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5 Tips to Perfect the Fast Pitch by Diane Danielson

Tips for Pitching the #SVNDifference

Last month I had an opportunity to speak at #DisruptCRE, which featured a number of commercial real estate technology companies seeking to “disrupt” the industry. One of the sessions included a fast-pitch session so that companies like Sperry Van Ness International Corporation as well as venture capitalists seeking to invest could learn about a company in 45 seconds or less.

Now, 45 seconds sounds like a very short time, but it’s still enough to convey a wealth of information. Out of the 20 presentations we saw, a couple of them stood out, not necessarily because their apps and technology were relevant to SVN, in fact most of them were not, but they had perfected their fast-pitch presentations.*

As Commercial Real Estate Advisors, we aren’t pitching new business tools to clients, but we are pitching our services and systems and often within short timeframes. In any presentation, we have only the first few seconds to make a good impression and explain the #SVNDifference. In fact, we want to see how our own Advisors do their version of a fast pitch in our #SVNDifference video contest (Click here for details; entries due by November 24, 2015).

[bctt tweet=”45 seconds sounds like a very short time, but it’s still enough to convey a wealth of information through your pitch #CRE”]

Here are a few helpful hints for delivering your pitch to clients in 45 seconds or less:

  1. Analogies work. If you are trying to introduce something new and different, then you need to give people a baseline. This is why Hollywood pitches always start out as it’s “Jaws meets Twister” or “Harry meets Sally online.”

SVN Advisor Tip: Be able to describe how you can organize greater demand for a property in words and/or analogies that your clients will understand.

  1. Tell stories. If you want people to remember you, your service, or your product, tell a story about it. Here are six rules for great storytelling. And, yes, a good presenter can tell an entire story within 45 seconds.

SVN Advisor Tip: Is there a story that demonstrates how your firm has used our Open Sales Call to create greater demand and/or to sell a property faster?

  1. Differentiate from the competition. Use your stories to illustrate how your service differs from the competition.

SVN Advisor Tip: This is why you need to perfect your #SVNDifference pitch!

  1. Be able to pitch without PowerPoint or props. In 45 seconds, your verbal description needs to stand on its own, no matter the product or service.

SVN Advisor Tip: Listen to the pitches on the Open Sales Call. Make notes on which ones are the most effective.

  1. Align with their values. What does your client value? Are they tied to the local community? What is their company culture or priorities?

SVN Advisor Tip: At SVN we value collaboration, local expertise, and transparent fees to drive demand. Identify clients who do the same, and the easier it will be to make your pitch.

One final reason to really nail the fast pitch is that even if the person making the decision is excited for your service, implementation is another story. For your client to make a change, they often have to convince a lot of other people to go along with them, some of who may be reluctant. You need to help them duplicate your fast pitch internally and that’s where the tips above can help.

Looking forward to seeing some versions of our Advisors’ 45-second pitches in our #SVNDifference Video Contest!

*Just in case you were wondering, there was not a bad pitch in the whole set at DisruptCRE, but the top 45-second pitches of the day were by Raisal, Building Conversation, and CrowdComfort. Great job to those companies and all the others who presented last week.

Leave the Marketing to Us

The SVN Platform Simplifies Marketing

Earlier this week, I got a copy of an interesting post from the CRE Outsider blog on whether or not Advisors should do their own marketing (see the article here).

The short of it is that you should and shouldn’t do your own marketing. Yes, you should set the direction and have the knowledge to ensure that you’re going in the right direction. But, no, you shouldn’t be doing the actual work to execute on the marketing campaign. Like I’ve told many of you in person, your clients care that you show up with a perfectly prepared proposal book, but they don’t care who filled in the fields or who stood at the machine and bound the book.

And that’s one of the many reasons that, after almost 18 months, I’m still obsessively jazzed about being here at SVN. If you really think about our platform, what it does is give you the tools to get your activity and your brand out there without a lot of effort on your part. You set the direction (and we even help you do that!) and our tools and other features help you make the marketing happen. Here are just a few examples…

  • You can get your listings in front of buyers and brokers on a call, YouTube and SlideShare through our National Sales Call on Monday mornings
  • Qualifying deals can be shared with Advisors across SVN through the SVN National Blast system
  • The SVN 5 Minute Marketer will print – and mail – “Just Listed” postcards for you
  • Real Capital Analytics helps you generate buyer lists
  • BuildOut syndicates deals to multiple websites, getting your listing exposed to thousands or millions of users

Sure, you might have to click a few buttons, but the system is doing the heavy lifting of the marketing work for you. You get deals, and leave the driving – or is that marketing – to us!

To learn more about how you can spend more time making deals and less time making flyers, check out our Careers page here.

[bctt tweet=”Like I’ve told many of you in person, your clients care that you show up with a perfectly prepared proposal book, but they don’t care who filled in the fields or who stood at the machine and bound the book.”]

SVN Featured Properties for week of Feb. 10, 2014

Property Location Price Property Type Fee Buy Side
Hampton Court Apartments Baltimore, MD Auction Multifamily 1%
Texarkan Retail Pad Site 1 Texarkana, TX $708,000 Land $21,240
Texarkan Retail Pad Site 2 Texarkana, TX $754,000 Land $22,620
Albuquerque Car Wash Albuquerque, NM $765,669 Land $22,970
7301 Patey Woods Road Newark, MD $850,000 Land $29,750
Amos Garden Apartments Huntsville, AL $990,000 Multifamily $29,700
Medical Office Condo Rehoboth  Beach, DE $1,185,000 Office $35,550
Augusta Lodge Augusta, GA $1,352,800 Hospitality $33,820
Taco Bell Fulton, MO $1,447,000 Retail $28,940
Burger King West Branch, MI $1,476,923 Retail $36,923
Burger King Plymouth, MI $1,792,000 Retail $44,800
Folsum Blvd. Retail Center Rancho  Cordova, CA $1,950,000 Retail $34,125
Wild Frontier Campground Ocala, FL $2,100,000 Multifamily $63,000
Executive Towers San Diego, CA $2,200,000 Office $66,000
Taco Bell El Dorado, AR $2,296,000 Retail $45,920
Commercial Land Georgetown, DE $2,400,000 Land $96,000
Main Street at Hebron Hebron, MD $2,500,000 Land $125,000
1408 Industrial Bldg. Pompano Beach, FL $3,000,000 Industrial $90,000
Townhome Portfolio Amelia, OH $4,600,000 Multifamily $115,000
The Atrium Norcross, GA $5,000,000 Office $150,000
Polo Springs Apartments Bardstown, KY $5,200,000 Multifamily $104,000
Office Building Portfolio Houston, TX $5,550,615 Office $111,012.30

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*All Sperry Van Ness offices are independently owned and operated.