The Basics: Pitching
Chris Tkach | November 13, 2019
If you are familiar with Relativity, you’re probably pretty comfortable on planet eDiscovery. But what if I told you that you could use the Relativity platform to explore several other planets with a LOT (we’re talking trillions of dollars), of untapped revenue? Some of the biggest opportunities are a lot closer to you than you might think. Contract review is exploding with new regulatory response, corporate transaction, and contract data management projects and your Relativity rocket ship, with some fuel from Heretik, is ready to take you there.
So how do you land one of the contract review opportunities? I’ve spent the last decade working in the contract review industry, and I’ve certainly got the scars to prove it. In the past few years, we, as an industry, have seen an exponential leap forward with the technology available to us. In fact, when I saw a demo of Heretik in March 2018, it wasn’t long until I joined the team as the Head of Customer Success. In this blog post, I’ll be going over my top five tips for pitching tech-enabled services for contract review projects.
There is no doubt an art to pitching tech-enabled services. Showcasing the value-add of your technology toolkit, while clearly communicating the how and why your team is the best fit for a project is a delicate balance. So without further ado, were are five tips we at Heretik have mastered with our partners when helping, or rather supporting, their contract review project pitches:
1. Lead with the value of your services and let the technology speak for itself.
At Heretik, we’ve learned any successful project requires people, process, and technology. Your team is just as valuable to the client as your technology, if not more so. A fatal flaw many have made is to pitch the ‘easy button fantasy.’ There is no such thing. Ultimately, the client is interested in your experience, expertise, and the services you can provide while utilizing technology.
2. Find your groove.
Never stop taking note of what’s working and what’s not. If you’re already ‘grooving’ with certain project types or clients in the eDiscovery world, try to find an overlap point where contract review can start to be introduced. If you don’t have any solid prospects, look internally for potential contract review projects to tackle. These often turn into some of the most impressive data and use cases that can be pitched later on.
3. Start small, but build to scale.
If you’ve never done a contract review project before, it’s best to target the ‘low-hanging fruit’ for a multitude of reasons. First, this allows you to get some wins under your belt that you can reference in future pitches. Second, you’re able to start building a rapport with that client. And after a few small successful projects, they will be more likely to trust you with larger projects. Third, you can iron out any kinks in your process to build a lucrative and scalable practice from the ground up.
4. Focused demos are your best friend.
Relativity’s functionality is seemingly infinite. While this may excite those who are experts with the tool, it’s easy for your clients to get overwhelmed or lost in an un-focused demo. If you are pitching for a specific use case, client, or project, do your research! Find similar contract types (or ask if you can use some of their own) to tailor a demo that highlights the most impressive parts of the technology. And always bring it back to the value-add it allows your team to bring.
5. Learn how to customize your technology investments.
No one knows your clients and their business better than you. Spend extra time learning how to fully grasp the functionality of your technology, so you can shape it into a true competitive differentiator for your organization! Some of our most successful partners have taken our technology and made it entirely their own. If you are interested in learning more about those stories, check out Gravity Stack’s LIBOR solution Pipeline or Clayton Utz’ award-winning real estate solution AcquiRE.
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At Heretik, we pride ourselves on our customer success and support. We’re always creating new resources that are available at any time to our users. Make sure you check out our help desk and documentation portal for in-depth feature overviews or help troubleshooting AND our partner asset library for sales enablement materials, content templates, marketing-friendly product screenshots and gifs, and more.
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CHRIS TKACH
Chris is the Director of Customer Success at Heretik. Prior to Heretik, he worked briefly as an attorney, and went on to lead large-scale M&A projects and develop contract review technology at companies like Axiom and Major Lindsey & Africa.
