Stop “Helping” People in Your Pitch

When most business owners pitch their company, it’s their one shot to either spark curiosity in the person listening or blend into a sea of “I’ve heard that before.”

If you want to stand out for all the right reasons, start by eliminating one of the most overly-used phrases in just about every pitch out there.

“I help…”

To demonstrate, let’s play a game:

Play the role of a stressed-out business owner: You’re dedicated to your company and put in longer-than-you-should hours, and as a result, you sacrifice your personal life. When you are with your family, your mind is still at the office, and you can’t live in the moment. When you are out with your friends, you feel guilty that you aren’t at the office.

Whom would you prefer to hire to help you out?

Coach #1:

“I’m Brett. I help business owners and leaders create clarity, confidence, and conviction of who they are as their genuine best selves and how to show up this way consistently, so they eliminate stress and burnout and experience thriving health, more quality time with their loved ones, and far greater impact in their business or careers.”

Or Coach #2:

“I’m Brett. I eliminate stress and burnout for business leaders so when they go home at night they experience higher quality moments with their family and friends.”

I could go down a rabbit hole of nuance on the first pitch. I like much of it, and there are endless ways we could wordsmith it to make it even better. But let’s narrow in on that first part – the ‘helping’ part.

“I help business owners and leaders create clarity and confidence.”

Besides sounding like every other pitch out there, there is something very passive about that word, “help.” It’s also unclear. How exactly does he help? The goal is to stop the passiveness and increase the clarity. How do you do that?

Here are 3 different strategies to eliminate the word “help” from your pitch.

1. Replace the word “help” with the benefit customarily described at the end of the sentence:

“I help business owners and leaders create clarity and confidence.”

Becomes:

“I create clarity and confidence for business owners and leaders.”

2. Just stop saying the word, and the sentence can still work.

“I help write powerful pitches for business owners who need to stand out and scale up.”

Becomes:

“I write powerful pitches for business owners who need to stand out and scale up.”

3. This last strategy works for those hard to get rid of “helps” in pitches. For example, something like:

“I help restaurants increase sales.”

This one is a bit more tricky and requires you to get clarity on the process of how you actually help them. This example says nothing about the process, which, to begin with, is already problematic. So to fix this ambiguity, ask yourself, “How do I help?” Often, the answer will be the solution. Then, as previously demonstrated, relocate the benefits upfront and describe your how at the end. So, depending on the explanation of how you do what you do, it might end up like this:

“I increase sales for restaurants through my 3 step sales training.”

or

“I increase sales for restaurants through leadership coaching.”

or

“I increase sales for restaurants with social media marketing.”

You get the idea. There are an endless number of ways to describe now one might increase sales, but typically only one that would apply for the person providing this particular service.

Try these conversions, and let me know how it goes. Leave your before and after pitches in the comments below so we can all learn from your example. And if you have a particularly tricky pitch that you can’t wordsmith the “help” out of, post it in the comments, and maybe we can collectively solve your challenge.

I want to acknowledge Brett Robbo for permitting me to use his pitch in this example. Like many, Brett is excellent at what he does, but it doesn’t mean he’s excellent at communicating to others what he does. Those are two distinctly different skills. And It takes a humble and pretty cool person to be open to receiving feedback and then be willing to share that experience with others. If you are an over-stressed but high-performing business owner, check out what Brett has to offer at www.brettrobbo.com

If you want to dig a bit deeper, here are some additional examples of business leaders that I’ve converted their pitches from the passive ‘help’ phrase into something more active.

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James Michael
Justified Talent
www.justifiedtalent.com

“At Justified Talent, we help small business owners to recruit their first sales professional.”

transformed to:

“At Justified Talent, we recruit sales professionals for small business owners who currently make all their own sales.”

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Josh Blakeley
JBL Digital Marketing
www.jbldigitalmarketing.co
“At JBL Digital Marketing, we help service businesses grow by using online lead generation.”

Transformed to:

“At JBL Digital Marketing, we grow high-quality online leads for service-based businesses.”

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Elizabeth Diacos
Larksong Enterprises
www.larksong.com.au

“I help stressed, overwhelmed teachers get out of teaching and into a life they love.”

Transformed to:

“We transition overwhelmed and stressed-out teachers into a life they love with a career that moves their life forward.”

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Chris and Filly Functional Medicine

www.chrisandfilly.fm

“I help high-achieving parents with energy, mood & gut issues, end their body burnout…for good!”

Transformed to:

“We end body burnout for high-achieving parents by increasing their energy, stabilizing their mood, and balancing their digestive enzymes.”

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If you would like me to transform your pitch into a statement of clarity and credibility, please feel free to reach out to me directly by calling our company at +1 813 258 4372.