VIDEO: Hit Movies And Winning Sales Pitches Follow The Same Formula
If you’ve found yourself singing along to Taylor Swift’s “Shake It Off,” then you’ve been attracted by a formula. Hit pop songwriters follow a formula called track-and-hook that make songs almost irresistible. Ninety percent of the revenues in the music business come from 10% of the songs, and a handful of writers write many of those hits songs because they’ve mastered the formula.
In Hollywood, movies also follow a formula. It’s no coincidence that the same writers who brought us Notting Hill, also wrote Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, and Bridget Jones’s Diary. They create consistent winners because they have mastered the three-part formula all romantic comedies must follow:
Act 1: The Set-up (the characters’ lives are revealed and an “inciting incident” occurs where the boy and girl meet).
Act 2: The Conflict (boy and girl get separated)
Act 3: The Resolution (boy and girl are reunited, usually after a chase to an airport)
A winning sales pitch isn’t that different from creating a hit movie. Like movie directors, experienced PowerPoint designers will often start with a storyboard to visualize the narrative from start to finish. A good pitch includes characters, conflict, and a satisfying resolution. Ideally a little entertainment value like humor doesn’t hurt, either. Since a presentation and a movie are very much alike, it pays to follow the structure of hit movies. Here is how Hollywood’s three-part formula can be adapted for a sales pitch.
Act 1: The Set-up
Paint a picture of your client’s world as it is. This is critical because it gives your prospect the confidence that you understand their challenges and competition. Too many sales and marketing pitches are lost from the start because the speaker begins the pitch in act three, describing the features of a product or service without ever having identified the characters or the problem that the product solves. And that leads us to act two…
Act 2: The Conflict
A successful product needs to solve a problem. In movies, the hero’s world is turned upside down in the second act. (Titanic hits an iceberg or an obstacle derails a romance.) In a sales pitch it’s also important to identify the problem your product solves. The more clearly you can describe your customers’ pain, the more likely you are to make a sale. The success of this second act assumes that your product or service truly cures or alleviates a real pain.
Act 3: The Resolution
A winning sales pitch concludes with the features of the product and a clear connection between those features and the benefits to the customer. Paint a compelling picture of how your product will transform your clients’ life or business and you’ll be more likely to win them over.
Here’s an example of how the pitch works in the real world. We all know that life insurance is a tough sell. It’s for a future event (hopefully well into the future) that most of us would rather not think about. Recently I met a financial advisor who has received countless awards in his 30-year career as one of the top salespeople in his field. When I asked how he did it, the advisor outlined a pitch nearly identical to the three-step formula I’ve described. In act one, he paints the world as it is for the client and it all seems reasonably pleasant. He begins act two with a very clear break. The following sentence introduces the conflict:
“What if something should happen to turn your world upside down?”
In act two the clients’ world is turned upside, literally, when someone who the family has relied on for stability suddenly gets hurt or ill.
Act three is the resolution and here’s where the advisors pitch gets interesting. He offers two alternative endings. The first ending is life for the family without his product; the second ending is much happier and paints a picture of the family after having purchased the insurance product.
Where many financial advisors describe the features of a particular product, the advisor of the year takes his prospects on a journey where they can see themselves in the narrative.
Formulas exist for a reason. They provide a set of instructions that create a desired outcome. Nearly all Hollywood blockbusters follow a set of instructions called the three-act structure. If you want your sales pitch to spark a desired outcome, steal a page from successful screenwriters. It might be your ticket to sales success.