Pitching Vs. Positioning: Validate Your Business Idea First

I spent three hours live with Forbes Riley last night watching entrepreneurs pitch their businesses, and at one point I thought: some of these people do not have a pitching problem. They have not figured out whether they have a business yet.

I am currently in a six-week live cohort with Forbes, three hours at a time, with more than 450 people participating.

If you do not know Forbes Riley, she is known as the “Queen of Pitch.” She built her reputation in television, infomercials, home shopping, sales, and entrepreneurship, and her company credits her with more than $2.5 billion in product sales.

After sitting in the room with her, I get it.

She is amazing at this.

She is also warm, funny, encouraging, empathetic, and very relatable.

What she is not going to do is tell you your idea makes sense when it does not.

And that is where this gets interesting.

“Who Needs That?”

More than once, someone would finish explaining their business, and Forbes would just sit there for a second, almost jaw-dropped.

Then she would say something like:

“Who needs that?”

Ugh.

It was painful.

Of the people she interviewed live, we couldn't tell what they were selling, or who it was for.

And Forbes wasn't being mean about it. She is incredibly encouraging. She wants people to get it. She wants them to win.

But she is also not going to sit there and pretend something makes sense when it doesn't.

She is very particular about language too. There are words she will stop you for immediately.

Say “actually,” and you may be doing jumping jacks like a bootcamp punishment.

So you learn pretty quickly that every word has to earn its place.

Then she would ask the room:

“Does anybody want to know more about this business?”

Nothing.

More than 450 people sitting there, and nobody raises their hand.

You can feel it.

Then she starts working with the person.

She asks a few questions.

Changes a few words.

Gets clearer about the problem.

Gets clearer about the customer.

Tightens the value.

A few minutes later, she asks again:

“Now, who wants to know more?”

And suddenly hands are going up everywhere.

That is when I started thinking:

Wait a minute. Are we really talking about pitching here?

Because what I was watching looked a whole lot like positioning.

Is Pitching the Same as Positioning?

No.

They work together, but they are doing different jobs.

Positioning determines who your offer is for, what problem it solves, how it fits into the market, and why the right person should care.

Pitching is how you communicate that value so someone wants to keep listening.

And there is another step that comes before both.

Validation.

Validation asks whether there is enough evidence that people want or need what you are planning to sell.

That gives us a much cleaner order:

Validate it. Position it. Pitch it.

What I am seeing in this room is what happens when people skip the first two and rush straight to the third.

You Cannot Pitch Your Way Around a Weak Business Idea

Some of the people in this cohort are there for a second or third time.

Think about that.

They have already gone through this work and are back because they still have not gotten the business idea, positioning, or pitch where it needs to be.

I respect that.

They are doing the work.

But it also shows how hard this gets when the foundation is not clear.

We love the idea of the master salesperson.

“Sell me this pen.”

“Sell ice to an Eskimo.”

Take something ordinary and create demand for it.

Yes, great salespeople can create demand.

Big companies spend a fortune doing exactly that.

You  do not have that luxury.

If you are building a business from your own expertise, you need to know whether there is a real market for what you are creating.

Who else is solving this problem?

What are people buying now?

What are they paying?

What do they hate about the current options?

What is missing?

Are people even looking for a solution?

Why would they choose yours?

I am stunned by how many people build the thing first and ask those questions later.

They develop the program.

Name it.

Build the website.

Create the logo.

Set up the social accounts.

Then they start trying to figure out who might buy it.

That is a really expensive way to find out you started in the wrong place.

Expertise Does Not Automatically Become a Business

This is the part that really has my attention.

Some of these people are incredibly accomplished.

They have careers behind them.

They have expertise.

They have credentials.

They’re smart.

Then Forbes asks them to explain the business.

And in less than a minute, she can turn a beautifully rehearsed explanation into a pile of sand.

She is not tearing the person down.

She is stripping away everything that is getting in the way of the idea.

