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Pitch Perfect: Win Big and Close Deals, Entrepreneur Jun Loayza Shares How

A great salesperson will always beat a great product and here's why.

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4. Prepare your pitch and presentation.

Limit your presentation to 30 minutes — a 20-minute pitch plus 10 minutes for Q&A.

Make this length clear from the beginning; everyone in the room will feel more comfortable knowing it won’t last for hours. Be prepared to distribute visually pleasing handouts (in full color — don’t be cheap!) at the end of the presentation; if you pass it out at the beginning, your audience will read through the presentation instead of listening to you.

After following these steps — and rehearsing at least 10 times over two days — my lead engineer and I showed up to the client’s office 15 minutes early with our game faces on.

5. Deliver key messages with the right mentality.

I walked into the meeting with the mentality, “I don’t care if I get this client or not; we already have too many clients to work with, and our pipeline is full. If we don’t get this client, we’ll surely get another very soon.”

This mindset prevents you from appearing desperate and ruining your chances of closing the deal.

During the pitch, I emphasized key phrases, like, “We only work with companies that are creative and that strive to work on unique, never-before-seen projects. Does that accurately describe your company?” and, “We don’t work on one-and-done deals; we work with companies that partner with us for the long term. Are you looking for an agency to build you one project, or are you looking for a partner for long-term success?”

6. Set a deadline to decide.

The longer it takes for a client to make a decision, the less likely it is that they’ll choose you.

Therefore, get the potential client to make a decision as soon as possible. I set a deadline by saying, “Our client flow is stacked this summer — we have X and Y set to launch their projects and we just closed a deal with Z. I would love to give you several weeks to make a decision, but we need to know by Friday if you’d like to move forward with us. This will allow us to plan our project milestones accordingly for the next three months.”

It may seem scary to say something like this, but if you say it with confidence and conviction, the potential client will take your demands seriously and get it done.

Within two days, I received an email from the potential client, letting me know that they wanted to move forward by signing an agreement — and we locked in a one-year deal that we used as a case study to close deals with more and more big clients.

Connect with Jun Loayza on Twitter @junloayza.

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Photo: Mango

Jun Loayza is an entrepreneur that has sold 2 internet companies, raised over $1 million in funding, and lead social media technology campaigns for Sephora, Whole Foods Market, Levi’s, LG, and Activision. His latest project is Lion Step Media.

 

 

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