tomaszstaniak Sales Pitch (Dunford)
This skill captures the structured sales conversation framework from April Dunford's Sales Pitch. It translates her two-phase pitch model — Setup and Follow-Through — into actionable guidance for building buyer confidence, articulating differentiated value, and closing deals that too often stall due to decision paralysis rather than product weakness.
Core Principle
Buyers don't stall because they dislike your product — they stall because they lack the confidence to choose among alternatives, and your job is to be their market guide, not their salesperson.
Forty to sixty percent of B2B purchase processes end without any decision. The actual culprit is rarely a competitor win or budget — it's buyer uncertainty about the decision itself. Buyers who can't articulate what makes one option better than another for their situation default to inaction, and traditional pitch formats (product demos, problem-solution decks, feature walkthroughs) do nothing to address that root cause.
Dunford's framework flips the script by making market education the opening act of every sales conversation. Before you show your product, you help buyers understand the landscape: what approaches exist, what trade-offs each carries, and what an ideal solution looks like for someone in their position. By the time you introduce your product, buyers already have a mental model for evaluating it — one you helped construct. That's not manipulation; it's the difference between a vendor and a trusted advisor.
Scoring
Goal: 10/10. When reviewing a sales pitch or evaluating sales conversation quality, rate it 0–10:
| Score | Description |
|---|---|
| 0–2 | Pitch is entirely product-centric. Opens with features or a company overview. No market context. No competitive landscape discussion. Buyer has no framework for evaluating what they're seeing. Deals frequently stall or go to "no decision." |
| 3–4 | Pitch acknowledges a problem but jumps immediately to the solution. Alternatives exist in the conversation only as targets to attack. Value claims are generic ("saves time," "increases productivity"). No proof matched to customer context. |
| 5–6 | Setup exists but is thin — a slide or two on market trends before the demo. Alternatives are mentioned but not fairly characterized. Differentiated value is articulated but not linked to specific capabilities. Proof is present but not customized. |
| 7–8 | Clear Setup and Follow-Through separation. Market insight is specific and credible. Alternatives are described honestly with genuine trade-offs. Differentiated value is tied to unique capabilities. Proof matches customer context. Call to action is clear. |
| 9–10 | Pitch reads as collaborative market education. Buyer confirms understanding at each Setup stage. Differentiation is narrow, specific, and impossible for competitors to claim. Proof is contextually matched. Champion is enabled to advocate internally. Next steps are concrete. |
The Two-Phase Pitch Structure
The core architecture of every sales conversation is a Setup followed by a Follow-Through. These phases serve fundamentally different purposes and must not be collapsed into each other.
The Setup (three components):
- Market Insight — What your experience in this market has taught you about the problem space
- Alternatives — An honest tour of approaches buyers can take, including doing nothing
- Perfect World — What an ideal solution looks like for a buyer in this situation
The Follow-Through (five components): 4. Introduction — Where your product fits in the landscape you just described 5. Differentiated Value — Outcomes only you deliver, compared to alternatives 6. Proof — Evidence matched to the buyer's specific context 7. Objection Handling — Anticipated concerns addressed proactively 8. The Ask — A specific, frictionless next step
Why it works: The Setup creates the mental scaffolding that makes your Follow-Through land. Without context, your differentiation sounds like marketing copy. With it, it sounds like a logical conclusion the buyer reached themselves.
The four sections that follow — Market Insight, Alternatives, Differentiated Value, and Proof — cover the highest-leverage components; the remaining four (Perfect World, Introduction, Objection Handling, The Ask) are covered in the reference file.
Key insights:
- The Setup can run 90 seconds for educated buyers or extend into deep discovery for complex environments — time is not the measure, alignment is. It's complete when the buyer can summarize the market dynamics, the trade-offs, and their own ideal criteria back to you
- Rushing into Follow-Through before Setup alignment destroys the entire effect — buyers who haven't formed an evaluation framework can't appreciate your differentiation
- Each phase requires different skills: Setup demands listening and market knowledge; Follow-Through demands precision and proof
- The structure applies across formats: sales calls, demos, conference talks, explainer videos, and buyer's guides
Ethical boundary: The Setup is market education, not a technique to pre-condition buyers toward a foregone conclusion. Present alternatives honestly, including their genuine strengths — buyers who feel set up rather than educated will disengage, and they'll be right to.
See: references/two-phase-pitch-structure.md for all eight components in depth — templates, worked examples, copy patterns, timing by format, and a component-level diagnostic.
Market Insight: Opening With Credibility
Core concept: The first move in every pitch is a market insight — a specific, experience-grounded observation about the problem space that demonstrates you understand the buyer's world better than they might expect from a vendor. It earns you the right to keep talking.
