The Perfect (Elevator) Pitch

What’s An Elevator Pitch?

At its core, an elevator pitch (aka elevator speech, elevator presentation, or elevator story) is several things. Of course, an elevator pitch is a communication tool; it will help you articulate your message. An elevator pitch is also a sales tool; it will help you raise the money, and close the deals, you need to be successful.

An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea, product, service, project, person, or other Solution and is designed to just get a conversation started.

One of the most important things a businessperson can do—especially an owner or someone who is involved in sales—is learn how to speak about their business to others. Being able to sum up unique aspects of your service or product in a way that excites others should be a fundamental skill. Yet many executives pay little attention to the continuing development of “the elevator pitch”—the quick, succinct summation of what your company makes or does.

That’s too bad, because the elevator pitch—so named because it should last no longer than the average elevator ride—is far too important to take casually. It’s one of the most effective methods available to reach new buyers and clients with a winning message. True, you may not actually be doing the pitching in an elevator, but even if your meeting is a planned, sit-down event, you should still be prepared to capture your audience’s attention quickly.

Elevator Pitch 101

Keep It Fresh

Every business grows and changes, and your pitch needs to grow and change with it. You can have the most creative logo, the slickest slogan, the most dazzling brochures, and the most cutting-edge Web site, but if your elevator pitch is out of date, you’re missing one of your most important opportunities to “brand.”

You know your business better than anyone. How are you keeping abreast of the latest ideas? What continues to set you apart from your competition? How can you speak about your record of quality goods and services and make it relevant to your future plans?

As your audience’s needs and expectations change, make sure you change the way you speak about your business. Your language, your approach, and what you choose to highlight for a particular audience has got to change over time.

For instance, what has worked in years past with print and broadcast audiences could bore an online audience to tears. You wouldn’t think of not updating your other sales and marketing materials, so why would you let your elevator pitch grow stale?

Knowing your business, product, service, or issue well is one thing, but how do you convey excitement and spark interest to those outside your organization? What do you highlight? What do you leave out? And how do those choices change with your audience?

Always Be Prepared

In the early days of my executive coaching firm, I’d worked out an elevator speech with three quick points about what set our training services apart. It was working well, and I’d gotten comfortable, perhaps too comfortable, with using it.

One day, I won a brief introduction to a client in an industry we hadn’t trained in before. After my standard elevator speech (in a hallway this time), this decision-maker smiled and said: “Frankly, lowest cost isn’t necessarily our highest priority. I’d need to know a lot more about how you might add value to our existing efforts at training, not just your cost—and you’d need to convince me your firm could handle something we don’t already offer our type of demanding professional.”

He disappeared before I could recover. I didn’t have another chance with him for almost a full year. When that time came, I’d made sure to learn all I could about the training his company already had in place and the precise value we could add to existing efforts.

I’d already taken the lesson to heart: Adjust the pitch to the person who is listening, and refine it as you and your business continue to grow and change. It worked, and we’ve since been able to win that valuable account and many others in the same industry.

I’ve been on the other side of the less-than-perfect pitch, too. At a conference, a young businesswoman approached me to introduce herself and her Web-building services. She was eager and confident, but after a few minutes of hearing about her competitive pricing, her creativity, and a few of her clients, I said: “Well I hear from a lot of design services, and it’s hard to tell the real differences between you. What do you think really sets your work apart for someone like me in a services industry?”

The question obviously caught her off-guard, and she admitted she didn’t have an answer. An honest answer, but not a first impression that achieved her goal of getting a second meeting.

Continually perfecting the elevator pitch ensures that you are always able to put your best foot forward as your business grows and changes and your client base expands.

Sample elevator pitches

The Successful Elevator Pitch

How to Create a Killer Elevator Pitch

The Nine Basics

Concise: an effective elevator pitch contains as few words as possible, but no fewer.
Clear: rather than being filled with acronyms, MBA-speak, and ten-dollar words, an effective elevator pitch can be understood by your grandparents, your spouse, and your children.
Compelling: An effective elevator pitch explains the problem your Solution solves.
Credible: An effective elevator pitch explains why you are qualified to see the problem and to build your Solution.
Conceptual: An effective elevator pitch stays at a fairly high level and does not go into too much unnecessary detail.
Concrete: As much as is possible, an effective elevator pitch is also specific and tangible.
Consistent: An effective elevator pitch addresses the specific interests and concerns of the audience.
Customized: Every version of an effective elevator pitch conveys the same basic message.
Conversational: Rather than being to close the deal, the goal of an elevator pitch is to just set the hook; to start a conversation, or dialogue, with the audience.[i]

How to Craft Your Killer Elevator Pitch

Write down what you do. Write it several different ways. Try writing it at least 10-20 different ways. Don’t edit yourself at all. You will edit later. This first step is for generating ideas. Don’t hold back. Ideas can be goofy, serious, wild, funny, or conservative. It doesn’t matter. The goal is to get at many ideas as possible down on paper.
Write a very short story that illustrates what you do for people. If necessary, the story can be long. You will boil it down later. Paint a picture with words.
Write down your objective or goal. Do you want to make a sale, gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, earn a referral, or something else?
Write 10-20 action statements. This is a statement or question designed to spur the action associated with your goal.
Record yourself. You can use Jott if you don’t have a recording device. Jott is a free phone based service that translates your messages into text as well as providing an online link to the original audio.
Let it sit. Come back to what you’ve written with fresh eyes and ears the next day or later on in the same day.
Highlight the good stuff. Listen and read through what you’ve recorded and written. Then either highlight or circle the phrases that hook you with clear, powerful, and visual words. Obviously not all the words will fall into these categories. You still need connector words, but you want them to be as few as possible.
Put the best pieces together. Again you’ll want to write down several versions of this much tighter pitch. Tell us what you do and why people should want to do business with you. Include elements from your story if you can fit it in.
Record these new ones.
Do a final edit cutting as many unnecessary words as possible. Rearrange words and phrases until it sounds just right. Again, the goal is 30-60 seconds maximum.
Dress Rehearsal. Run it by as many people as you can get to listen to you. Get feedback from colleagues, clients you trust, friends and family.
Done for now. Take your final elevator pitch and write it down. Memorize and practice it until it just slides off your tongue naturally.
Continue to improve. Over time, always be on the listen for phrases that you think could make your elevator pitch more clear and impactful. And then test it out. Every once in a while you will probably benefit by starting from scratch because things always change: you, your business, your goals, and your clients’ needs.