The final Circular Summit I attended dealt with how to pitch the media, and featured Kim Weisul of Inc.
Among the many direct, candid, helpful advice she gave about pitching was this: “say in one sentence what your company does and why are you different? This is HARD for service providers.”
Damn.
Why is that?
Although you can claim any title you desire to differentiate your services, products have more variables. They have materials or ingredients, a supply chain, design, manufacturing, and more. Each of these variables is an opportunity to say how your products are different from everything else on the market.
Which makes me think about what service-providers CAN do to differentiate: intellectual property.
Proprietary methods, original research, trademarked systems and processes, unique analyses, and the like.
Intellectual property is also TERRIFIC thought leadership.
I’m working on some of my own: original research into professional women and thought leadership.
During a presentation about pitching for funding, Lisa Wang of She Worx recommended the following:
- Add “we are transforming the industry of [your industry] by…”
- Then, add numbers. So, “we are transforming the $X dollar industry of [your industry] by…”
The difference between audience examples before and after these additions was profound.
When you are or I am describing our businesses, what can we add from these pitching tips?
