Yesterday morning I started the day with a bit of a catastrophe… I was working on the kitchen table when a cup of English Breakfast tea got knocked over. Like a movie in slow motion I could see the tsunami of tea (a slight exaggeration – but you get the picture) surging towards my laptop. Before I could lift it off the table to safety the tea had soaked my MacBook. And, predictably my laptop didn’t respond well to the experience of having a morning cuppa spilt on it.
Fortunately I have a spare laptop and I make regular backups so I didn’t lose too much data.
However there is a moral for you to take away here – and that is have a Plan B! I was fortunate that the accident happened at home where I had immediate access to my backup data and my spare machine. Had I been away on a client site to deliver a pitch I would have not had that luxury.
Would the client have forgiven me and excused me from delivering the pitch to another day? Possibly… But why take the chance?
The reality is that we need to be prepared to deliver our sales presentation no matter what! Whilst you (hopefully) won’t spill cups of tea and coffee on your laptop) there are plenty of things that can, and often will, go wrong. Data projectors can blow a bulb, projector screens get stuck, or you forget the cable to connect your machine to the projector. The list of things that can wrong is endless… Regardless, if something doesn’t go to plan you still need to push ahead and deliver your pitch.
And, in a strange twist of fate, it will be to your advantage.
Your client will know that you have had some challenges, and provided you don’t over emphasise the issues you’ve faced you will gain their trust and respect at a much deeper level with your ability to continue with the pitch. They are more likely to buy what your offering.
When you can still deliver a polished pitch in the face of adversity you will see you sales increase. And, perversely, as you prepare to deliver your pitch to clients you’ll be secretly hoping that things go wrong so you can “strut your stuff” and increase your conversions.
Wouldn’t that be nice?
