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What Language Are You Speaking to Woo Clients?

Elevator pitches by CEOs are a lesson in what NOT to do

by Meryl K. Evans, editor, ENJ

Mission statements, vision statements and goals: Where is it written they have to use fancy words and be a mile long? If they aren’t memorable, how can you expect your employees to implement them and your prospects to understand your objectives? In the last two issues, we gave you the opportunity to read an article on 17 CEOs’ elevator pitches. Then we asked to you to attempt to figure out whose pitch is whose.

The VARBusiness article that lit a fire! 17 Top CEOs Share Their Elevator Pitches The Perfect Pitch? Says Who? by Rich Cirillo, VARBusiness

Many of you are senior managers, marketing directors and communications specialists in businesses all over the world. You’re intelligent individuals responsible for communicating your business message to clients and prospects. However, most of us struggled to determine which message each company’s CEO pitched. Many of the companies are well known, but we didn’t catch their pitch, which shows that the largest and most successful businesses don't have an accurate pitch.

Find this hard to believe? Give it a shot before you read on. Then learn what NOT to do through their examples—this will help ensure ineffective pitching doesn’t happen to your company.

Aaaaannnnndddd the results!

Two companies received the best results, indicating they have the highest pitch recognition:

Only two more companies received over 50 percent recognition. The rest have pitiful recognition numbers. Four of 17 known companies have recognizable pitches. Sad, unbelievable and pathetic, isn't it?

The bottom of the pile

Let's review the 17 companies covered in this challenge:

We already know the four that did better than average. So that leaves 13. Which three companies do you think did the worst? Personally, I would vote for AMD, BEA and EMC because I know the least about these companies. Also, the company that uses "Getting back to customer satisfaction" shouldn't get a good score, as every company has customers. Nothing about that pitch gives a clue about the company. Ready for the answer? (drum roll)

Cisco, Oracle and Intel.

Are you as surprised as I am? Even those who know little about technology are most likely to know these three companies. We conducted this survey with another audience and the same three companies also did the worst. In fact, all three had 0, zero, zip, nada recognition. How can that be? Take a look at their pitches.

Boy, was I wrong! I never would have considered these three for the bottom of the pile. But when you put their names with the pitch, it's understandable. Those pitches don't match the keywords that would come to mind when thinking of these companies.

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Does their success mean that pitches are pointless and don't impact the bottom line? Not necessarily. Imagine how much more business they would have if their pitches were more in line with their business. Could these companies' large size make it impossible to come up with a single slogan to represent them? This theory is shot when you see Dell and eBay getting the most recognition.

One of the first things a company wants to do is differentiate itself from the competition. The best way to do that is to use its USP (unique selling proposition) to create the company's pitch. Pitches communicate the company's value and what it does.

Trading pitches

Two companies received over 50 percent recognition under another company's pitch. In other words, the other company's pitch better suited these two companies. AMD's "To provide the world's best semiconductor solutions based on customer-centric innovation" is a better match for Intel.

Novell's "Connecting anyone to anything digital, simply and reliably and at a low cost" sounds more like Cisco, doesn't it? Novell wasn't recognized at all. Looks like it needs to revisit its pitch and match it to what the company does.

More results …

Can you name another company that manufactures chips like Intel? Neither can I. Intel's success largely comes from having little competition. If another company could compete against Intel and communicate its purpose better, how would it impact Intel's success?

Connecting with the customer

Robin Weidner, principal with Robin Weidner Copywriting & Consulting, has an excellent pitch, "Smart copywriting that connects you with your customers." He says, "I often write taglines, sales campaigns and other communications, working with businesses ranging from start-ups to companies running national sales campaigns. It's interesting to me how companies build verbiage that makes them feel good about themselves, but may do little to connect them with their customers. As far as the exercise [goes, it’s] very interesting. I only knew about seven of these and looked up the others, curious to see if their verbiage would lead me to their companies."

Simon Young, managing director with SimonYoungWriters, whose pitch is "I listen to the stories businesses have, then tell them in a compelling way," says, "This exercise confirmed for me what I already believed—big corporations don't often know what it is they do, because they're too busy doing it. Time to reflect is a precious, very necessary commodity."

Gordon Graham, partner with Gordon and Gordon, pitches, "I help technology firms tell their stories using facts, not hype." He says, "Even though I've worked in high-tech for 25 years, I couldn't always tell which pitch was for which company. It's amazing how much 'pahooey' some companies put out! This has some good examples I can use in my workshops on how to write positioning statements that are crisp, clean and clear."

Virginia Avery, president of Avery Communications, gives a pitch that explains exactly what her company does, "You are only a day away from more profitable business presentations!" She says, "The 'pitches,' by and large, are written for others within the industry and are not customer-focused."

Woof! Woof!

InternetVIZ is the first to eat its own dog food. Our pitch, as shown on the home page, says, "Increase qualified leads and customer loyalty." What do you think? What do you think we do? Tell us your thoughts on the data in this article as well as on our own pitch.

Meryl K. Evans is the editor of this thing you're reading and Shavlik's The Remediator Security Digest. She writes for MarketingProfs and PC Today. You can find her buried under cake crumbs and torn wrapping paper because her husband, her son and she just had their birthdays.