In this irreversibly connected business world, almost every business in every field needs some sort of software solution. Be it a mere time tracker to calculate the hours for accurate payroll or an entire top-down software architecture system, we all benefit from technological features.
Still, it doesn’t mean that software development companies are brimming with clients and projects. It’s quite the opposite: directors, managers, sales, and marketing departments must work harder than ever to win over potential customers.
On the road to steady and long-lasting business success, writing a powerful software development pitch matters a lot.
This guide will show you how to put together a conversion-boosting pitch, together with several real-life examples from our portfolio.
What Is a Pitch?
In a nutshell, a pitch is a meticulously crafted sales presentation. A longer explanation would highlight that its main aim is to convince you to buy a certain product or service.
There’s a rough division of pitches into a pitch made for the audience who knows the product or service, and the one created for people who aren’t familiar with either.
We’ll focus on preparing a pitch for a potential client who still doesn’t know much about your business but needs the software services you provide.
Why Do You Need a Pitch?
When a business notices a demand for a software solution, they won’t go around exploring softdev companies in detail. They’ll contact a few enterprises they come across by word of mouth or after (usually) short online research.
Once they ask you about the services they need, react at once and put together all the vital information to get that project.
So, writing a pitch is like making The-Best-Of album of your services that will convince the lead they should do business with you.
The Elements/Stages of Software Development Project Pitch
When putting together a software development proposal, include everything necessary to grab the client’s attention and nudge them into using your services.
Go through all the following stages to make sure you draft a perfect pitch:
- Covering the Business Details
As the starting pistol goes off, first, let the client know what points you’ll be covering throughout the course of the pitch. Hence, provide the essential business details, as follows:
- Your company name and the softdev services you offer,
- The project name, its purpose, and scope.
- The main development stages and basic details about the project.
- Milestones and expected deliveries.
- The benefits the client will experience once they implement the features developed during the project.
- The total amount of money the client will pay (explain the costs, discounts, and other relevant information).
- Payment information (invoice dates, when the payment procedure should start, etc.)
- Round it off with several strongest points of your softdev company and why you’re a game-changer.
- Naming the Problem Scope and Client’s Needs
Now that the client has gotten the gist of everything contained in the rest of the pitch, get deeper into every aspect mentioned above.
Your client knows what issue they have, no doubt about that, but give them your own view of the problem. It means you’ve done your research and know exactly how to help them. At this point, address the problem as precisely as possible, stressing out the consequences they’ll suffer if they don’t react promptly.
Think about starting with something like: “You still haven’t integrated the multi-factor authentication method into your business system. Consequently, your exposure to potential unauthorized access to personal data is XY% higher than in other companies.”
Make sure to talk about the complete scope of functionalities you need to cover. Let the client see that you’ll prepare a solution for each bug, error or lack of implementation.
BM Insight: Let’s use this cybersecurity example to highlight our utmost devotion to meeting highest personal data security standards. In 2022, we obtained the ISO 27001 Certificate, having proven that we fulfill all the legal requirements regarding our customers’ and employees’ data safety. For more details about all the relevant regulations we follow, read the blog post written by the Holding’s vCISO Branko Džakula.
- Listing the Proposed Features and Solutions
The business and collaboration details have been defined and the project scope has been specified. It’s time to get into the thick of it – the part where you list the proposed features, solutions, and technologies you’ll implement.
Start with an overview of the teams, technologies, and tasks you’ll be performing over the project duration.
On the one hand, don’t go too deep into the tech details. They’re not relevant for the client. What’s more, they might think you’re trying to confuse them with niche jargon. Focus on the three main things, and stick to them when pitching for every client:
- The improvement the client’s business will experience upon implementing your software solutions.
- The approximate pricing.
- The project timeframe.
Specify the down payment, and the total price of the project. Here, you should express the hourly rate for each software engineer, designer, or marketing expert working on that project. If you don’t tell the client how much each professional costs, the final cost of the project might not be justified.
