“The elevator pitch [a short summary describing a product or service] is so 20th century,” he said. “Best these days seems to be the one-word pitch, one-word equity, global ownership of one word in the public mind. When people say that word they think of you. When they think of you, they say that word.”
For instance, he noted, when someone says “search”, the obvious connection is Google, even though Bing and Yahoo also offer search engines. “Priceless” connotes MasterCard and “freedom” – no matter where someone is in the world and no matter how many countries have freedom – means the United States, he added.
Another counterintuitive, but effective, style of pitch is the question, said Pink. Ordinarily, it would seem that, assuming you have the facts correct, just making a statement would be the best way of communicating. A question, though, makes subjects think, and often convince themselves, that the pitch-maker is right. Take, for example, the 1980 campaign pitch from President Ronald Reagan: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” People considered that, Pink added, and realised that they were not.
“When you have the facts on your side, questions are active and statements are passive,” said Pink. “People are coming up with their own autonomous reasons to agree with you and believe it more strongly.” Interestingly, noted Pink, Mitt Romney’s campaign tried the same question for about a week last October, and it did not work because while people did not think they were doing particularly well, they felt they were even worse off in 2008, before President Obama took office.
“In addition, these days, every email is a pitch, and it is key to get the subject line right,” said Pink. People seem to read emails on the basis of whether they were either curious or uncertain about what the message might contain. Anything else and they might not even open the email, let alone read much of it. He noted that the most effective fund-raising emails from the Obama campaign had the subject line “Hey.” That single word elicited curiosity from a reader – why would the President say “hey?”
Finally, Pink added, rhyming makes a pitch more effective. People remember rhymes and relate to them well. “Woes unite foes” gets more credence than “Woes unite enemies,” for example. “Pitches that rhyme are quite sublime,” Pink added.
According to Pink, doing research for his book has made a difference in his life, especially when it comes to asking questions. “Instead of just getting pumped up and saying … ‘You can do this,’ I remember that questions are active and statements are passive,” he said. “I have to remember to ask this kind of question, or that this person is a pain in the neck so I have to appease him.
“What am I doing there? Preparing and rehearsing,” Pink noted. “Sales is something everyone does now, and shaking up the conventional wisdom may be the most successful way to do it.”
