Me, Inc Mindset 5. Visioning: Discover What You Really Want 6. Identifying Prospects 7. Pre-pitch homework and heartwork 8. Crafting the pitch 9. Pricing the pitch 10. Packaging the pitch 11. Delivering the pitch 12. Closing Conclusion A Word to the guys The Empathy Quotient The Systemizing Quotient Bibliography And on a side note - non-fiction books without indexes - of which this is one, annoy me.
Re: My 3 best business books - 1. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill 2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen R. Covey 3. Permission Marketing - Seth Godin Think and Grow Rich seems more powerful each time I read it or dip into it. The 7 Habits not only offers some very effective ways to organize your life (which I have yet to master!), but also some great quotations and thought provoking statements including this by Nazi concentration camp survivor, Viktor Frankl: [i:2naxzsom]Between stimulus and response, man has the freedom to choose.[/i:2naxzsom] Seth Godin's Permission Marketing is a good read for anybody seeking to understand how to approach doing business on the Internet in the right way with regard to winning people's trust.
Re: My 3 best business books - It seems that Napoleon Hill works help a lot of business men. He had done a really good job. I bought Think and Grow Rich many times.
Why women don't charge more - I just read a chapter in Pitch Like A Girl: How a Woman Can Be Herself and Still Succeed, by Ronna Lichtenberg that deals with this. THe chapter is called Pricing the Pitch. "In a WAll Street Journal article about what might be holding women back from corporate success, Terry Dal, a former vice president at Wells Fargo bank, said, "Good girls don't advertise; only prostitutes advertise. We feel dirty promoting ourselves." The author's advice: The first step in getting the money you desserve is to understand the market rate for your offering. Not what you think you need, not what they're willing to pay, but the going rate for similar goods and services offered in your area by someone with your skills and experience. Then, seek expert advice. "Men routinely consult lawyers, financial advisers, exxecutive recruiters and any other paid counselors to help them assess what constitutes a fair fee." Your research into going rates should not lead you to a single price for your pitch but rather a range of prices - both a market range and a personal range, which should overlap but won't necessarily be identical. In pricing, one size does not fit all. The final step in determining your price is to consider what you think you'd be paid for the same job if you were a man. The author also discusses why women usually discount their prices (must'n't appear too over-confident), the difference between discounting and "giving a discount", and other issues. I'd advise every woman wondering about what to charge to read at least this chapter of the book.


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