Also, include the potential extra costs, such as additional tech expenses (hosting and domain services, if any, additional testing, security measures, or any other services you need to pay to carry out this project properly).
BM Insight: Yes, don’t overexpose clients to tech argot, but do name a few programming languages or technologies your developers will be using; especially if those solutions are in some way untypical or innovative. You’ll leave a positive impression on the listening party, expertise-wise. For instance, our mobile development squad relies on Flutter for cross-platform app development, thus saving time and assets. Marko Krstanović – one of the most experienced Flutterists under our roof – has described the competitive advantage of such approach in his article Flutter: The Future of Cross-Platform Mobile App Development. Such platforms are worth mentioning in a softdev pitch.
- Why You, and Not Someone Else?
Let’s move on to the stage in which you’ll push a bit harder to convince the client you’re their perfect choice.
No educated guesses and assumptions, only heavy facts, full-scale case studies, and testimonials are to be presented here.
The following four Es – supported with heavy evidence – will turn most leads into clients: expertise, experience, excellence, effort.
We’ll break them down into nuts and bolts:
Expertise
Paraphrasing the old saying: a case study is worth a thousand descriptions. Take one or two case studies relevant for the client’s niche and showcase what you’ve already done for similar clients.
Highlight what the problem was and how you resolved it with your software solutions. If not NDA-restricted, include the stats that display the improved business operations upon deploying your product. Provide the metrics in charts and graphs to grasp the client’s attention. Present the project leaders and let the client know they’ll work on their project, as well.
Such a detailed approach should convert a skeptic into your new follower.
Experience
If you’re a newly founded business, don’t think you can’t prove your experience. For instance, BrightMarbles Group Holding was founded in 2016, and yet, some of our engineers and other professionals have more than 10 years of experience.
Your clients simply want to know how you’ll help them improve their business operations. In that sense, your task here is to demonstrate you have the necessary grit to get things done.
Hence, present the most experienced engineers (and other relevant professionals) who will work on that project. Depending on the context, think about letting them present themselves. At this point, do your best to build trust between your company and the client. If you play this game well, you’ll get one step closer to forming a true business partnership.
BM Insight: When pitching our new clients, we like to emphasize that we perceive business collaborations as professional partnerships. Only if we completely believe each other can we deliver perfect solutions to our clients’ doorsteps. Read more about the concept of partnerships in the IT industry and our successful collabs in the blog post Software Development Partnerships: How to Know Who’ll Make You Grow.
Excellence
Even if you have the most seasoned techsperts, designers, marketers, Scrum masters, and other professionals at disposal, it still doesn’t mean they’ll excel at their next project.
What helps here is sharing the testimonials from your previous or current clients. Be it reviews on your website, ratings on specialized platforms, or special, client-provided videos (recommended and more convenient), new clients will pay attention to their opinions. At this stage, it’s also wise to promote your Quality Assurance methods, teams, and services. Tell your clients what you do during software development to ensure delivering bug-free, polished solutions.
BM Insight: Our company pays equal attention to all the professionals under our roof. Even though we’re a software development powerhouse, engineers need both assistance and counseling to perform miracles. So, our Mibsters come from different walks of life, from design, marketing, and humanities, to law, finance, and engineering management. The blog post The Entourage of IT Projects – The Binding Tissue of IT Software Development tells the story of all these remarkable professionals that get this engine going.
Effort
If you’ve presented all the information, people, and details as described so far, the client will already be highly likely to start doing business with you. Now it’s effort time, i.e., your turn to work hard and meet their expectations.
- Specifying Milestones on a Timeline
Every softdev project is manageable more easily when a thorough timeline is available from day one. In collaboration with the team leads, engineers, and Scrum masters assigned to that project, give time estimates, and present them on a timeline.
Also, define approximate dates for each stage of the development project. Make your internal deadlines, as well, and give yourself some time between those marks and the milestones presented to the client. You’ll significantly reduce potential issues with deadlines.
