Dickensian Pitch Map

Reminded this time of year by his classic three ghosts of Christmas, I’ve added to the great novelist’s original trio of his motto;

make ’em laugh, make ’em cry, make ’em wait, make ’em buy.

Tagging on a fourth at the end. We are salespeople, after all.

I wonder how adaptable to a pitch this wisdom might be.

I sense a link to the fabled Four Stages of Competence model.

Where someone starts off from unconscious incompetence, then embarks on a not-always-conscious journey to the hallowed land of unconscious competence.

Specifically when mapped on to the buyer mentality.

Target purchasers are at first blissfully unaware that they either have a problem or that it can be resolved.

Then their world collapses at a stroke once realisation of condition presence and of the danger dawns.

Before scrabbling around for remedy.

Finally all is fixed, phew.

The beginning brings to mind the kind of environment where you hear buyers mistakenly mutter about having their time wasted, unwisely chuckle with schadenfreude at others’ plight, arrogantly gloat with false immunity.

The laugh.

Then the horror that they are in trouble. Afflicted by what is being described.

The cry.

Urgent hunt for a treatment ensues. One that you can administer.

The wait.

And then your rescue.

The buy.

Shape that story like the master that is Charles Dickens and you really will have joy that spans many a season.