Direct

The Pitch Playbook

What this build is for

The pitch wins the room, one person at a time, and keeps winning it after you've left.

In a committee sale, the decision isn't made in the meeting. It's made in the week after, when the champion forwards your proposal to people who never met you, and each of them reads it for their own question. The finance director reads for the numbers and the way out. The plant manager reads for what it will cost their team. Procurement reads for the paperwork. If the proposal answers only the champion, the others answer their own questions, usually with no.

Two findings make this harder every year. Gartner surveyed 646 B2B buyers in 2025, and 67% said they'd prefer to buy without a sales rep at all (Gartner). And the people who decide are more than the people you meet: Gartner puts a typical buying group at five to 16 people. So the pitch is less a performance than a kit: the assets that carry your case into rooms you're never in.

In Kestrel's map, this build leads more cells than any other: 19 cells and 28 moments, almost all of them after the buyer has made contact. It's also where nearly all of Kestrel's current score comes from. That's the trap this playbook exists to avoid: a firm that's good in the room assumes the room is where it wins, and stops looking at the moments before anyone calls.

The pitch covers every step from the fit call to the signed contract, and the re-engagement after it. Account management and customer service are nods: they get short sections in the Customers playbook, because the same person who renews is the one who was served.

The footprint, and what it reads from the chain

The pitch leads where buyers judge Kestrel in person, or through what Kestrel put in their hands:

It supports nine more: the COO's and finance director's comparing, the COO's and investor's checking (references, arranged by PR), the finance director's and procurement's scope, the investor's options, and the COO's and investor's follow-on.

What it reads, and never rewrites:

Its slice of the Score, and its own audit

Inside a deal the gate is open: the buyer is already talking to you. So the pitch's slice of the Selectability Score is quality: Answered (did the asset this person was given answer their question?), Believed (are the claims signed, and confirmed by clients?), Preferred (did Kestrel keep the deal at this step?) and Bought (did the step run without a stall?).

The pitch earns 8.9 of Kestrel's 18 points, about half the Score. It also loses 12.4. The other three moments it leads, the scope questions from the plant manager, the improvement lead and the investor, score zero: they're asked before anyone has called Kestrel, and the one-page scope only answers them once a deal exists.

The audit. Before changing anything, lay out what the team actually sends, and the last year's deals.

The loss pattern points straight at the moments. Four deals died at building the case, where the finance director's numbers and the board pack were missing. Three went to a large firm at comparing, where the owner's trust and portfolio experience weren't shown. Two went to equipment because nobody priced the capacity already in the line. Not one was lost on the quality of the work.

Step 1: the shape, the motion and the standard proposal

The pitch has two shapes, and both come from outside the firm.

The motion comes from the Sales Strategy in the Plans. It's set by how the category buys, never by what the sales team prefers. Kestrel's has ten steps:

Steps 8 to 10 belong to Customers; the pitch hands over at week zero and picks up again at re-engagement.

The standard proposal is canon: what buyers in the category expect to find, because every firm they've compared shows it. Count it the same way as website page types, across the proposals and tenders you can see.

The counts are invented for the example. Canon tells you what a proposal can't leave out. It never tells you what wins: no firm in Kestrel's category writes to each person in the room, and none states what happens if the work finds nothing.

Step 2: coverage, one section per fear, per person in the room

The coverage unit for the pitch is a person's fear at a step. Every lit cell holds a chooser's question; behind each question sits the thing they're afraid of, and the fear is what the section has to answer. A proposal that answers questions and ignores fears reads well and loses.

For each of the 37 moments the pitch leads or supports, write three things from the map and the Sales Strategy: the question, the fear, and the signed proof that answers it.

That's seven people and 37 moments, each with a fear and a proof to write down: the finance director alone has seven, one for each problem's numbers. The standard proposal from Step 1 has a place for almost none of them. That's the gap Step 3 measures.

Step 3: gaps, biases and jobs

Hold today's kit against the 37 fears. Each fear the kit doesn't answer is a gap; each gap becomes a job with a stage, a moment and a bias.

One pattern runs through the table: almost every job is about someone who wasn't in the meeting. Kestrel's pitch was built for the COO across the table. Its losses came from the finance director at the board, the owner weighing a bigger name and the plant manager protecting their team.

Step 4: reconcile, the pitch kit

Put every job into the motion. The result is the pitch's equivalent of a sitemap: the kit, every asset the team can put in a buyer's hands, each traced to the moments it answers. Priority uses the same three signals as every build: canon, coverage and strategy.

13 assets. Every one of the 28 lead moments has at least one; every asset answers at least one. Three come from other builds and aren't rewritten here: the case pages (Website), the cost articles (Content) and the reference calls (PR and reviews). The kit links to them.

Rejected, with reasons:

• A capability statement. No moment asks for it. It answers "what do you do?", which the fit call already settled.
• The full credentials deck in every meeting. Cut to six slides for the fit call. After that, the buyer needs answers to their own questions, not the firm's history.
• A proposal per chooser, as separate documents. One proposal with a page each keeps the numbers identical; seven documents drift.
• Discounting to close. It answers no fear the way out doesn't answer better, and it tells the finance director the price was soft.

