How to Write an Elevator Pitch
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You’ve just met a potential customer or someone interested in investing in your company. You only have a few seconds to introduce yourself and catch their attention. How do you go about doing it?
For circumstances like this, the solution is to have a well-rehearsed elevator pitch on hand.
What is a Pitch in an Elevator?
An elevator pitch, also known as an elevator speech, is a brief remark intended to pique the interest of investors, potential consumers, and other key stakeholders in your company. It describes what you do, why you do it, how you’re different, and why it’s significant to the audience in simple terms. All of this should be accomplished in 30 seconds or less, which is often the length of an elevator ride or the amount of time people have to introduce themselves during networking events.
Your elevator speech shouldn’t be a sales pitch or a rundown of all your company’s strengths. A 30-second laundry list of your company’s talents will be about as enticing as all the disclaimers that broadcasters scurry through at the end of commercials.
An elevator pitch for entrepreneurs, on the other hand, should showcase your business or project in such a way that it attracts attention and piques the curiosity of the listener enough to say, “Tell me more.”
What Is an Elevator Pitch and How Do I Make One?
To create an elevator pitch or a speech, the first step is to figure out what questions your elevator pitch must answer in order to be successful. Depending on the circumstances and the reason for your pitch, you’ll ask different questions and present different facts.
Write out the answers to the questions below to help you focus your ideas. At this point, don’t worry about the length of your responses. Your goal here is to gather information that you may use to construct pitches for various audiences. However, keep in mind that your responses should be tailored to the self-interests of your listeners, not your own.
What’s your name?
Whether you’re pitching investors or potential consumers, the first thing they’ll want to know is who you are and how involved you are in the project you’re about to present. Not only your name and title, but also relevant information such as your years of industry experience, accomplishments, or other relevant information should be written down.
What kind of issue do you deal with?
Explain the problem you’re solving, who the problem is for, and why it matters. Use terms that are simple to comprehend. Remove the phrases like “end-to-end solutions” and “groundbreaking revolutionary technology.” Buzzwords and jargon don’t describe what you do, and they turn off listeners.
“It’s critical to provide context for your pitch to the audience,” says Dan Murray, a Colorado entrepreneur and investor. “If you start talking about how your’redesigned XJ-9 Valve increases the eco-efficiency of blah blah,’ you’re going to lose 98 percent of the audience right away. Remember, you’ve been living in your startup’s small world and domain, but the rest of us haven’t. Set the scene and give us some insight into why the XJ-9 Valve is such a significant issue for the marketplace.”
What is the significance of resolving this issue?
What is the impact of your product or service on those who use it? What impact does it have on their lives, businesses, or the environment when they use it? Unless you emphasize the importance of the problem and the comfort your solution gives, what you do or how you do it won’t have much appeal.
According to Precious L. Williams, a 13-time elevator pitch champion and CEO of Perfect Pitches by Precious LLC, one successful approach to do this is through storytelling. According to Williams, a story “paints a picture” of how to use your product. She believes that stories should be used to increase participation and create an emotional reaction.
Murray concurs. He continues, “The finest pitches I’ve heard had a lot of personal experience and passion in them.” One was created by a Parkinson’s disease patient who is reimagining clothing alternatives for those with limited dexterity. Her pitch was so personal and sincere that it instantly connected with practically everyone in the room, and she even won a $1,000 prize based on audience voting for the best pitch.”
He adds, “Open up a little bit.” “Explain how this is personal to you beyond the left brain, logical parts. In order to boost your chances of success in the eyes of a backer, try to demonstrate how tremendously enthusiastic you are about your topic.”
What Is the Size of Your Product or Service Market?
In your sector, what precise niche do you fill, and how big is that specialty? If you’ve created a new tool for appliance repair companies, investors aren’t going to like the fact that the appliance repair sector is worth $5 billion. They’ll want to know how they’ll make money if and when they invest in your business. They’ll want to know how many appliance repair shops there are, how many of this tool they’ll buy, how often they’ll buy it, and how much money they’ll make (as the investor).
Your market size won’t matter to your listeners if your elevator speech is aimed at attracting new consumers rather than investors. Customers will be interested in how your product or service will help them expand their market, serve more clients, save costs, improve safety, or achieve other important objectives.
What distinguishes you from others?
Wherever there is a need, there are nearly always several options for meeting it. What makes your solution better than existing products or services?
“Once you’ve created the tone, it’s critical to become specific and provide the audience some concrete, meaty benefits on why your company or service is so great,” Murray advises. “It’s fine to declare, ‘We aim to be the market leader in cloud-based hiring solutions,’ but it’s much better to explain how your strategy is unique and superior to the competition. Investors will not be won over by generic-sounding statements.”
Generic comments are also unlikely to attract new clients. If you’re giving an elevator pitch to customers, they’ll want to know how you vary from your competition and why that difference is substantial enough for them to move from their current provider or method of doing things to your solution.
Make a few different versions of your elevator pitch.
Create a proposal for your company for each of the scenarios you described above, one by one. Begin with the scenarios in which you are most likely to find yourself and/or which are most essential to you.
Put yourself in the shoes of the listener for each rendition. In just a few words and in language that will matter to the listener, summarize your answers to each of the questions you answered above. A sunglass buyer, for example, would like to know that your fold-flat sunglasses eliminate the need for cumbersome sunglass cases and fit effortlessly into a pocket or bag without scratching or cracking. A shop will want to know how offering your business a portion of their limited display space can help them sell more sunglasses. An investor will want to know how strong the demand is and what reasonable expectations for a return on their investment are.
Refine your summaries after you’ve summarized the responses for each version of your pitch, making sure they’re clear, short, and compelling enough to inspire a “tell me more” response. Keep in mind that you should be thinking about how the things will be used and how that utilization will benefit your audience greatly. For example, a new car salesperson is unlikely to tout the vehicle’s “radar detection device,” which illuminates when it detects motion two feet away and one to six feet behind either side of the vehicle. Instead, they’ll tell you about the blind spot detector, which alerts you when there’s a car in your blind area, preventing lane-change accidents.
Once you’ve perfected each pitch, run it by people you know who don’t know much about what you do. After you’ve given them your pitch, ask them to explain what you’re selling and why people should buy it. Rework the pitch if they don’t seem to “see” the importance or grasp what you do.