Lisa Chen: Pitch, Delivery, and Reception

I’ll be perfectly honest with you: I interviewed my sister. As a senior financial analyst at Dell, currently working as a pricing analyst, her job functions are directly relevant to our topic, and she is more than capable of dispensing business communications advice based on her life experiences. My initial interviewee was actually a very impressive and successful CEO who agreed to an email interview with me. However, after several days of no response after his initial email, I learned that CEOs are busy people, and that it’s best to have a back-up plan.

Lisa is a recent graduate from the Kenan-Flagler business school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a senior financial analyst at Dell, her current job functions are as a pricing analyst. In short, that means she makes decisions on whether or not to accept business contracts with small to medium businesses, including, just the other day, Twitter. These businesses form contracts with Dell with special pricing and computer customizations different from those available to the average consumer.

On an average day, Lisa approves and/or denies about 50 deals throughout the day. In addition, she helps establish pricing guidelines for the sales teams every quarter. Her main work entails communicating with the sales team, which often pitches deals and contracts that are unreasonable. As a result, communication skills are key in her position.

Very commonly, Lisa may be presented with a pitch from the sales team which she has to deny, for some reason or another. Oftentimes it is because there is simply not enough information, or the business case was not built thoroughly enough. In this respect, it is essential to remember how important preparation and detail are in pitches. Simply lacking knowledge in some aspect or not fully covering important aspects and predictions can result in the quick death of a business deal.

Unfortunately, sometimes this results in an angry and emotional account executive. “Why didn’t you do that?”, “I don’t understand”, “I don’t have time for this”, and “This is ridiculous” are extremely common phrases in her email inbox. In her position, it is essential to remain levelheaded in the face of aggression and short tempers.

Because sales and finance are, in this area of business, often on opposite ‘sides’, conflicts often arise and things can get personal. Though it is often challenging or near-impossible, she has to communicate with sales teams and account executives with calmness and command, in order to obtain the best behavior from them. No matter how hostile or heated a person may be, in the business world it is important to be able to rise above emotion, and not react. Doing so can and will ‘blow the deal’, as Lisa is fully experienced with.

Instead, it is vital to separate one’s natural reactions and emotions from actions and responses. Trying to deliver a message to a person who is being hostile is nothing short of frustrating and will get nowhere. Therefore, the most important advice Lisa gave was to be clear, to the point, and logical in all business communications. Emotions have no place in the business world.

During our interview, conducted over the phone, much could be derived from our communication manners. Though I had prepared an outline of how I’d hope the interview would go, including a heavy list of questions, conducting an interview is much more difficult than simply reading a page of questions. I found myself often scrambling for an appropriate follow-up question or response; however, I effectively used paravocalics to ask questions in probing ways. Lisa answered all my questions confidently and purposefully, using many vocal cues to emphasize certain points or give a casual feel to other advices.
Pitching, and communication in general, is a delicate process. However, through thorough preparation and levelheadedness, anyone can create an effective pitch.