And sometimes, once all the extra language is gone, there is not enough underneath it yet.

That is hard.

It is also valuable.

Credentials do not automatically create a viable offer.

Experience does not automatically become positioning.

And being very good at something does not mean someone is willing to buy it from you.

I see this constantly with accomplished women leaving corporate.

Then they leave corporate and somebody asks:

So, what do you do?

Suddenly thirty years of experience comes pouring out into a word salad.

Ten minutes later, the person listening still does not know what they should hire you for.

That is the problem.

How Many Times Do You Want to Hit Your Head on This Wall?

This six week live Forbes cohort is not cheap.

And there are people in the room doing it for a second or third time because they still have not gotten their business idea, positioning, and pitch where they need it to be.

So let me ask you something.

How many times do you want to hit your head on this wall?

It freaking hurts. Trust me.

How much money do you want to spend trying to perfect a pitch for an offer you have not fully validated?

How many networking events do you want to attend giving people a five minute explanation of what you do while watching that confused look spread across their face?

How many times do you want to rewrite the offer?

Rebuild the website?

Change the name?

Add another feature?

Take another course?

And maybe the biggest question:

How much time do you have to get your idea to market?

Because I am watching people stare back at Forbes like deer in headlights.

These are people starting businesses.

Some have already invested serious time and money.

But when Forbes asks the simplest questions about the business, everything starts wobbling.

Who wants this?

Who is it for?

Why do they need it?

What makes it different?

Why would they pay for it?

There is a point in business confusion where your brain simply clocks out and sends you to the bar.

I’m here to keep you sober, girl.

If you cannot answer those questions, I do not want you spending another six months learning how to pitch it.

Give me a day.

Before you walk into the room and pitch the thing, let's find out whether the thing makes sense.

Let's look at the market.

Let's look at the competition.

Let's identify who needs it.

Let's figure out what problem they are already trying to solve.

Let's determine where your experience gives you an advantage.

Then let's position the offer so when you finally stand up and explain it, people understand what you are talking about.

That one day could save you months of heartache, frustration, wasted marketing, unnecessary course corrections, and money spent trying to fix the wrong problem.

Because there is something painful about watching an accomplished person believe she has a confidence problem when what she really has is a clarity problem.

You keep practicing the pitch.

You keep changing the words.

You keep wondering why people are not responding.

Meanwhile, the real question is sitting right there:

Do I have the right business idea, for the right person, positioned around a problem she wants solved?

Get that answer first.

Then go pitch the hell out of it.

On Repeat: Your Résumé Is Not Your Positioning

Your customer is not buying the totality of your career.

She is buying the part of your expertise that solves something important for her.

That is positioning.

This was a huge lesson for me in developing Burn Your Suits™.

I could say I work with women entrepreneurs.

True.

Also almost useless.

There are millions of women entrepreneurs.

Who am I talking to?

I work with accomplished women who have spent years building careers and are leaving corporate to build businesses from the expertise they already earned.

That woman is not starting with nothing.

Her problem is almost the opposite.

She has too much.

What she needs is clarity around which part the business becomes.

Who needs it.

What problem it solves.

How it is different.

How to package it.

How to explain it.

How to create visibility and influence around it.

Now we have something I can position.

Donald Miller Understood the Customer Recognition Problem

Donald Miller is the founder of StoryBrand and the author of Building a StoryBrand.

His framework became popular because it took one of the oldest ideas in communication, storytelling, and gave businesses a simple structure for using it.

At the center of StoryBrand is an important shift:

The customer is the hero. Your business is the guide.

Businesses have a terrible habit of making themselves the center of the story.

Meanwhile, your customer is sitting there asking:

What does any of this have to do with me?

That is why the moment I am watching in the Forbes cohort is so revealing.

Forbes does not just ask whether the pitch sounds polished.

She asks the room whether they want to know more.

That is customer recognition happening in real time.

Do I understand this?

Is this relevant to me?

Can I see the problem?

Am I curious about the solution?

