Meet Jim & Anna – or how to bring ‘dead boring’ to life
Clare is one of those consultants who could (if only she sat where I sit) see that she has all of the attributes to become a brilliant pitcher for business. She’s a highly trained and qualified professional, she’s modest, some might even say shy, and she knows how to make her subject interesting to her audience.
I watched her do a pitch (on a training course) recently and here’s what she could have done. She could have-
- Said ‘I understand the complexity of your DB and DC pension schemes…’
- Said ‘the real question for your total rewards strategy is whether your human capital appreciates the benefit solutions you provide…’
- Said ‘In this presentation we’ll look at the issue for you and offer some thoughts on total rewards strategy, Cost and risk optimization approaches and implementation tactics…’
She didn’t say any of this though. In her modest way she tried to explain what the pitch was about thus-
“Take 2 of your employees, Jim and Anna. Jim is 50 years old, married with 3 kids. He’s looking forward to his retirement and will spend it travelling the world with his wife.
Anna is 22. She’s young, free and single and graduated from University last year. She’s just bought her first car and is saving hard for a deposit on a house.
What we will do in this short presentation, is show you how you might develop a rewards system that meets the very different needs of your faithful Jim’s and Anna’s, and we’ll show you how you can do this more cost effectively than you do now…”
By this time the audience was riveted and nodding their heads vigorously, wanting to know more… What more do you want from the first bit of your pitch?
It’s a perfect example of how to make the abstract (all the bullshit straight out of the marketing materials), and turn it into a straightforward message of what we can do for you in language that needs no translation. Brilliant. George Orwell can sleep safely tonight.
