Understanding your customers motivation to buy is tricky. Kevin Allen does a great job making it easier to understand by looking at a commercial we all know – the MasterCard “Priceless” ad.
He says winning pitches need three things:
- You need to understand that behind every decision lies a hidden agenda.
- Your need to do your emotional homework to find the hidden agenda.
- You need to connect yourself to the hidden agenda.
- Real Ambition: our intention to create something good where nothing existed before.
- Your Core Abilities: the special abilities you possess at the core of your being that separate you from others.
- Your Credo: the values and belief system to which you subscribe, and/or a shared behaviour or code of ethics that you’re working within.
Now you know what to say, now Deliver like a litigator: You can create your argument, gathering all your facts and supporting evidence around the hidden agenda, which should be placed squarely at the centre of your “case.” Then, you can create an exciting tale where your audiences attains their deepest desire, not via business-speak, but with good old-fashioned storytelling to convincingly convey your pitch.
Kevin does a great job explaining the process of understanding why your customers buy from you and it is not because you twisted someone’s arm. People want to be understood, and with that understanding you can tap in “their heart’s desire.”
Read the entire article, Win the Pitch: Tips from MasterCard’s “Priceless” Pitchman – Kevin Allen – Harvard Business Review.