The anatomy library

Each asset in the kit has a standard shape. Buyers learn where to look; sellers stop reinventing. Required parts are in bold.

Four rules hold for every asset:

• It works without you in the room. Read it as someone who never met Kestrel. If it needs talking over, it isn't finished.
• Every figure is a signed claim. If Credentials can't sign it, it doesn't go in front of a buyer.
• The price never appears without the way out.
• One decision per asset. The fit-call guide asks for a scope, the scope for a proposal meeting, the proposal for a signature.

Briefs: the kit brief, then a brief for every section

A pitch is written for one account, so the brief has three levels: the kit (once, for every deal), the deal (once per account) and the section (once per person's page).

The deal brief for one of Kestrel's live accounts (invented):

ACCOUNT Hartwell Plastics, 260 staff, plastics and rubber
BUYING PATH Planned committee; the owner chairs the board
PROBLEM Rising costs: energy and scrap on two injection lines
THE GROUP COO (champion); finance director; plant manager; improvement
lead;
               procurement; the owner (decides)
ALTERNATIVES A new energy-efficient press (quoted: A$1.4m); the improvement
team
THEIR FIGURES Scrap 5.8%; energy 11% of cost of goods; overtime 12% of hours
CLAIMS Fixed price; six weeks; way-out clause; Calloway scrap case
(signed)
WHAT WINS The finance director accepting the business case before the
board

Then each person's page gets its own brief:

SECTION The finance director's page
JOB Believed · finance director · building the case · losses loom
larger
QUESTION "Will the numbers stand up at the board?"
FEAR "Consultants always overstate savings."
PROOF Calloway Foods: scrap 4.1% to 2.6%, confirmed by its finance
director
               after three months; the way-out clause
THEIR FIGURES Scrap 5.8%, energy 11% of cost of goods
ASK Review the business case kit with their own numbers before the
board
GUARD Every figure signed or theirs; the fee and the way out on the
same page

The flow check. Read the proposal as each person, one at a time, reading only their page and the summary. Could they say yes from that alone? Then read it as the board, which sees only the summary and the board paper.

The finished example: Kestrel's committee proposal to Hartwell Plastics, written in full

This is the proposal that follows the deal brief above: a summary, then one page for each person in the group. Each page carries its job in italics. Hartwell, its people and its figures are invented; Kestrel's claims are the signed ones from Credentials.

Summary: for everyone, and for the board

Believed, Bought · the whole group · a hard choice stalls

Hartwell's costs are rising on two injection lines, and the first fix probably isn't a new press. Scrap is running at 5.8% and energy at 11% of the cost of goods. Before committing A$1.4 million to a new press, a six-week operations review on both lines will show how much of the cost is recoverable from the equipment you have.

• What changes: scrap and energy losses traced to their causes on both lines, with fixes your team runs, and the savings confirmed with your finance director three months on.
• The fee: A$60,000, fixed, for two lines. If the review doesn't find more than it costs, you don't go ahead with the changes, and you don't pay for them.
• Who's on site: two Kestrel engineers for six weeks, both with injection-moulding plant experience.
• The decision: a start date. We can start on 3 November.

For the COO

Believed · COO · a hard choice stalls

You asked how to get the finance director and the board behind this. The attached board paper is written to be sent as it is. It sets out the problem, its cost in Hartwell's figures, the options including the new press and doing nothing, and the way out. A COO at a packaging plant of a similar size will take your call this week, if you'd like to hear how the review went from someone who championed one.

For the finance director

Believed · finance director · losses loom larger

You'll want to know whether these numbers survive a board. They're your numbers, not ours. At 5.8% scrap on roughly A$14 million of materials, scrap costs Hartwell about A$810,000 a year. Plants that fixed scrap at the root reduced it by between a quarter and a third; Calloway Foods did better, from 4.1% to 2.6%, confirmed by its finance director three months later. For Hartwell, a quarter to a third is A$200,000 to A$270,000 a year, before energy. The business case kit lets you change every assumption. And the fee comes with the way out, written into the contract.

For the plant manager

Answered · plant manager · a hard choice stalls

You asked how much of your team's time it takes. About two hours a day from you, and an hour a shift from each line lead. The review runs on your floor, on every shift, alongside your people. Week by week: weeks one and two, measuring and listening; weeks three and four, testing fixes with your crews; weeks five and six, the changes your team will run, written in your plant's words. You're welcome to spend half a day at a client's plant first, to see what that looks like.

For the improvement lead

Preferred · improvement lead · losses loom larger

This review won't be a verdict on your team's work, and it won't replace it. Your team leads the changes; we bring the measurement and a second pair of eyes for six weeks. Every finding is credited to the people who make it work, and the methods stay with your team when we leave. At Brennock Packaging, the in-house lead ran the next review on a third line without us.

For procurement

Bought · procurement · a hard choice stalls Everything you'll need is on one page, attached: the fixed fee and what it includes, payment in two stages, insurance and site safety documents, and the way-out clause word for word. The contract includes a framework option, so a review of a further line can start without a new tender.

