How to make a good Elevator Pitch

An elevator pitch should be the first piece of marketing you come up with. Perhaps the most common single question budding entrepreneurs are asked is, “What do you do?”, and having a well thought-out, intriguing and above all brief description of your business ready is invaluable. Here, therefore, we present a brief checklist of dos and don’ts for your elevator pitch.

Do:

Keep it short. After all, the idea is that you are in an elevator with someone: thirty seconds is great, anything more than a minute is too long. If it helps, imagine that it’s a short building, and a speedy elevator. The premise of an elevator pitch is that you will be talking to someone who has very little time, and might not necessarily want to speak to you.

Make it interesting. Nothing gets people’s attention like being told something they didn’t know. Perhaps your potential market is surprisingly large, or a rival with a comparable but inferior product made huge profits last year: find an arresting fact to back up your idea. Your aim is to make your audience want to know how your idea ties in.

Be passionate. You can’t expect your potential investor/ distributor to be enthused at an idea if you yourself seem indifferent to it. These people want to see that you believe in your product or service sufficiently to overcome any obstacles that might come your way. Of course, if you really are indifferent to your idea, drop it and come up with a better one!

Outline the customer need you are fulfilling. The elevator pitch is a marketing tool, and identifying a customer need is the single most important marketing concept there is. As ever, of course, keep it as brief as possible.

Talk about the company. An obvious one, this, but nonetheless crucial. In as few words as possible, sum up your entrepreneurial team, your target market, your competition, and, most importantly, your sustainable advantages over them. This should be the bulk of your pitch: 20-30 seconds of your allotted minute.

Ask for something. This is, after all, the whole point. You want something from your audience, be it a business card, a meeting or even just the promise to answer your phone call. Make sure you know what it is you’re after, and then make sure they know too.

Practice. The more succinctly and coherently you can present your pitch, the better. Practice on your own to cut out as many ums and ahs as possible, and on your friends and family to get feedback in case you’ve missed anything obvious.

Don’t:

Use jargon. Your audience wants to know how your idea relates to the real world, not to hear about flux capacitors and dilithium crystals. An entrepreneur in love with his technology, rather than with its applicable uses, is a notoriously poor investment. In fact, the only thing worse than technical jargon is business jargon. Words like ‘synergy’, ‘dynamic’ or ‘leverage’ are all very well but don’t mean anything: not what you need when time is brief. Not least because those you are addressing are most likely past masters of the form, and will see your sesquipedalian ramblings for what they are: nonsense.

Pitch your product. This can alternatively be stated as: don’t confuse investors with customers. Investors, first and foremost, want to know whether they can make money. Of course your product/ service should come into the pitch somewhere, but don’t let it be the focus.

Write a mission statement. Your elevator pitch should be tailored every time to suit its audience, and should never sound too ‘rehearsed’. You should be prepared, and even hoping, for questions, so you are better preparing yourself with thorough knowledge of and demonstrable research in your chosen opportunity, rather than by memorizing a carefully scripted speech.