Nobody wants to be pitched at.

You know this from your life outside of work. We don't willingly invite people in to pitch their services at us. In fact many people have signs outside their houses telling salespeople exactly where to go.

Yet when it comes to work, we often forget that there are alternatives to pitching stuff at clients. Much better ones. All it takes is a little thought.

Example: one of the easiest “sells” you can get is for existing or ex clients to buy more stuff from you.

But how do you offer that stuff to them?

If you just call to ask for a meeting to talk about some of your other services they might value you're basically saying “let me come and pitch at you”.

Not surprisingly, you won't get many people saying yes.

It's similar with asking to find out more about their business. They know what's coming, and there's no value for them in telling you all about their business and their issues.

Instead, put a bit of time into how you could make the experience valuable to them.

You still want to find out about their issues that you could help with. You still want to show them some of your services they might value.

But instead of a pitch, turn it into something where you share valuable information in those areas.

A simple example would be to create some case studies from clients you've worked with who've made improvements in the areas that you think your other clients would like to improve too.

And then offer to come and share those case studies and show them what these companies did that enabled them to make those big improvements.

(Please note: by case studies I don't mean the usual salesy nonsense you often see on websites that just basically says what the client problem was and the improvements you got. There needs to be real valuable information in the case studies about what they did and how they did it. Something the people you present it to would find useful).

How much more appealing does that sound than an offer to come and talk about their business or tell them about your services?

Lots.

They get useful insights that will help them. And, of course, if they're interested you'll end up talking about their issues in that area and your services that might help them. 

But with no pitching needed.