My old boss, Mike Neeley used to tell me, ‘don’t just show up and throw up’. I now really understand what he meant.

Recently I was giving a product demo to serial entrepreneur, Brandon Lee. He stopped me midway through my pitch and said, ‘the product looks great, but give me 3 outcomes for what it will do for me’.

In other words, he was saying ‘hey, I don’t really care about your product. I only care about what it will do for me’.

I think it’s easy to get lazy and just pitch your product. It takes time and effort to do the homework to really understand what your potential customer cares about and what your product can do for them.

Thinking about this advice, here are my thoughts for my company, Cooleaf. To give context, we have a technology platform that companies use to manage all of their internal employee programs such as training, wellness, volunteering, social events, and recognizes employees for their level of participation and accomplishments.

Three outcomes for our clients:

1. Cooleaf will make a large organization feel small – we help connect people inside the organization based on common interests and things people can get plugged into to meet others and build relationships resulting in a stronger company culture

2. Cooleaf will enable company leaders to track the results of investments in their employees, – by leaders having real data, they are empowered to make more strategic and proactive decisions for their investments in programs for their people

3. Cooleaf will power a rewards and recognition program for employees – organizations can recognize employee accomplishments and participation in the culture and success of the company

Before speaking with (not to) a client, I encourage you to first do your homework about their needs and understand your connection to them. Then be clear about what your product can do for them and ask the client to prioritize what is most important to them. This will allow you to focus your pitch to what they care about most.