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How To Pitch Your Business

Written by: Jay Hamilton-Roth

Article Overview: I recently put out a call for sources for my new Business With Passion TV series on “If I Can Help a Reporter Out...“. Because I received a wide range of responses, I thought I’d share some advice for how to pitch yourself (or your client) well.

How To Pitch Your Business

I recently put out a call for sources for my new Business With Passion TV series on “If I Can Help a Reporter Out...“. Because I received a wide range of responses, I thought I’d share some advice for how to pitch yourself (or your client) well:

Read the request. Although my subject was “Passionate Guests for Local Biz TV Show (TV - San Rafael, CA)”, a couple of people thought I was looking for guests for a radio interview.

Don’t underwhelm me. A number of people wrote saying, “I’d be a great guest - check out my website to see more”. I don’t mind digging for information, but only after it’s clear it’s worth my time.

Don’t overwhelm me. One person sent me 20MB worth of high-resolution head shots of their client. Besides taking a while to download, it wasn’t helpful to evaluate their pitch.

Tell me why you’d be great. Ideally, you’ve been on other media (and have clips to share). If not, tell me a story to get my interest piqued. This is tricky, because you need to balance personal information with professional accomplishments. As a producer, I am looking for an interesting person with a story. As a reporter, I am looking for solid credentials.

Don’t sell me your services. Some people sent me their advertisements, complete with price sheets. I’m looking for a guest, not a salesperson.

Don’t pitch me your story idea. A couple of people had their own agendas to push. I might be interested in listening to them after we’ve explored my needs first.

Proofread your pitch. Especially double-check your contact information (including your website’s URL). Spell checking is available in most email programs as well.

Don’t tell me that someone is “perfect”. Unless you know everything about the show, the target audience, the format, etc. you can’t know if there’s a fit. Also please don’t say, “I guarantee your time will not be wasted.”

Look professional. About half of my responses were from public relations firms who were representing their clients. The read the request and pitched a single client of theirs (usually) in a single paragraph/bio. They provided links to their client’s media pages and any current/relevant information. As a result, it made for easy work.

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Article Tags: advertisements, agendas, biz tv, credentials, email programs, head shots, high resolution, interview don, new business, price sheets, professional accomplishments, public relations firms, radio interview, salesperson, san rafael ca, show tv, story idea, target audience, time don, tv series



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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.
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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