I loved how good a student Natalee was. She had carefully watched my previous podcasts and had changed her pitch accordingly, choosing specific target groups that self-gathered and a pain point that they had in common. She thought that the inability to order small print runs of stickers was the biggest problem that she solved for marketing agencies.

Well, even as well prepared as she was, I still wasn’t satisfied (poor Natalee!). I wanted to find out the true cost of the pain, as usual. And as usual, the business owner wasn’t entirely clear about the full cost of the pain for the target end-user. I mean, would her client, Mr.Ad Agency lose his project if he couldn’t run a small run of stickers? Would a project cost too much if the stickers were done by hand at a printer who didn’t have the technology Natalee did for small runs? These were questions she couldn’t answer.

On the other hand, Natalee also mentioned schools and churches as possible target groups. Again, she needed to go out and survey them to find out about the consequences of not having her small run capacity and pricing. Would this be a safety issue at schools if they couldn’t order a short run on stickers, causing the school to be liable? Could this be an expensive pain point that she could own an expertise around? Would churches have the biggest cost to not being able to hang their signs as Natalee’s stickers? You can see that there are more questions here than answers.

What I love about this whole process of Polishing someone’s Pitch is how it demonstrates the need for more market insights and consumer information. Things that all marketers live and breathe, and unfortunately most small businesses are clueless about. We ended Natalee’s segment with an imagined pain point for her declared target of marketing agencies and tied it all up nicely but I won’t be happy until she has done the full research and feels more confident in what the true issues are that she solves. Then she will get asked for her card endlessly, as soon as she does her Elevator Pitch!

If you thought what Natalee went through was a great experience, email me at chala@repositioner.com to be my next guest. I welcome all your comments and also don’t forget to subscribe and rate our Podcast!

I welcome all your comments and also don’t forget to subscribe and rate our Podcast!