Key insights:
- Generic insights ("digital transformation is accelerating") signal that you haven't done the work; specific, pattern-based observations from aggregated customer experience signal genuine expertise
- Insights must connect to the buyer's current situation — if your insight doesn't prompt "yes, that's exactly what we're dealing with," it needs refinement
- Insights don't have to be surprising — naming something the buyer vaguely knew but hadn't articulated creates immediate resonance
Ethical boundary: Insights must be accurate. If you're uncertain whether an observation is broadly true, present it as a question: "We see this pattern a lot — is that consistent with what you're experiencing?"
See: references/two-phase-pitch-structure.md (Component 1) for insight templates, weak-vs-strong examples by context, and copy patterns.
Competitive Alternatives: The Honest Market Tour
Core concept: After the market insight, walk the buyer through the realistic alternatives they face — including the option to do nothing. Most sellers either skip this section or use it to attack competitors; both damage credibility. Buyers will evaluate alternatives with or without your help — guiding the discussion yourself shapes the evaluation criteria and builds trust that you're focused on their success.
Key insights:
- Every buyer has four alternative types: direct competitors, adjacent/DIY solutions, building in-house, and doing nothing — all deserve honest characterization
- "Do nothing" is your fiercest competitor — it wins 40–60% of deals — and must be treated as an active choice with real, quantified costs, not a neutral default
- Acknowledge genuine competitor strengths first; frame alternatives around trade-offs, not a scoring rubric designed to make yourself win
- The goal is for the buyer to leave with a sharper evaluation framework — one that naturally includes your differentiating capabilities as important criteria
Ethical boundary: This section fails if it becomes a staged comparison with a predetermined winner. If your solution genuinely isn't the right fit, the honest discussion will surface that — and that outcome builds the reputation that generates referrals.
See: references/competitive-alternatives-framing.md
Differentiated Value: The Only Claims That Win Deals
Core concept: Differentiated value is the outcome only you can deliver, compared to what the buyer could achieve with the best available alternative. It is not a feature list, a benefits summary, or a generic value proposition — and it is the single most important payload of the Follow-Through. Buyers who can't distinguish between options choose on price, on relationships, or not at all.
Key insights:
- Run every claim through the two-question test: "So what?" (push until you reach a business outcome) and "Compared to what?" (name the alternative the claim beats)
- Differentiation can come from company capabilities, not just product: deployment model, services quality, integration ecosystem, implementation speed, or segment expertise
- Narrow beats broad — if your claim could appear verbatim in a competitor's pitch, it's not differentiated
- Claims must trace to real product or company capabilities, or they collapse under technical scrutiny
Ethical boundary: Overstating uniqueness — especially in technical areas buyers will verify — is strategically damaging. A claim you can't back up in a technical evaluation is worse than not making it at all.
See: references/differentiated-value-development.md
Proof: Evidence That Matches the Buyer's Context
Core concept: Proof isn't a logo wall. It's contextually matched evidence — case studies, testimonials, data, demonstrations — that answers the specific question "would this work for someone like me?" Matched proof directly reduces the perceived risk of the decision, which is the actual barrier to closing.
Key insights:
- Match proof to the buyer's profile (company size, industry, use case) and stage: early-stage buyers need conceptual proof (market data, benchmarks); late-stage buyers need operational proof (implementation details, migration stories)
- A single deeply matched case study is worth more than ten logo slides; quantified outcomes beat testimonials — but only if the numbers are credible and context-specific
- Live demos count as proof only when structured around specific differentiated value claims, not feature tours
Ethical boundary: Never present proof you haven't verified — unsourced numbers, unpermissioned customer names, and sanitized demo environments all surface during due diligence and destroy deals at their most critical moments.
See: references/two-phase-pitch-structure.md (Component 6) for the proof selection matrix, proof type applications, and statement templates.
Building the Pitch Storyboard
Core concept: A pitch storyboard is the working document that assembles all eight components into a coherent narrative before a single slide is designed. It's a cross-functional artifact, not a sales artifact: sales-only pitches overclaim on differentiation, underclaim on proof, and drift from the company's actual positioning.
Key insights:
- Include sales, marketing, product, and customer success at minimum; six to eight people is the working maximum
- Work through all eight components before touching slide design — structure first, format second
- Some components work best as scripted language (market insight, differentiated value); others as conversation frameworks (alternatives, objection handling)
- Test with salespeople you respect before any prospect; language reps can't deliver naturally signals an inauthentic script, not a weak rep
- Expect three to five rounds of revision before the pitch feels solid
Ethical boundary: A storyboard built on aspirational rather than current capabilities sets up reps to overpromise and customers to be disappointed. Use the cross-functional process to pressure-test claims against reality.
See: references/pitch-storyboard-process.md
Positioning as the Foundation of Every Pitch
Dunford's framework connects directly to the five components of positioning from Obviously Awesome. Positioning determines what you say; the pitch determines how you say it. When they're misaligned, buyers encounter contradictory signals across touchpoints — and that inconsistency reads as organizational dysfunction.