The more information the client has in the beginning, the more comfortable they’ll feel about the entire partnership.
BM Insight: Effective time management is the backbone of successful software development. If you plan the milestones, your daily tasks, and meetings (Sprints) properly, the core work will go smoothly. This is where Scrum masters, product owners, and engineers need to build and maintain a cohesive connection. Our blog post Scrum 101: Applying the Most Popular Agile Framework will teach you how to tweak your project-planning skills.
- Providing a Cost Estimate
We’ve already mentioned the cost estimate in the introduction, but it would be smart to break down the expenses into greater detail somewhere at this point.
Answer yourself the following questions to get the accurate information for your client:
- How much does an engineer’s hour cost?
- If you add services other than software development – say, marketing or design – what are hourly rates for these experts?
- How many hours of practical work will each of them spend on the client’s project?
- Are there any technical or operational costs the client needs to be aware of?
Paying is one of the most delicate matters in every business collaboration, so the pitch needs to be as detailed as possible on this matter.
BM Insight: The project price may differ based on whether the client needs a dedicated team of software developers, an appendix to their existing team, or they have some custom requirements. When possible, negotiate those terms in advance and include the proper price in the pitch.
- Underlining the Potential Obstacles
Based on the previous projects, your employees’ estimates, and your general experience, count in the potential obstacles for every specific project.
For instance, tell your client about the common potential issues for that very project, given their requests and the tech framework you’re going to use. While doing so, don’t let them think at any stage that you can’t resolve those problems. It’s just a precaution that will give you enough room for prompt reactions in the case of such occurrences.
- State Your Open-Door Policy and Transparency
In the final stage, communicate with your client that you want to stay transparent throughout your collaboration. Our stance is that the open-door policy and attentiveness to clients’ questions and requests yields better results in the end.
Still, every company should arrange this part of collaboration in line with their values and policies.
BrightMarbles’ C-Suite on Pitching
Those were the basics of successful pitching in software development, with some additional ingredients from our own kitchen. But this is still not the whole truth about the X-factor that lets us stand apart from the competition.
For this special occasion, our managers have shared some exclusive tricks of the BrightMarbles trade they apply to convince prospects that we have what they need.
In the quest for new clients, our team never loses sight of what truly makes a winning pitch. As Nevena Nemeš, our Chief Experience Officer, poignantly puts it, “Our special pitch ingredient is our ability to understand clients’ needs on a deeper level and present solutions that can transform their business. We don’t just deliver software; we provide an exceptional experience.”
Miloš Milić, our Delivery Director, emphasizes on a different note, “We put our emphasis on the procedures, which we then custom-tailor to fit the needs of each client. Also, we have experts who specialize in product management and uphold a rigorous quality standard, ensuring that every product we deliver isn’t just functional but truly exceptional.”
Darko Kovač, our CTO, adds, “Our specific advantage over other similar businesses is through our innovative use of technology and methodology. We understand the potential of each technology stack and how to tailor it to deliver maximum benefits for each client.”
Lastly, Boris Berat, our CEO, shares his insight on our strategic approach: “We’re not just another software development company. We partner with our clients, understand their needs, and guide them through every step of the process. Our team’s commitment to delivering high-quality, personalized solutions is what makes us stand out, and that’s what we communicate in every pitch.”
The Closing Words
Gathering some of the best software engineers out there and hiring an outstanding entourage is Base One. Learning how to pack, present, and charge your services is equally important to become and remain a successful software development company.
After reading this guide, you’ll know more about writing a softdev pitch that converts, that’s for sure. All the additional tips and links to our practical content bits will help you understand the entire industry even better. And the practical in-house intel from our C-suiters is here to additionally illustrate how we get pitches done.
We’ll keep posting such educated and refreshing content from the IT industry, based on our knowledge and experience. Follow us for more practices, procedures, and stories from the world of software development.