Question 1

Our pitch is not landing with the C-suite. What does that mean?

Accepted Answer

A pitch that fails with the C-suite is one that convinces managers and technical buyers and then stops working when it reaches the people who sign. The meeting stays courteous, the questions get shorter and the follow-up either never arrives or comes back as a request to speak to somebody more junior. The clue is in what senior people ask. They probe the cost of being wrong, the effect on numbers they are personally accountable for and who else has done this, and a pitch built to show capability has no answers ready for any of those.

Question 2

What causes it?

Accepted Answer

The pitch explains how when the executive is asking what changes. Platform detail, methodology and a phased process reassure a specialist and mean little to an executive deciding whether to move attention and budget from something else. The company sends the wrong person. Executives expect somebody with a view on their problem, and a seller who has come to present gets treated as a supplier within minutes. The decision feels unsafe. Executives manage personal and organisational risk as much as opportunity, so a pitch that talks only about upside leaves the downside unanswered, and unanswered questions become committee referrals.

Question 3

How do you fix it?

Accepted Answer

Open with the recommendation and the consequence. Executives use the first minute to decide whether the rest deserves attention, so the conclusion goes at the top and the supporting material sits behind it. Build the case for your champion to use internally. Senior decisions get made again in meetings you will never attend, so the person backing you needs a page they can forward that makes sense without you there to explain it. Deal with the risk openly. Evidence that other organisations came through safely, clear exit points and a shared stake in the outcome move a senior decision further than another slide of capability.

Question 4

Who can help?

Accepted Answer

Dan Ilett leads The Proposition and chairs the City CIO Club, an invitation-only peer network for senior technology leaders in the City of London. He was commercial transformation director at a FTSE technology business and, as a journalist, wrote for the Financial Times and the Daily Telegraph. The Proposition works with B2B companies in the UK, Europe, the US, the Middle East and Asia Pacific from its base in London, and customer interviews are held wherever your buyers are.

Our pitch is not landing with the C-suite

Our pitch is not landing with the C-suite

Where the problem starts.

How to fix it.

Talk to Dan.

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