These days, we're all pitchers. Maybe you're in advertising or design. Maybe you're selling software or cars. Maybe you're making an internal pitch for a revolutionary new product or software. Or maybe you're just trying to gain a few more resources so you can do a better job. Across the board, it's getting harder to chalk up the big wins. Prospective clients are hunkering down. And the few who are still out there have the luxury of waiting to pick a pitch that they really like -- generally one with a lower price tag. Worst of all, the old approaches to selling -- fire up that PowerPoint presentation one more time! -- seem, well, old.

If you're looking to remake yourself as the next Cy Young (or Roger Clemens), the designers at Fitch, an international brand-design firm with U.S. headquarters located in a renovated horse farm near Columbus, Ohio, think that they've got the perfect pitch: the fastball pitch.

The Fitch fastball pitch is actually a high, hard one. It's all about speed, intuition, and guts. Instead of asking potential customers for their business, Fitch designers use their pitches to fire off their point of view and challenge potential clients to love it or hate it -- with nothing in between. In fact, Fitch's pitches feature one all-important idea: to have an opinion -- even if it comes out of left field. And Fitch's pitches have one target: to nail "the big 'aha' that will make a client's knees wiggle," says Ron Vandenberg, chief creative officer of Fitch Americas. Such knee wiggling is caused by anxiety over an idea so radical -- something like changing the company's brand name -- that the potential client is profoundly uncomfortable. "You'll either completely disconnect with them or they'll clear their calendar for the rest of the day to talk to you," says Bill Faust, former CEO of Fitch Americas. "But at the very least, you'll have shown that you have some imagination."

So far, such risk taking has paid off. Fitch estimates that it has converted 30% more pitches into real business since it started using its fastball pitch, although Faust admits that the number of pitches that it takes part in has dropped due to the tough economic environment. Still, Fitch has added a number of big names to its client roster, including VF Corp. (maker of Lee Jeans) and Warner Bros., and has won work from such smaller innovative companies as movie-theater operator Pacific Theatres Corp. and Skinmarket Inc., a cosmetics retailer funded by the daughter of Bud Walton (Sam's brother).

So forget the credentials presentation. Forget the brochures. Forget the stupid tchotchkes. Grab a strong point of view, and study these four coaching tips on how to increase the velocity of your pitch. And remember: Good pitching always beats good hitting.

1. Assemble a good pitching staff.

Like a good ball team, a good business pitch needs the right players and the right coach. In the old days, says Faust, "you'd assign somebody to grab the PowerPoints, and you'd bring the brochures." For Fitch's fastball pitch, it's not what's on the table but who's in the chairs. So staff the team with people who will actually work on the account. "The old modus operandi was the bait and switch," says Stuart Hunter, a creative director at Fitch's San Francisco office. "You bring in the big guns the first day, and that's the last the client ever sees of them."