Pitching Skills for Engineers: Win Clients with Confidence

Engineer Your Pitch: Win Clients with Powerful Storytelling

When Great Engineering Ideas Fail to Impress Clients

Engineers are the creators of our living world – infrastructure for societies, workplaces for business collaboration, and living spaces for communities. A lot of the way we live and interact is influenced by the innovations of engineering minds. With new ideas, creative concepts and sustainable solutions being drafted at their desks – how long does it take for them to be implemented in our world? The realistic answer is – not all of these ideas, concepts or solutions are adopted. Why? Perhaps suitability may be a factor. However, often it is not as much as the design being unsuitable. It is more often that the stakeholders deciding believe that the proposed idea is unsuitable. That’s because the pitch was not made with impact. As Engineers – impactful ideas are often not communicated with impact. 

Design Your Pitch for Them

Many engineers are used to coming up with designs for clients – in the hopes of the clients finding it suitable. When engineers are tasked to stand in front of their clients to present their designs, they often feel that it is a test of their public speaking. While presentation skills are important when pitching, it is not what would bring the client to see the value you are offering.

This is why every pitch should be different. The focus of each pitch should be more on what value you can deliver to the audience. And there is the variable – “Value” – which is subjective to individuals’ preferences and needs. Different clients are going through different stages in their business. Even team mates in the same company have different focuses on what is priority for the company to succeed. Simply put – different people have different values. Therefore, when writing a pitch – write to cater to what the audience would be seeking. Prior to crafting your pitch, research the news of the client’s company, and if possible – the profiles of the individuals you wish to impress. Ask yourself – Who would be the main targets you wish to connect with, when you are pitching? What would be important to them? Where, within your solution offering, would interest them the most? Why would your proposed idea make their lives different/better/smoother, etc.? 

Speak Human

Many engineers design concepts to make the world more livable, sustainable and pleasant. All in all – they are creating a human experience for the world. If that is the case, engineers should speak to be relatable when pitching. Especially when speaking to senior stakeholders of client organizations that may not have the same engineering background. They don’t need to understand the technical details as much as they need to understand what those technical details would do for them. 

Too often, I witness engineers reading off their visual aids. These visual aids are also over-crowded with data and graphs and almost need a magnifying glass to read. Data, statistics and scientific evidence is of course important to understand. But does your audience need to understand those details when you are presenting a pitch to them? Masters of public speaking can turn the most complex information to be easily understandable and relatable. By doing so – audiences get engaged and feel compelled to take action after listening. One of the ways to turn technical jargon into a compelling reason is to ask yourself this question – “SO WHAT?” How does this technical aspect impact your audience? What can they do with this? Where would the change be for them?  

Show them the Future

Although we don’t have crystal balls, we are able to project the change. When doing so, the key is to make that projection believable & imaginable. This engages audiences. It’s similar to why children are so hooked to listening to the same bedtime story over and over again – they find it believable & imaginable. Did your daughter dress up as a Princess at home the next day? Exactly.

In order to make the pitch believable and imaginable – deliver your pitch with examples that they are already encountering. Cases or situations that they’re in now, and how they would differ in the future with your offering. Perhaps enhance the story example by putting them as the main character! After all, storytelling for business presentations can be entertaining as well!

Contact us now to find out how you can win clients with powerful storytelling.