What is an elevator pitch?
An elevator pitch is a short factual introduction of you and/or your company which has been reduced to approximately 35 words! This must capture the attention of your audience over a short period of time leaving them wanting to find out more.
Imagine you have walked into an elevator and a potential hot prospect walks in behind you!
You’re not prepared, what do you say?
The answer is – “Be Prepared” for eventualities like these and write your own elevator pitch.
When planning and writing your pitch, here are a few tips to keep you on track;
- Keep it short!
- Remember to include: What your company does and who for (clients), and what makes you are different from your competitors?
- Pitch yourself not your ideas.
- Have a hook – The objective of the first 15 seconds is to have your prospective customer listening and wanting to know more.
- Don’t use jargon or lots of statistics!
- Listen – It’s important to talk, but it’s also important to be able to listen too!
- Don’t forget the pitch! – It is really easy to get so caught up in the details of who you are that you forget to mention what you need!
- Practise, practise, practise! So should the opportunity arise it will flow.
Always being prepared ensures that you are ready to deliver the perfect pitch at any time, which can only help grow your business.
Update: Thank you to Damian of DJB Photography for giving us an example of an elevator pitch using five key points:
1 – Who am I?
2 – Emotional Value (How I help)
3 – How do I do it?
4 – Testimonial
5 – Call to Action
For instance therefore mine would be as follows:
1 – Who am I? – Good morning, my name is Damian of DJB Photography
2 – Emotional Value (How I help) – I help business gain more business and attract a higher class of clientele by offering exceptional imagery of a businesses products and services to use for marketing and promotion.
2 – How do I do it? – Business owners are often great at what they do, and it is my skill to convey that to their potential customers, to differentiate them from their competitors, through great quality photography.
3 – Testimonial – My clients have described me and my work as exceptional, working with great professionalism, making everyone feel very comfortable, delivering fantastic results.
5 – Call to Action – If you would be interested in arranging a meeting to review some of my work and see what I can potentially do to help a business improve how they are perceived to the outside world, then I would love to have the opportunity to show you.