How to Use Storytelling to Pitch Your Business Like a Pro

I have won pitch competitions with this structure (for the Content Calendar Kit if you’re curious!) and have helped other businesses format successful investor pitches and retail pitches using this basic outline.

The goal is to give the person your pitching a picture they can understand, even if they’re not the target audience (especially for investors or potential collaborations outside of your industry).

Where it shows up in your content: Emails to potential customers (in a wholesale setting), in-person presentations or networking events, funding applications, Shark Tank.

When your sales pitch involves a story, there’s a better chance that whoever you’re talking to will connect with your offer (and give you money).

Sales pitches aren’t a one size fits all type of story, but you can think about having a few - you should have one that answers “Tell me about your business” for networking events and talking to people who may be potential buyers and one for each customer that you have. Customers can be potential investors, retailers buying your product wholesale, companies hiring you for speaking events, or people buying your product to use or gift (online or in person!) Keep sales pitches short and sweet (60-90 seconds), but give people enough information to ask questions that relate to them directly.

Friction: When you have a short amount of time to pitch, cutting to the chase is important, which means highlighting the problem you’re solving or the benefit you’re providing right away.

Similar to the Reason for Being storyline, you want to highlight what is missing from current market offerings right away. This draws your audience in and if they’re part of your target audience, connect with the frustration. If you’re pitching to potential investors or to someone who isn’t the end customer for the product (like retailers buying wholesaler) you’ll want to include a mention of your target audience when you describe the pain-point. For example, if you’re pitching for a local small business grant and you sell a weekly meal planning service “As a busy mom myself, I wanted to have meal planning done for me, but was looking for something more sustainable and less expensive than plastic-intense meal kit services.” This addresses part of the problem: time to plan meals as well as the gap in the market for a meal planning service that provides you recipes and a grocery list versus a done-for-you meal kit.

Opening: This is where you introduce your company. Positioning it immediately after you’ve explained the problem you solve makes it easy to position your offer as a solution, and give a short description of how you provide a benefit. This is where it’s important to give people enough information to understand your business (especially if it is a bit more technical) but keep it general enough that most people can understand. If you’re speaking to someone with a similar background, often they’ll ask follow up questions that are more specific after you’re finished.

Resolution: Ask for what you want, but frame it as an opportunity. If you’re talking to a potential wholesale account, ask them to place an order. If you’re pitching an investor, tell them how much capital you need. Talking to a customer, ask them how they’d like to process their order to get it to them most effectively. If you’re at a networking event or talking to someone about a collaboration it may be a softer ask or even a direction, like “let’s schedule a follow up to discuss next steps.” No matter what, this is going to feel the most “salesy” of any story you tell, and that’s ok. It’s a sales pitch after all.