How to Provide Value on Your Pitch

It takes just a few seconds on LinkedIn to find someone pitching the “BEST COLD CALL FRAMEWORK!” guaranteed to revolutionize your outbound strategy. Unfortunately, most of this advice revolves around generic approaches, focused primarily on titles or industries. You might hear pitches like:

• “When I talk to Directors of Sales, they often tell me…”
• “Most leaders in the healthcare industry struggle with…”

If these pitches are working for you, fantastic! But if these generic templates aren’t getting you results, it’s time to try something different. Let me introduce you to an approach I’ve personally used, implemented, and taught throughout my sales career—the Groundswell Approach.

Why Generalized Industry or Title Pitches Don’t Work

There are two main reasons why these typical, generalized pitches often fall flat:

1. Too High Too Soon
   We’re often told to target decision-makers right off the bat—C-suite executives or VPs. However, these decision-makers need a specific, problem-oriented pitch to catch their attention. If they aren’t already actively looking for your solution, you’ll likely get dismissed or blocked.
2. No Value in the Pitch
   Opening with a generic line like, “Given that you’re the Director of Sales…” immediately comes off as weak. It shows no knowledge of their specific business challenges or current initiatives. If your pitch lacks specificity and value, you’ve already lost them after the first sentence.

Step 1: Information Gathering

Contrary to popular belief, starting with below the power curve is often the best place to start. Reaching out to lower-level team members not only helps you gather crucial information about their operations, but it also allows you to use that data to build credibility when approaching decision-makers.

Let’s say you’re a data provider offering accurate cell phone data to help sales teams connect with more prospects. First, you’re going to target account executives (AEs) and sales development representatives (SDRs) within your named accounts, as these people will be the end users of your solution.

Ask targeted questions:

1. “What data provider are you currently using?”
2. “How accurate do you find their data?”
3. “What percentage of the calls you make end up being bad numbers?”
4. “Who makes the decisions regarding data purchases at your company?”

After gathering information from several AEs and SDRs, let’s say you discover they’re using Provider ABC, but they’re dissatisfied because 25% of their phone numbers are incorrect. They also mention that Tom Jones is the person responsible for purchasing data solutions.

Step 2: Quantify the Opportunity

Now that you’ve gathered valuable insights, the next step is to quantify the opportunity and make it relevant to middle management—one level up from the individual contributors. Why? Because decision-makers, like Tom Jones, typically won’t respond to vague problem statements. They need data quantified in their language—one that speaks to business outcomes, such as pipeline growth or revenue generation.

When you speak to middle management, say something like:

• “Your team reports that Provider ABC’s data quality is leading to a 25% bad phone number rate. How is this impacting your ability to generate pipeline?”

By asking them to quantify the problem, you’re helping them uncover the real impact. A manager might respond: “Our call-to-connect rate has dropped to 2% over the past three months. We’re struggling to hit our pipeline targets.”

Step 3: Deliver Value to the Decision Maker

Now that you have concrete numbers, it’s time to approach Tom Jones, the decision maker. Here’s where you bring value:

1. Lead the witness: “Tom, I’ve gathered some information from your team that I think you’d find valuable. When can we discuss it?”
2. Hit hard with data: “Tom, your managers have informed me that your team’s call-to-connect rate has dropped below 2%, jeopardizing your pipeline targets. When does it make sense to address this challenge?”

These approaches work because you’re speaking directly to the decision-maker’s language: data-driven problems that impact their business outcomes. You’re not offering a generic solution—you’re solving a real, quantified problem that they weren’t even aware of.

Why This Works

What makes this approach so effective?

1. You’re speaking the decision maker’s language—data and quantifiable impact, not vague generalities.
2. You’ve already done the groundwork, gathering intel from the team and middle management, which gives your approach credibility.
3. You’re delivering real value by identifying a problem before it blows up into a larger issue.

Congratulations, you’ve transformed your outbound strategy. Instead of delivering generic, low-value pitches, you’re now helping decision-makers uncover and solve real challenges within their organization. In other words…you’re actually selling.