Speaker Training: Making a Smooth Product Pitch

OK, with the convention products delivered, it’s time for you to change hats from convention leader to product pitch person. There are heaps of ways that seminar corporations teach about this but the genuine knowledge comes from experience! After twenty-five years ( and millions of bucks in convention product sales ) these are some of my thoughts about how convention speakers should best tack this. When I was doing conventions for CareerTrack they maintained that I follow their system of transitioning from the convention to the pitch. They recommended that I do this song and dance that made it look like smooth flow from content to sales spiel. For the most part I did not listen to them! Transition from Display to Product Pitch When I’m able to the point at which I would like to let folk know about my products that are for sale, I say : Ok, people, now’s the time for my two- minute commercial. I never try and slip the pitch in. Folks are too smart for that to work. Everybody knows you are making an attempt to sell them. So tell them. Don’t BS them. Timing of the Product Pitch The length of your program decides where the pitch should happen. If you are doing a show of less than 2 hours, pitch when you have about ten percent of your material left to supply.
If you are doing a three-hour presentation with lots of content, you can pitch right before your break which should be booked halfway thru. If you are doing an one-day convention, pitch just before lunch.
The earliest you must ever pitch is 1/2 way thru an event.
This gives you the chance to establish credibility with your audience. Making the Pitch Professionally When to Display Your Products Don’t display your products before the event gets started. If you do, folk will be braced for the pitch before it even comes. Keep your products up in front of the room until you pitch. Only after you’ve pitched should you move the products out from behind a curtain or out from under the table and display them. Never do it before you have pitched but it’s OK to hold them up and show them in the pitch. Picking Up and Referring to Product During Convention During your convention, make a valid excuse to physically pick up a number of of your products. As an example, you can find a wish to look something up in one of the manuals. Do not do this several times or twice. Try and use this system for greatest impact after being asked a question .
Should you’ve got a Visible in Your Display For Your Products? Some folks will put up a visible help, frequently a copy of the order sheet, to help them pitch their products. I typically do not do this. My proposal is that you test it. If you use plenty of other visuals, it makes more sense that you would use one for your product display.
There isn’t any way to grasp what the decisive answer is to this ques- tion till you test. Testing will help you figure out what works best.
Don’t Show Your Video If you sell any videos, don’t give into the unavoidable enticement to show them or maybe excerpts from them. All it can do is hurt you.
If you have established credibility they’re going to buy without seeing it. Showing the video will only give them a reason not to purchase. the videos had better be good or you will get them back. Don’t Sell Your Book! That is right, I announced, Don’t sell your book. Why? It’s your lowest- priced item ( or one of them ). Folks who feel some type of requirement to get something from you’ll be able to do so without spending any serious cash on your real content products. I always tell folks who ask if they can purchase my book, I am sorry, but I only bring enough books to the convention to provide as bonuses to folk who buy one of the bigger packages. You can get the book online at Amazon.com or special order it through your local book- store if you like. When to Hand Out Product Order Sheets And When NOT To Whenever I attend a talk or convention I’m dazzled at how many speakers attach an order sheet for their products to their handout. In most cases, this is the wrong way to do things. You lose control over the timing. I never put the order sheet into peoples’ materials or leave it on the chairs if I am able to avoid it. I don’t need them to have the opportunity to look at things and make up their minds before I would like them to or simply to overlook it. I require the control. If I’m in a little group, I hand them out myself as I say the line : Now here’s the two-minute commercial. I say this as I’m handing out the order sheets one at a time to convention visitors.

If I am in a larger group and have some assistants, I ask them to hand out the order sheets when I give them some kind of a sign. Then, I don’t begin doing my product presentation until just about everyone has an order form in their hands. If you do this quickly and effi- ciently it will work.
You do not want to have people sitting there going over the order sheet for a minute or two until you lead them through what they have just read. Again, you need to control the timing to make this work.
If you are fortunate to give a presentation to a group of over 1,000 people this becomes impractical. You’ll probably have to attach the order sheet to the handout.

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