What Sales and Customer-Facing Professionals Can Learn from Made to Stick
Assuming that a technically accurate pitch is enough for a prospect to remember and act on it is the specific trap Made to Stick names, and it's an easy one to fall into when you know every feature matters to you.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Find the single core point and strip everything else away
A pitch that tries to mention every feature ends up remembered as nothing; identifying the one essential point and cutting everything that doesn't serve it makes it far more likely to stick with a prospect.
A salesperson covers every feature of a product with equal weight, and the prospect walks away without a single clear reason to choose it.
Identify the one sentence you most want a prospect to remember after your next pitch, and cut anything that doesn't support it.
Break the pattern people expect, to actually earn attention
A pitch that fits smoothly into the same format every salesperson uses slides past without registering; one that genuinely surprises earns the attention needed to be remembered.
A salesperson opens a pitch the exact same way as every other pitch the prospect has heard that week, and it blends into the background.
Identify one assumption your prospect likely holds about products like yours, and open by directly challenging it.
Make the idea concrete and give it built-in credibility
Abstract claims are hard to remember and hard to believe on their own; grounding your pitch in a concrete, checkable detail makes it stick on its own merits rather than relying purely on your confidence.
A salesperson describes a product as "game-changing" without a single specific, checkable detail behind the claim, and the word slides past without leaving an impression.
Replace one abstract claim in your pitch with a specific, concrete detail a prospect could actually picture or verify.
Carry the idea with genuine emotion and a story, not a dry fact
Facts alone rarely move a prospect to remember or act; connecting your pitch to real emotion and a concrete story makes it far more likely to actually close and be retold to others.
Covering every feature and making one idea truly memorable aren't opposites — a memorable core message often closes a deal more effectively than a complete but forgettable feature list.
Name one thing, honestly
If a prospect had to describe your pitch in one sentence a week later, what would you want that sentence to be?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Replace one abstract claim in your pitch with a specific, concrete detail a prospect could actually picture or verify.