During the Apprentice Kim and her Marketing Masters Series, one of the things that stood out from an excellent day was the importance of an effective elevator pitch. The ability to summarize your business in 15 seconds is not easy, so important.
This is something I have mentioned several times before, including How good is your Escalator Pitch?
Kim asked the audience for examples of their elevator pitches, and although some were ok, they all paled into insignificance compared to her own pitch for her business Sarsaparilla Ltd. I didn’t manage to catch it word for word, but it went something like this;
Hello my name is is Kimberly Davis and I am the founder of Sarsaparilla a marketing consulting and training agency which can detox your marketing by protecting companies from Flash, Fluff, and Fakers. It specialises in helping you increase profits, maximise return on investment, and measure results.
It’s close to perfect, as it is concise, clear, explains the benefits, and leaves you wanting to know more.
Many entrepreneurs make the mistake of trying to explain everything they do, but then leave the potential customer to work out how they would benefit from the product or service.
Fortunately there are plenty of sources on the web to help write your own perfect pitch.
5-rules-for-writing-an-exceptional-elevator-pitch from the Small Fuel Marketing blog.
1. Explain your business in two lines
You have only a moment to explain what you do, but it can be hard to pare down an explanation to the details. Try starting with only a minimal explanation of just two lines. Focus on writing down what is unique about your business. You don’t need a perfectly formatted document; this draft is to get you to eliminate unnecessary words.
While you should mention what you do, how your business helps is actually more important than your particular methods. A professional speaker, for instance, wouldn’t just say that he gets up on a stage and talks. Instead, his pitch might include an explanation of the fact that he motivates employees to focus on quality — or whatever his speaking is supposed to achieve.
2. Add some excitement
If you aren’t excited about what you do, there’s no reason anyone else should get excited either. There was some sort of passion that lead you to get involved with your business; let it show through. In some cases, your reasons may be your elevator pitch.
Do you see a particular need for your services? Focus on that need, and a passionate pitch might just write itself. Results are another easy way to get excited about your business. Think about the numbers you celebrate — the milestones for your business.
3. Test your pitch
Find a few people that will listen to your pitch and give you feedback. Ask them what terms they didn’t recognize, where it was boring and where it was exciting.
Your listeners’ questions about your pitch are especially important. You don’t necessarily want to answer every question about your business in your pitch — getting prospective customers to ask a few questions is a great way to hook them — but if a test subject has no idea what you do after listening to your pitch, it’s back to the drawing board. It may take a couple of tries to come up with a pitch if your business isn’t particularly common.
4. Adapt to the situation
You don’t give your elevator pitch in a vacuum. It’s always part of a conversation. Your conversational partner probably has some specific needs that your company can help with — and he or she may have already described them as part of the conversation.
If you’ve already heard those specific needs, respond to them. Tell your listener exactly what you can do to help him; being specific is what can take an elevator pitch from the “I’ll be in touch” level to the “I’m calling you first when I get back to the office” level.
5. Be open to change
I actually learned this trick during a high school science fair: I was giving a pitch about my project to a judge and he asked a couple of questions that seemed pretty important. I started incorporating his questions, along with the answers, in my pitch. I’m pretty sure that it was that small change to my pitch that landed me a prize.
Your elevator pitch is not carved in stone. If you come across a better explanation of what you do, you ought to include it in your pitch. It’s even worthwhile to test out multiple versions of your elevator pitch and make changes based on the result. And if your business changes, it’s important to make sure that your elevator pitch reflects those changes.
15 Second Pitch uses a simple wizard to help you generate your 300 word pitch. It also has access to 14,000 sample pitches, so you can learn from others like this;
My name is Corey Lennox and I am a musician specializing in writing mindblowing songs. I write rock music to crystallize some of life’s most amazing moments and experiences. I’m a Berklee College of Music graduate who puts emotion first in his music. Check out what I’ve been creating- all my music is available for free. If you like what you hear, I encourage you to join my mailing list, or even just say hello!
