Mad Libs for Vendor Pitches

This week on the Waters Wavelength podcast (subscribe here!) we had our first ever guest: Blackstone CTO Bill Murphy. Bill was a great first guest, as he's an intelligent and witty guy, which I think comes across pretty clearly in the interview.

However, as interesting as it was to hear Bill talk about his golf game and the NBA Finals, what really stood out to me was his points about good and bad vendor pitches (12-minute mark).

The entire interview is worth a listen, but to summarize, Bill's main point was this: Understand the problem set and make the product relevant by first pitching the problem the firm is facing.

It sounds simple enough, but it's clearly an area where vendors are falling short, as Bill says he's seen it time and again during his meetings.

So, in an effort to help our readers, I decided to put together a Mad Lib sales pitch. Think of this as a foolproof way to sell any type of product to any potential client in financial services.

Full disclosure: I have absolutely no sales experience. The best sale I ever made was convincing my girlfriend to start dating me. My knowledge of the sales industry extends about as far as the Michael Scott character in "The Office" and "Tommy Boy."

Feel free to use this in all your future meetings. I've gone ahead and bolded the areas where you'll need to add the information specific to you.

Hello, [executive's name]!

Thank you so much for agreeing to this meeting. I know how busy you are these days and appreciate you taking time out of your day to speak to me.

That's why I'm going to cut right to the chase. It's no secret that [problem your solution solves] is not going anywhere. A recent [Deloitte/EY/Tabb/Aite/Celent] survey found that [problem your solution solves] could cost firms on the [buy side/sell side/both] roughly [percentage] of their IT budget by [year].

Can you imagine spending [percentage] of your IT spend on [problem your solution solves]?! I thought [local sports team] spending [money amount] on [local sports star that has underperformed] was a bad investment!

That's where I believe [vendor name] fits into the picture. You have a problem. One that, according to [Deloitte/EY/Tabb/Aite/Celent], isn't going away anytime soon. We have a solution.

A lot of people label themselves vendors in this space. Personally, that's not how we feel. We're problem solvers. I'm not trying to sell you a product. I'm trying to sell you something that's a headache reliever. Something you know you can [install internally/set up via the cloud] and never have to worry about again.

Think of it this way: [problem your solution solves] is a cockroach in your apartment and [product] is a big can of Raid. Sure, you could ignore it. It's only a little bug. But before you know it you have an entire family of bugs living in your place. By the time [year predicted by Deloitte/EY/Tabb/Aite/Celent] hits you're basically living in THEIR apartment. Is that what you want? Do you really want to have to rename [name of firm] to [problem your solution solves] because it crippled your company so bad? I didn't think so.

Now listen, I'm not here to talk trash, but I know some of the guys at [competitor]. We have a big pick-up [basketball (US)/football (Europe)/hockey (Canada)] game every Saturday. Those guys over at [competitor] are good people, but when it comes to solving [problem your solution solves] they're clueless.

I heard their beta was such a disaster they had to completely stop production and reset. You didn't hear this from me but [generic first name] over in development at [competitor] told me they waited nine months to start getting customer feedback on their product. Does that sound like someone you want to partner with when it comes to tackling [problem your solution solves]?

Listen, [executive's name], you're a smart person. It's obvious [problem your solution solves] is going to affect [name of firm] in a big way. Do you really want to be left with your pants down? Let [vendor name] ease those concerns. Like I said, we're problem solvers. Let us solve yours.