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The secret to sealing the deal

The secret to sealing the deal

Jesse Pujji
October 19, 2023

In Tuesdays Email, I went through how I sell B2B, but I didn't go deep into what I actually say to seal the deal.

So, here's my secret to landing new clients/customers every single time: "sentence stems".

What is a "sentence stem"? It's a way to effectively setup the beginning of a sentence. I use them to frame my pitch to be informative, interesting and brief.

If you're in DTC or something consumer facing you might not think this applies to you, but you can use these in ads, partnership pitches or meetings with your team.

Let's get into it.

Here are my personal stems and examples of how to use them:

Always start with a story about why you built this product or service. Keep it brief, around 1 minute. Make sure that the listener gets the inspiration for why this exists.

Describe what the person is looking at (the screen/image/feature). Just because you are super familiar with it do NOT assume they will be!

This helps them get centered/their bearings before getting into the details.

Briefly hit on the details and implementation of the product or feature you just described. Give them additional context, but keep it BREIF.

While explaining how it works, share some of they "sexy" tech jargon (Is it built in React? Does it process a ton of data?) Again, keep it brief, but weave it in.

THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE DEMO!

Prep a story or specific example. Find something real and authentic! Don't make it dry or boring.

Imagine the listener will get off your call and someone will ask them "How'd your meeting go?". They're going to have to describe the "differentiators" of your product or service. Don't make them wonder or guess, be explicit!

This is the most often forgotten part of the sales pitch...even if you have revolutionary technology. Answer "SO WHAT?"

Show me the money. Make sure the dots connect for them!

Don't forget the roadmap and tease what else is on your mind. People choose partners, not products. They want to know where you're going and if they can see themselves riding along.

See it in action:

Most things can be demo'd in a good 5min. Use these stems and give the listener all the relevant info, but keep it brief.

Here's an example of a script I wrote for an old Kahani demo:

"The problem I saw" was that ecommerce websites had not kept up with the look and feel of social apps like TikTok/IG.

So I built Kahani.

"What you see here" is Kahani implemented on the top of Alleyoop's website. It's the header with the "stories" feature. You can tap on them and get that familiar experience.

"How this works is" you drop 2 lines of code in your Shopify console and we have a CMS where you can upload content and it renders right on your site. You can customize it on any page on your site.

One cool part about this is it easily syncs with your Instagram, Shopify inventory data so you can easily pull in content you already have into the stories format.

"Story" - We were really surprised by Alleyoop! Most previous customers had used Kahani more like a merchandising tool but they used their social content on their homepage and PDP and they've been our best performing customer so far.

"What makes Kahani different/special is" we measure the performance and engagement of each piece of content so can prove the lift out plus get you tons of data on what content is working.

"Something we are working on next is" building a variety of "modals" for Kahani... not just the circles/stories features but we will have horizontal video carousels, vertical video carousels and other formats!

Reply to me with how you're going to use stems in your next pitch!

Jesse