If hundreds of people hear your pitch and nobody raises a hand, speaking louder is not going to save you.

Something underneath the pitch needs work.

“You Talkin' to Me?”

There is that famous scene in Taxi Driver where Robert De Niro stands in front of the mirror and asks:

“You talkin' to me?”

Sometimes I think that is exactly what prospects are doing when they come across our businesses online.

Are you talking to me?

Because I cannot tell.

I see that AI has somehow made its way into the offer because apparently AI must now be invited to everything.

But is this for me?

Your prospect needs to recognize herself in what you are saying.

That recognition happens before persuasion.

Stop Rebuilding the Offer Every Time It Does Not Sell

This is where entrepreneurs get themselves into trouble.

The offer does not sell. Then the evil domino affect begins to erode your entire brand.

So they change the price.

Then the name.

Then the number of sessions.

Then the bonuses.

Then the website.

Then somebody recommends a membership.

Somebody else recommends a mastermind.

Someone says build a funnel.

And naturally someone eventually says, “Have you added AI?”

Three months later, the original offer is barely recognizable.

But nobody has answered the real question:

What was wrong?

Was the product weak?

Was there not enough demand?

Was the audience wrong?

Was the positioning unclear?

Was the pitch poor?

See the problem?

Those are five completely different things, and we keep trying to fix all of them with marketing.

Changing the logo will not solve a validation problem.

Adding another session will not solve a positioning problem.

And a better pitch cannot create a market that is not there.

Before You Ask Me How to Market It

This is where I want the conversation to begin.

Before you ask me how to market the business, tell me about the market.

Who else does this?

What does your customer use now?

What are people paying for?

Where are the gaps?

What frustrates customers about the current options?

What conversations have you had with potential buyers?

What evidence do you have that people care about this problem?

You do not need a fifty page market research report.

You do need to look.

Please look at your competition.

I am begging you.

You need to know what is already out there before you decide the world has been waiting for your idea.

Competition is information.

It shows you what people already understand.

It shows you what they are willing to buy.

It shows you where the gaps are.

And sometimes the market is going to tell you something you do not want to hear.

The idea needs work.

Good.

Find that out now.

Do not spend six months trying to become persuasive enough to overcome a problem the market could have shown you in the beginning.

Validate It. Position It. Pitch It.

Watching Forbes Riley work with these entrepreneurs has reinforced something for me.

A pitch is not where the business begins.

Validation asks: Is there evidence that people want or need this?

Positioning asks: Who is this for, what problem does it solve, and why should someone choose this solution?

Pitching asks: How do I communicate that value so the right person wants to know more?

In that order.

Validate it.

Position it.

Pitch it.

I watched Forbes take people from a room full of blank faces to hundreds of raised hands in a matter of minutes.

That is the power of language.

But the language worked because she uncovered something underneath it that people could recognize.

That is why I think the best pitching conversations are also positioning conversations.

Before someone can be persuaded, she has to understand.

Before she understands, she has to recognize that the problem matters to her.

And before you spend all your time learning how to sell your business idea, make sure there is a business idea there to sell.

About Suzette Cotto and Innovate LAUNCH™

I'm Suzette Cotto, founder of Innovate LAUNCH™, and I work with accomplished women leaving corporate and building businesses from the expertise they spent decades earning.

Through Burn Your Suits™, The LAUNCH Pad Pod, and the Innovate LAUNCH™ community, we talk about what happens between knowing you have valuable experience and turning that experience into a business people understand, trust, and buy from.

Positioning. Visibility. Influence. Marketing. Sales. Offers. AI.

And sometimes the question that needs to come before all of them:

Does anybody want what I'm selling?

Before you perfect the pitch, validate the idea.

Then position the solution.

Then walk into the room and tell them why it matters.

Visibility gets you seen. Strategy gets you paid.

If you're interested in joining the next Burn Your Suits mini-course, check this link for more: LEARN MORE AND REGISTER HERE