As founder and COO of Cognizant's new business incubator, Sean has democratized new business innovation to over 175,000 employees around the globe and gives each the opportunity to start their own enterprise business. He evaluates plans, allocates funding, and advises them on all matter of strategy, HR, legal, sales, marketing, and finance topics.
While your application doesn't have a monetary cost, it isn't free. Even for the pilot you need time from the person you're selling to.
In my experience pitching and being pitched to, that time is often worth more to the person you're trying to work with than money. I know that is true of my recruiters who are primarily driven by finding high quality candidates quickly; cost is secondary.
Without knowing your value proposition, it is tough to give you specific tips. Generally I'd say you need to craft a pitch that not only addresses a pain point, but also doesn't require a lot of cost (including time on the buyer's part) to test out. Show them the big picture but also how they can start small. If they don't like it, make it easy to walk away. If they do like it, then you can scale.
Good luck.
Strategy Management Consulting IT Strategy Executive Management