The Two-Second Sales Pitch

Could you deliver an effective sales pitch in two seconds? In the business world (and some would say everywhere else as well), our lives are a series of interrelated sales pitches. Whether it's convincing your boss to fund a new project, selling directly to a customer, or proving that you can complete the saltine challenge, everyone needs to have an effective sales strategy. For a moment, let's forget all the complicated systems, 10-step programs, and business-school-inspired models. If all you had was two seconds, your pitch would undoubtedly be a variant of "I/you/we should do [action x] because of [reason y]". Assume you are selling to someone who isn't just going to "take your word for it" and requires an explanation. After all, you wouldn't walk into your boss's office and ask for a raise because you feel like it (although if you would, please email me your company's information right away).

In order to provide an effective explanation, you must anticipate what the person you are pitching to wants. In the case of your boss, he/she wants higher profit (just a guess). Knowing this, you walk in confidently, look your boss straight in the face, and exclaim "You should give me a raise because I contribute to higher profits for the company!" Your boss stares back at you and says "Show me". Uh-oh. Clearly there's not enough time (you already used 1.5 seconds) to explain the details of your impact in your department and improvements on the product. The truth is, your boss doesn't really understand exactly what you did, so why bother explaing the details? In some cases you can daze your audience with facts. In two seconds, though, there's not enough time. When you need that initial impact, nothing beats visualization. It's no coincidence that all fast food menus have a picture of the food item with the price underneath it. How accurate those visuals are is another story...