I don’t hate marketing and sales. I believe that if you have a great product, service, or skill you can connect with those that need it and develop a mutually beneficial relationship (customer has a need, you offer a solution, they pay you for it, you deliver beyond expectations, everyone is happy - ideally, of course).
Here is the pinch from earlier in the week - I was introduced to a friend of a colleague that could be a good fit for an Inner Passage adventure we are running in the fall. I approached him about the adventure and he was courteous and appreciative, but declined. No problem there. What stood out for me though was that he referred to my invitation as a pitch.
Now this could be a disagreement of semantics - but “pitch” felt loaded to me. My goal was to invite (yes, there was a sale in the process so invitation may be the wrong word as well) - but, it got me thinking that there may be some middle ground between “pitch” and “invitation”?
I am looking to make a sale. Yes, I am in business and do not give away my services. But, my intention is to bring together a great community of people with a common goal and common need - Inner Passage is the solution. That there is the “pitch” or the “invitation” - a great community with a common goal and a common need.
My hope is that we as solution providers, and as consumers, are not so jaded by financial market fears and economic shifts that we loose track of the very essence of what our work is and why we do it. Invitation, pitch, whatever you call it - do it with authenticity and the goal of providing the best service to the ideal client, can’t go wrong there.
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When I hear this, I instantly think that this is another example of the need to work out our own Red Velvet Rope policy.
We can deliver the same message the same way (an invitation to an experience that costs money to attend) to two different people, with one defining it as a ‘pitch’ and another as a ‘possibility’, even if both refuse.
I think that on our end, as experience makers, we can continually self-evaluate how we communicate and avoid standard sales lingo (such as the word ‘lingo’!)
As for the other side of that conversation, it is wholly in the hands of those to which we offer our help.