STARTUPS | Honing the Elevator Pitch: The Art of Who You Are in 30 Seconds

We’ve all heard the old adage, “you only get one chance to make a first impression”. That’s even more true in business, where sometimes you get less than a minute to explain to a potential customer, supplier, investor or other contact who you are and what you’re about. Making a concise, memorable ‘elevator pitch’ is an art that can help you advance your business. Here’s how to grab that prospect and make them believe in you in 60 seconds or less.

When thinking about what your elevator pitch will consist of, there are a few things to keep in mind. First, ditch the technical terms – it’s a good way to lose someone’s attention if they’re not totally up to speed on the intricacies your industry.

Think about what you’re trying to get out of an elevator pitch and craft it accordingly – do you want to make a sale, make an important contact or get a referral? If you have different goals depending on who you’re talking to, you may want to write up several versions.

Make sure that you’re offering something attractive. Your pitch should be the answer to a problem your listener has – maybe your product or service will make them money or otherwise help them in their own endeavors. If you’re talking to a potential investor, make sure to mention their return on investment and how much funding you’re looking for.

Show, don’t tell. If you have a story that illustrates the value of your product or service and how it stands out from the crowd (and you can tell it succinctly), you’ve got a winner.

Don’t use elevator pitches as an opportunity to hard sell. You don’t want anyone to feel like you’ve cornered them and pulled out your Amway catalog. If the person you’re talking to has a deer-in-the-headlights look while you’re talking, you’re probably trying too hard. Tone it down. Keep it casual.

Memorize your pitch and try it out on friends, family or associates. It’s super important not to sound like a robot, though – instill confidence, passion and personality into it. If you tonelessly drone on with a glazed-over look in your eye that betrays the fact that you’re trying to remember all the words, you’re going to come across as insincere.

If you’re still at a loss, and just can’t seem to formulate a pitch that really resonates, get some guidance from Guy Kawasaki’s book, Selling the Dream. Guy, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, is noted for being an expert on selling one’s business and brought the concept of ‘evangelism’ to the high-tech industry. He’s so well known, in fact, that this is what happens when he gets in an elevator with a bunch of entrepreneurs:

Elevator Pitching Guy Kawasaki from Andrew on Vimeo.

Perhaps the most extreme elevator pitch is the ‘twitpitch’, wherein an elevator pitch is narrowed down to 140 characters or less to be broadcast to an audience via microblogging site Twitter. Created by Stowe Boyd, a business strategy and information technology consultant, twitpitches are a great way to put social media to work. To do it yourself, just tweet as normal but add #twitpitch to the end of your post instead of twittering at (“@”) someone. Check out the latest ones at Hashtags.