Why Your Sales Pitch is Failing and How to Fix It: Secrets from April Dunford’s Sales Pitch Book

Have you ever felt like your sales pitch just isn’t landing? You know your product is great, but buyers hesitate, stall, or choose the status quo. April Dunford’s groundbreaking book, Sales Pitch: How to Craft a Story to Stand Out and Win, reveals a fundamental truth: buying is hard. It’s not just about selling better; it’s about helping customers navigate their fears, confusion, and overwhelming choices.

Why is buying so difficult? Unlike impulse purchases like toothpaste, complex B2B purchases involve multiple stakeholders, high stakes, and a fear of making a wrong decision that could cost jobs or money. Dunford explains that between 40-60% of purchase processes end with no decision at all — the status quo wins more often than any competitor. Fear is the dominant emotion driving B2B buying, not excitement or desire.

Understanding this shifts your role from a seller pushing features to a guide helping buyers through their journey. This means your pitch must first educate buyers about the market and their alternatives before presenting your product as the best choice.

The Five Components of Positioning

Positioning is the secret sauce that makes your product irresistible. Dunford breaks it down into five interconnected components:

• Competitive Alternatives: What else could buyers do instead of choosing you?
• Unique Capabilities: What features or strengths set you apart?
• Differentiated Value: What unique business benefits do you deliver?
• Best-Fit Customers: Who cares most about your differentiated value?
• Market Category: What familiar market context helps buyers understand you?

By clearly defining these, you create a powerful narrative that answers the buyer’s key question: “Why pick you over all the alternatives?”

A Two-Phase Sales Pitch Framework

Dunford’s book advocates a two-phase pitch: Setup and Follow-Through. The Setup educates buyers on the market landscape, alternatives, and the ideal solution criteria. The Follow-Through introduces your product, highlights your unique value, provides proof, handles objections, and closes with a clear ask.

This structure respects buyers’ need to understand their choices and reduces confusion and fear. Ignoring alternatives or rushing to your product too soon leaves buyers uncertain and less likely to commit.

Building and Delivering Your Sales Story

Creating a great pitch is a team sport. Sales, marketing, product, and leadership must collaborate to storyboard the narrative, focusing on flow before perfecting wording or visuals. The story should be value-centered, addressing buyer fears and showcasing differentiated benefits.

Use demos organized around core value themes, not feature dumps, and handle necessary but non-differentiating capabilities like security in the objection phase. Scripts should tell a story, not recite bullet points, engaging buyers emotionally and intellectually.

Test, Launch, and Evolve

Finally, test your pitch with real prospects, gather feedback, refine carefully, and train your sales team thoroughly. Remember, your pitch is a living asset—it must evolve as markets and products change to stay relevant and winning.

By embracing these insights, you transform your sales approach from pushing products to guiding buyers, building trust, and closing more deals. April Dunford’s Sales Pitch is a must-read for anyone serious about sales success.

Sources: Blinkist summary, Sobrief, Medium review, Goodreads community insights 1 2 3 4