What pitching for a grant teaches about positioning
A competitive pitch strips positioning down to its essentials — who you serve, what you do better, and why anyone should believe you. Every B2B brand could use that discipline.
In 2016 I was part of a LaunchKC grant win. As a co-founder of a Kansas City startup, I spent a good part of those years presenting our company for awards, start-up challenges, investments and grant competitions. Some of those pitches went well and some didn't, and the difference almost always came down to one thing: how clearly we could say who we were for and why we were the right answer.
That's positioning. And I've found that the discipline a pitch forces on you is exactly what most established B2B brands are missing.
A pitch has no room for everything
When you have a few minutes in front of a panel, you can't list every feature, every capability and every possible customer. You have to choose. Which problem matters most? Which audience are you really built for? What's the one thing you do that others don't?
Established firms rarely face that constraint. A website has infinite room, so it tends to fill up with everything the company can do. The result is a brand that's accurate but forgettable — a long list of services that could belong to any competitor.
Positioning isn't what you can do. It's what you choose to be known for.
Start with the audience's problem
The pitches that landed started with the problem, described the way the people who have it would describe it. Panels respond to a clear, specific need because they can picture who's affected and why it matters.
The same is true for a B2B brand. A firm that opens with the challenge a client is facing — a regulation, a deadline, an aging asset, a growth goal — is immediately more relevant than one that opens with its org chart. It's the core of making a complex firm feel human online.
Make the difference concrete
"Innovative," "client-focused" and "high-quality" are claims every competitor makes. In a pitch, you learn quickly that they don't move anyone. What moves a panel is something specific and provable: a result, a method, a piece of evidence nobody else can show.
For a professional-services firm, that concreteness usually lives in the work itself — the projects, the experts and the outcomes. The more specific the proof, the more believable the position.
Know why now
Every good pitch answers an unspoken question: why is this the right moment? Markets shift, regulations change, needs emerge. A brand that can connect its strengths to what's happening in its clients' world right now feels timely instead of generic.
Practice saying it simply
Pitching taught me to test positioning out loud. If you can't explain what makes your organization different in two or three plain sentences, the website and the sales materials won't be able to either. Try it with someone outside your industry. If they can repeat it back, you're close.
Apply it to an established brand
You don't need a funding round to use this discipline. Pick one audience, one problem and one proof point, and write the pitch you'd give if you had three minutes. Then compare it to your home page. The gap between the two is usually where your positioning work should start.
Sources and further reading
- LaunchKC — Kansas City's startup grant and investment program
- LinkedIn B2B Institute, The 95-5 Rule — why most B2B buyers aren't in-market today, and what that means for being remembered