For the owner

Believed · owner · familiar feels safe

You'll be weighing whether a firm of our size can be trusted with your plant. Ask an owner who did. The managing director of a 230-person metal fabricator will take your call; she chose Kestrel over a large firm two years ago and has used us twice since. The two people on your floor are named on the summary, with their plant histories. And if the review doesn't find more than it costs, it costs you nothing to find out.

What to notice. Each page opens with that person's own question, answered in its first line. Each names their fear before they have to raise it. Every figure is either Hartwell's or a signed claim. The price never appears without the way out. And the whole proposal can be forwarded in pieces: the finance director can send their page and the kit to the board without the rest. Seven pages, for one deal. Kestrel writes 19 proposals a year.

Templates

The deal brief

ACCOUNT [name, size, sector]
BUYING PATH [planned committee / owner-led / investor-led / urgent /
repeat]
PROBLEM [from the seven, in their words]
THE GROUP [each person: role, champion / decider / blocker, what they've
said]
ALTERNATIVES [what else they're weighing, with figures if known]
THEIR FIGURES [what they've shared; never estimate them]
CLAIMS [signed claims this deal will use]
WHAT WINS [the one moment that decides this deal]

The person's page brief

SECTION [person's page]
JOB [stage · chooser · step · bias]
QUESTION [in their words, answered in the first line]
FEAR [named before they raise it]
PROOF [a signed claim, from someone in their role]
ASK [the one thing they're asked to do]
GUARD [passes only if they could say yes from this page and the
summary]

The deal map (one row per person, kept live through the deal)

The win-loss record (one row per proposal)

In the campaign plan

Most campaigns end in a conversation, so the pitch is where they pay off or leak. The rule: every campaign hands the pitch the asset its buyers will ask for next, before the campaign starts.

When a campaign is planned, the deal team reads its brief and confirms the asset exists. A campaign that fills the calendar with fit calls the kit can't answer has wasted the buyers it found.

Running it

Who owns what. At Kestrel, the managing partner owns the kit and the win-loss record. Each deal has one owner, usually the partner who ran the fit call, who keeps the deal map. The head of delivery signs anything that describes the work on the floor. Nobody edits a signed claim in a proposal; they ask Credentials for a new one.

Using AI to write. A person's page brief is tight enough for an assistant to draft from. What it can't do is know the account: the figures, the people and what was said in the room come from the deal brief, which a person writes. Every draft is checked against the claims register before it leaves.

The deal review's one question. For each person in each live deal: could they say yes today, from what we've sent them? If not, what are they missing? That question, asked weekly, does more than any pipeline report.

Common mistakes

The bias to watch in the team: the illusion of transparency. A partner who has run fifty reviews can't easily imagine not knowing what one involves, and assumes the plant manager can picture the six weeks. Write every page as if the reader has never hired a consultant, because often they haven't.

The business check and the measures

Before the new kit goes out, check it against the business:

• Revenue: the kit is built around planned committees, where most of Kestrel's work comes from. If most new work starts to come through investors, the investor pack moves to P1.
• One truth: the fee, the six weeks and the way-out clause read identically in the fit-call guide, the proposal, the terms summary, the website and the contract.
• The offer: the way out is in the contract, signed by the managing partner. A seller who softens it in a meeting changes the offer, and that's a partner's decision, never a seller's.
• The proof is real: every case figure is confirmed by the client in writing; every reference has agreed to take calls this quarter.
• Capacity: a seven-page proposal per deal takes a day with the kit, and three without it. If the team can't give a day per proposal, cut the page count, not the people: the finance director's and the owner's pages come first.

The measures. Each asset is judged by the moment it serves, never by how many were sent.

The Loop for this build

Each quarter the Loop (step 11) puts the win-loss record beside the Score's deal moments, and asks: at which moment are deals being decided, and did the kit answer the person who decided them?

What Kestrel's first year would look for. "No decision" losses falling first, from four in ten, as the business case kit and board paper reach the board. Then fewer losses to large firms as owner references and named teams arrive at comparing. Win rate could move from 9 in 19 towards 12, which would lift the pitch's moments by several points. But the last row of the table is the one to watch: a better pitch only converts the buyers who already find Kestrel. Without the market-side builds, the Score stays "rarely selected", however good the room gets.

Shapes by business type

The motion and the kit change with how the category buys:

Feeling a bit overwhelmed?

You should be, a little. One firm: a ten-step motion, seven people in the room, 37 moments, 13 assets, a deal brief and a seven-page proposal for every account, a weekly deal review and a win-loss record that has to tell the truth about why deals die. Most firms send the same deck to everyone and call the losses price.

RocMode does the heavy part for you:

• A script and an objection sheet for each buyer. For every person in the buying group, RocMode writes a demo script and an objection sheet, and every answer cites its proof, or says what proof you still need to collect.
• Battlecards and seller copy you can stand behind. It drafts them only from what your strategy and your signed claims can back up.
• Pitch decks, from the same strategy. So the deck, the website and the proposal say one thing.

Join the RocMode beta