Summary: if you can convince your worst critics of the benefits of your service, you’re on the way to having something people will pay for.
The Game
I was reminded today of a one-off workshop I ran, years back, and which I really enjoyed. I had called it ‘Hostile Pitching’, which scared most people off – but a gumptious group showed up on the night, ready to try it.
Five of us sat around the table pretending, in turn, to be the sixth person’s nightmare pitchees. A great chance for role playing, to which we all took with gusto. There were plenty of cantankerous old gits, apathetic teenagers, hard-pressed parents and hard-nosed business tycoons, depending on what each presenter said were their likely target audiences.
So, each presenter rather bravely said what they were selling, and we all would go into character and take the ‘So What?’ line – with our various in-character objections, apathies and trenchant observations. It wasn’t pretty – but we knew that was the point of the exercise, and we were supportive behind the masks.
Since each presenter instantly went into intellectual spasm, it was interspersed with brainstormings to find possible answers, which the presenter would then use on us. It didn’t take too long for the presenter either to find a convincing approach or to see that it just wasn’t a suitable audience niche and consider another.
An example
One example was Donna, who was trying to obtain sponsorship for her disabled-actors theatre productions. She had been strongly of the opinion that people should want to give, because it was a worthy cause. Faced with an ‘audience’ of stressed business-people and indifferent wealthy types, however, she soon got stuck. That approach met only with blank stares and ‘I don’t care about your disabled actors, I’ve got deadlines to meet‘ responses.
With the brainstorming (a slightly schizophrenic ‘half-as-character, half-as-friend’ affair), we found the best approach was one of “What are you trying to achieve? Where are you stuck? This is how sponsoring us might help you with that.”
This was a great eye-opener for her, and she reported back a few days later saying that her sales calls had become totally different – they were now conversations where she actually got to understand their problems and goals, and she was no longer selling but helping them to find answers.
Conclusion
We all think we’re addressing the customer’s needs, but we rarely do more than a self-justifying sweep of our audience. Ask friends to role-play your target audience, or write down a few descriptions (as though they were characters in a book) and then pretend to be them yourself. The best answers come from the most uncomfortable examination: it won’t mean you shouldn’t do it, but it will mean you’re a lot more relevant.
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