30 seconds waiting for an app doesn’t feel like a gift, but imagine you’re in a room full of prospects or face-to-face with a potential investor. In a scenario like this, 30 seconds might as well be gold in your hands. The question now is, how do you cash in on the rush?
If you’re heavily invested in your business or company, you likely have loads of information you can fire off on demand. But then again, you only have 30 seconds, and there’s only so much you can do with that. If you’re wondering what the appropriate course of action would be, here’s your answer.
Elevator pitches! An elevator pitch is meant to be succinct while leaving a distinct impression, thus dealing with your 30-second problem. Keep reading to learn what exactly the elevator pitch is and how you can use it to turn 30 seconds into solid gold leads.
Table of Contents:
What is an Elevator Pitch?
It’s in the name, really, an elevator pitch is the sort of pitch you’d give in an elevator. In other words, it’s short, only taking roughly 30 seconds to a minute. You can think of the elevator pitch as a net. It helps you snag attention and reel in eyes and ears to your business or value proposition.
An elevator pitch, also referred to as an elevator speech, is a quick, easy-to-understand rundown of your offering. Its task is to introduce who you are, what you do, and how your solution can benefit the listener. The goal is not an instant yes; rather, the elevator pitch buys you time and attention – valuable currency nowadays.
With an elevator pitch, you can get prospects interested enough to want a second conversation. However, like all lead-gen strategies of extreme utility, there’s a careful art to successfully executing an elevator pitch. Here are some instructions to guide you.
How To Craft An Elevator Pitch
1. Start With An Introduction
A warm, friendly introduction makes a good start for an elevator pitch, especially in social situations. Give your name with a smile and a firm handshake, maybe exchange a pleasantry. It can be a major temptation for most people to ramble about themselves in detail. However, when delivering an elevator pitch, that’s a very unhelpful tack.
This is because your targets have no idea who you are and why they should care, not yet, at least. The elevator pitch is a strategy for measured persuasion; it gets prospects to perk up their ears. Until they return for seconds though, leave your intro at, “Hi, I’m first and last name, nice to meet you.”
2. State What You Do & Your Company’s Mission
These are separate things, so let’s address them one after the other, starting with what you do. That refers to your professional standing or the role you occupy. Don’t bother with details about your experience or educational background just yet. Rather, segue into a clear and brief description of your company, its objectives, and operations.
3. Roll Out The Value Proposition
A value proposition is indisputably necessary for all effective pitching techniques. It speaks to what a prospect actually cares about, which is how you can help them. As such, a well-crafted value proposition should address the following things:
- The problem: Essentially, whatever’s impeding a prospect’s goal or an obstacle that slows down operations. Heads up, they might not even know it yet. But that’s okay; you’re only piquing their interest. Keep it moving.
- The solution: This describes how exactly your product or service attends to client needs. You’ve already explained what it does; now you have to differentiate the value it delivers. The purpose of this is to set you apart from other similar solutions in your industry.
Your entire value proposition should not exceed a sentence or two. However, you can strike a chord by fluidly connecting prospect needs with your solution.
4. Use A Hook To Reel Them In
Hooks are attention-grabbing, and for good reason, too; people respond better to engaging or relatable stories. Yours could be a chuckle-worthy customer anecdote or a couple of interesting data points you have at hand. Most pitching techniques incorporate a hook; adding one to your elevator pitch can help make it come alive.
5. Read Your Elevator Pitch Out Loud
Prospects are people and they want to feel seen as much as the next guy. So, take the time to go over your pitch to make sure it sounds natural. A lot of people underestimate the effects of editing or simply reading aloud. However, it’s a great way to minimize hitches in your speech and make it flow as freely as regular conversation.
Elevator Pitch Tips
Thus far, you’ve learned what you need to craft a basic elevator speech; here’s lesson two on elevator pitch tips. These are practices you can incorporate to enhance the effectiveness of your pitch. These tips will help refine your pitching technique by improving your overall communication skills.
Brevity
As you may have noticed, this is a foundational feature of the elevator pitch. The whole point is to be concise while still retaining your prospect’s attention. Thanks to its brevity, the elevator pitch is adaptable to various situations. So once more, keep it short at 30-60 seconds only.
Clarity
If you spend all 30-60 seconds of your pitching time on jargon, you might as well have not even given it a shot. Prospects need to understand quickly and easily what you’re putting on the table. Otherwise, it might be hard for them to see the value or ask additional questions to make sense of it. Clarity matters, so try to steer clear of niche language or technical terms, especially with wider audiences.
Project confidence and positivity
Approach each pitch with confidence that it will work. It leaks into your body language and communicates your enthusiasm about your offer. Prospects can pick up on such things, making your elevator pitch more believable. So stand tall, wear a friendly smile and infuse your voice with certainty as you share how you can help prospects.
Practice
Delivery is as important as the words you say in an elevator pitch, so try to practice speaking conversationally. Play with your tone and volume so your speech is interesting and key aspects are stressed with no part sounding forced or stilted. Also, practice your pacing to carry listeners along; speak too slowly, and they’ll get bored; speak too fast, and they might miss it.
Overall, practice is a necessity as it can help boost your confidence. With practice, you go from simply knowing the words to being intimately familiar with the concepts you want to communicate. An undeniably positive influence on your powers of persuasion.
Know Your Audience
A keen familiarity with your target audience allows you to tailor your speech to suit them. You can properly address their needs and, even better, use language they are accustomed to. With a tool like Signal Hire, you only need a prospect’s full name. Then, you can look them up from among over 400 million profiles. This way, you can find contact details such as their social media accounts, company they work for to learn more about them.
Elevator Pitch Examples
Looking for additional elevator pitch tips? Getting familiar with some elevator pitch templates can give you some idea of what you’re going for as you craft yours. Here are some easy-to-use elevator pitch templates, along with examples;
1. Use A Customer Story
Begin with a case study highlighting the product’s purported value and ability to deliver. Customer stories show proof of work. Read on to see what that looks like.
A project manager at Orion, Sarah Lane, had trouble organizing her team efficiently. However, using Clipboard, she has improved her team’s productivity by 60%. With a tool like Clipboard, Sarah and other project managers can streamline communication and task management to keep teams on track and on time. Want me to go into more detail?
2. Incorporate a Shocking Statistics
You can use one that shines a light on the problem and its consequences or stresses the solution’s effects. This works because data adds credibility to your claims while being very attention-grabbing. Here’s an elevator pitch example that utilizes the problem-focused template.
70% of projects suffer excess costs due to poor task management and team communication. Companies not only lose funds but team morale also drops, resulting in further unproductivity. With Clipboard, a project management tool that facilitates easy collaboration and tracks project progress, project managers can boost productivity by over 60%.
3. Network
This elevator pitch template is short and straight to the point, clearly highlighting the utility of the offer. Below is a sample.
Hi, a pleasure to meet you. I’m first and last name, a marketer with Clipboard. Our software helps project managers amplify team productivity by more than 60% by optimizing their workflow via task assignments, progress tracking, file sharing, and real-time communication. Would you like to hear more?
Final Words
Elevator pitches get easier with practice, so don’t be afraid to try. Experiment with different templates and delivery methods, and sharpen your communication skills and powers of persuasion. Eventually, you’ll find what works for you and settle into a comfortable and effectual rhythm.