Positioning-to-pitch translation:
| Positioning Component | Pitch Location | Translation |
|---|---|---|
| Competitive alternatives | Setup — Alternatives | The realistic options you walk buyers through honestly |
| Unique capabilities | Follow-Through — Differentiated Value (input) | The specific capabilities that make your differentiation real |
| Differentiated value | Follow-Through — Differentiated Value (output) | The business outcomes those capabilities create, compared to alternatives |
| Best-fit customers | Pitch customization | Which insights, proof, and objections are relevant for this buyer |
| Market category | Setup — Market Insight + Introduction | How you frame the problem space and where you introduce yourself in it |
Key insight: If your sales pitch and your marketing positioning tell different stories about what you are and who you're for, fix positioning first — pitch work can't resolve a positioning problem.
See: references/positioning-to-pitch-translation.md
Common Mistakes
| Mistake | Why It Fails | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Opening with a company overview or product demo | Positions you as a vendor, not an advisor; buyer has no evaluation framework | Start with market insight; earn the right to show your product |
| Generic market insights | "Data is growing" could come from any competitor | Ground insights in specific patterns from your actual customer base |
| Skipping the alternatives discussion | Buyers evaluate alternatives anyway — with weaker information | Walk through alternatives honestly; your credibility depends on it |
| Treating "do nothing" as neutral | Inaction has compounding costs buyers underweight | Frame it as an active choice with specific, quantified consequences |
| Weak or generic differentiation | "Faster, easier, more reliable" could describe any product | Run every claim through "so what?" and "compared to what?" |
| Proof that doesn't match the buyer | Mismatched case studies raise doubts instead of reducing risk | Build a proof library by segment, use case, and concern — select accordingly |
| Collapsing Setup and Follow-Through | Differentiation lands as marketing copy without an evaluation framework | Treat Setup as complete only when buyers confirm alignment |
| Vague calls to action | "I'll follow up soon" creates friction and stalls momentum | Define a specific next step with a date, owner, and clear outcome |
| Pitching the champion as final decision-maker | Champions who can't explain your differentiation internally can't close | Equip champions with specific, repeatable language for internal conversations |
| Building the pitch without cross-functional input | Sales-only pitches overclaim and miss proof assets | Run the storyboard process with marketing, product, and customer success |
Quick Diagnostic
| Question | If No | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Does your pitch open with a market insight before mentioning your product? | You're leading with a vendor posture | Develop 2–3 specific, experience-grounded insights |
| Does your pitch include an honest tour of alternatives, including "do nothing" with real costs? | Buyer inertia and competitor framing win by default | Map the alternative landscape; quantify the cost of the status quo |
| Can you state your differentiated value in one sentence naming a specific outcome and comparison point? | You're competing on features or price without knowing it | Apply the "so what / compared to what" test until claims are specific |
| Is your proof matched to this buyer's industry, size, and use case? | Generic proof reduces rather than increases confidence | Build a segmented proof library; select evidence that answers "would this work for someone like me?" |
| Does your call to action name a specific next step with a date and outcome? | Decision momentum stalls after the pitch | Define the ask before every meeting; make it low-friction |
| Was your pitch built and tested cross-functionally — and delivered by real reps before prospects? | You're likely overclaiming or shipping unnatural scripts | Run a storyboard session; test delivery with reps you trust |
| Does your pitch align with current positioning, and has it been reviewed in the last 90 days? | Buyers encounter contradictory or stale messages | Audit pitch against positioning quarterly; update after significant market events |
Reference Files
- Two-Phase Pitch Structure — Detailed breakdown of all eight pitch components with templates, timing guidance, and worked examples for common B2B software scenarios
- Competitive Alternatives Framing — Step-by-step process for mapping and presenting competitive alternatives honestly, including how to handle "do nothing" and prospects with existing vendor preferences
- Differentiated Value Development — Worksheets and worked examples for running the "so what / compared to what" process, identifying weak claims, and building a differentiation statement library
- Pitch Storyboard Process — Facilitation guide for cross-functional storyboard sessions, including agenda, decision templates, and testing protocols for new and revised pitches
- Positioning to Pitch Translation — Framework for connecting the five positioning components from Obviously Awesome directly to pitch elements, with audit checklist and alignment diagnostic
Further Reading
- Sales Pitch by April Dunford — Primary source for this skill
- Obviously Awesome by April Dunford — Prerequisite reading; establishes the five-component positioning framework that Sales Pitch applies to sales conversations
- The Challenger Sale by Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson — Complementary approach to teaching customers something new; useful contrast to Dunford's confidence-building model
- SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham — Questioning framework for the discovery and Setup phases; adds tactical depth to uncovering buyer needs
About the Author
April Dunford is a positioning consultant and former VP of Marketing who has led go-to-market strategy for over two dozen B2B technology companies. She developed the positioning framework in Obviously Awesome from fifteen years of first-hand experience repositioning products at companies ranging from early-stage startups to IBM. Sales Pitch extends that positioning work into the sales conversation layer, drawing on her consulting work helping sales teams translate strong positioning into pitches that actually close.