Pitch to Americans Expert Tip: Know who you’re talking to.

You work with American clients, you've already

started working on a great pitch for your company

but how can you be sure

that your pitch is really adapted to your audience?

And what if you don't know who you're talking to?

You'll learn how to manage all of that today.

Let's go.

Hi, I'm Christina, founder

of Business English with Christina, and I've helped dozens

of companies successfully pitch their products

and services at professional events in the US and abroad.

And this video is the second part

of a series where we deep dive

into how to create your own personalized pitch.

Now, of course, you want to do your research

on your new client before your pitch.

That seems obvious.

Now most of us are familiar with the standard ways

of finding out about a client, for example, looking

at the company website, looking at their LinkedIn profile

looking at social media posts from their company, et cetera.

But there's an extra expert tip that I want to

share with you.

Here it is.

Speak to people in the industry

that you're trying to target.

Ask them questions about their biggest problems

and their challenges, or as we say in business

what keeps them up at night interview

not just people at the company that you're trying to target.

I don't, you know, if, if that's possible, but go outside

go broader, and talk to people in the industry to

get those super valuable insights that you can use

in your pitch.

Now, don't just stop there.

Don't just interview them and make a few notes

but actually record or write

down the exact words that they use.

For example, you know, I spend a lot of time talking

to people in the industries that we work with

med techs, biotechs, computer science, that kind of thing.

And as we are interviewing

my cat does often come and walk in front of the camera.

That's kind of what she does, but that's

that's not the most important thing.

But what I'm doing is actually transcribing word

for word what they say.

Now, if you can't type that fast

you can also ask permission to record the conversation

and reassure that it will not be made public

it's just for your own research, et cetera.

But then we take all of that and we put it

into a document where we have like a library of, you know

things that people in these industries have told us

so that we can better understand what their challenges are

create solutions that you know, solve those problems

and then go and talk to these potential clients

about these solutions that we have that respond

to their problems.

You see how it works.

Now the next point is talking like your clients.

You know, when you're delivering your pitch

think about who you'll be speaking with.

Are you meeting with a general partner

at an investment firm, or is it the founder of a company?

Is it the head of it or the head of human resources?

You know, these people, depending

on what they do in the company, they don't always

have the same understanding, the same concerns

the same ways of speaking, the same problems.

And of course you want to adapt all

of that to the person in front

of you so that you are literally speaking their language.

And of course that means, you know, customizing your message

to them, using their words to describe their problems

not language that is too detailed or too technical.

If you know that's not the language

of the person that you're talking to, make sure

that they can see how your solution solves their problem.

Like, I have a problem of a cat

which always likes to come and video bomb my videos.

So if you have a solution for that

a nice solution, you know, hey, pitch me on that.

Anyway, if you do all of that

take the time to research your audience

then your pitch is going to be a lot easier

and a lot more effective.

Now, let's go deeper.

Another level

and this is actually a question that I got when

I did a webinar on creating your personal pitch.

And it was, you know, what do you do

if you don't know who you're pitching to?

Now this I don't know, might seem like a weird question

because you probably know who you were going to pitch to

but maybe not because you're at a networking event

and suddenly you realize that there is an opportunity

for you to talk about what you do

and how you do it and why you do it and all of that.

But you don't know who that person is

that you know you're talking to and that you've identified

as someone that you could potentially help.

It could be anyone that, it could be, you know

a venture capitalist, a neuroscience, the wife

of the editor who will publish your next book.

That's a true story.

You can check out my video

on Tim Ferris and how he networks at events.

That's how he got the four hour workweek published was

by pitching it to the wife of his editor.

So, you know, you never know who you're talking to

but what do you do in that case to make your pitch relevant?

First, observe your audience.

And when I say audience, it can be just the one

person that you are having a conversation with

but observe the other person

and be aware of their reactions.

Are they watching attentively and following along?

Are they leaning in?

Are they shaking their head?

Are they saying like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are they giving you signs that they're interested

or are they looking a little bored, confused

staring out the window?

Maybe you can see their eyes are like looking around at the

you know, what's going on behind you in the event.

If that's the case

then it might be your time to change your strategy.

And if that's the case, then to try to learn more

about your conversation partner, ask, you know

a couple of open-ended questions to get them talking

so you can learn more about them and

either adjust your message or just, you know, realize, okay

this person is not in my, you know

target so we can talk about something else.

Because when you're asking them questions

it's a little like, you know, we

earlier we talked about doing your research

on the person before you pitch to them.

Well, this is like doing your research in real time

and on the spot it lets you find out more information

about the person that you're speaking with.

For example, you know, you can ask them

what's the biggest concern your company is facing right now?

So you'll find out not only what they're most worried about

but the words that they use to talk about it.

You'll be able to see how much technical language they use.

So how much you should use, how formal they're speaking.

So how you can adjust your level of formality.

You'll find out what maybe emotions you can touch on

and you may even have a chance to see that, you know

they're a little, a little humorous, a little funny

and you can adapt in consequence.

But most importantly, you'll be able to make sure

that you can solve your client's biggest problems.

And you can talk

about how your solution helps with that problem.

Whether that's, I don't know, generating more revenue

for shareholders, adapting a new technology

being more responsive to customers

getting more customers who, who knows, you know

whatever your clients do.

And so all of that, you know, whether you're pitching

to someone you know, who you're pitching to

or you have like a surprise pitch at a

at a networking event.

You know, the key thing here is learning about the person

or the company, their problems, how they talk about it.

And I would say, you know

adapting your words and your message to what they need.

Now, this was the second episode

in this special three part series where we're going deeper

on how, how to create a personalized pitch that gets results

for your business when you're working with Americans.

But I also have live free workshops on topics like this

and I would love to see you there.

So sign up to my newsletter so

that you get your invitation to the next live workshop.

And if you don't use it, you lose it.

So here's how you can use what you learned today.

Tell me in the comments

is this a practice that you do when you are

preparing to pitch your product or your services?

Do you research?

I would say people in your industry

do you investigate the the

the person that you'll talk to online?

Do you talk to other people in the industry?

What are your techniques for preparing your pitch?

Share it with us in the comments.

I'd love to see what you do.

And you know, we'll just put together all

of our collective intelligence

and learn how to create the best pitches ever.

So if this lesson was helpful for you, I would love to note

and there are three ways that you can tell me.

You can give this lesson a thumbs

up on YouTube and subscribe to my channel

so that you never miss those future lessons.

You can head over to my blog

and get your ultimate guide on pitching to Americans

and you can go on and watch that lesson

about how to join group conversations smoothly.

My top tips from Tim Ferris

in a video that I did based on a podcast that he did.

All right, thank you so much

for improving with business English with Christina

and I'll see you in part three of this special series.

Next.