The Retro Encabulator teaches us all a lesson

By Kristin Zhivago on May 2, 2008

Here's a video that demonstrates the perfectly orchestrated sales pitch, shot and delivered professionally. Take a look:




Several things come to mind, watching this carefully constructed spoof:

  • This is a classic product-oriented pitch - jammed-packed with jargon (including the first spoof give-away: "The crudely conceived idea.") How close is your current pitch to this one? Are you leaving your potential customers scratching their heads after the first few sentences?

  • There are too many business managers in the world, who depend on technology for their livelihoods, and yet, upon watching this, will think, "Sounds pretty impressive," instead of, "What a bunch of BS." You can't manage what you don't understand.

  • Note how the announcer starts out by saying that customer success is their primary focus. It's just as meaningless in this pitch as it is in the normal sales pitch, because this promise is broken with the very next sentence.

  • The look on the announcer's face is priceless. He becomes more and more proud of himself for spouting all that Retro Encabulator gibberish without stumbling.

I got this video from one of my brainy brothers - who has a PhD, and works on projects where he correlates satellite images to the soils, vegetation, and water features that are actually on the planet's surface. He's been teaching complex scientific subjects for years, and found this amusing - as an example of a technical sales pitch. He said you can learn more about it, if you're interested, here.

I was planning on publishing a post about transforming your company this week. It's not done. I just couldn't do justice to the subject in the course of a very busy week. I'll post it next week. In the meantime, enjoy your Retro Encabulator.



See related articles on Bloopers | Buyer experiences | Copy That Convinces | Copywriting | Sales Pitches

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