Tips for a natural and smooth pitch
You happen to find yourself in an elevator with the CEO of your company. Here’s your moment to shine and tell him all about your fantastic cost-cutting idea. You have 30 seconds before the doors open and he or she erases your sweaty palms and palpitating heart from their memory.
30 very short seconds to make your elevator pitch. Maybe just a tad longer if you’re on the top floor of a New York high-rise.
But what in the world do you say? More importantly, how do you communicate your amazing idea in just a few measly seconds? Before we get into how to actually craft one, let’s answer the main question: What exactly is an elevator pitch?
An elevator pitch is a short and casual speech with the intention of getting someone to go along with an idea or, basically, do what you want them to do. It could be related to an infinite number of things, like:
- being able to hire an additional resource
- opening a new division or office in a specific region
- investing in your company
- buying one of your products
- obtaining a job interview
- getting noticed by an influential person
Will this actually take place in an elevator? Not necessarily. In the dynamic world of business, sometimes an important decision-maker only has a few seconds to give you, just as if you were riding in an elevator together. The idea behind an elevator pitch is to briefly appeal to your audience in the amount of time you would have during an elevator ride, with maximum impact.
People have short attention spans, need a good reason to pay attention to what you are saying and generally don’t have much time to waste. This pitch can be relevant in any situation where you have the opportunity to engage in a brief conversation with an important person: at a trade fair, an event or even while waiting in line at the airport gate.
How do you craft a pitch that will spark interest? As with many things in life, the best approach is to keep it simple! Here are 3 basic elements of a good pitch:
- Describe: who you are, what your purpose is and what you are offering
- Help: how everything you have just described will help the person you are speaking to
- Question: shift the attention to your listener and turn the pitch into an engaging conversation, or ask to continue it later if you sense their interest.
TAll of this needs to be done in 30 seconds. When creating your pitch, don’t take this guideline lightly. Instead, consider it an absolute rule. When you start speaking, this person doesn’t care about what you have to say. Capture their interest by concisely explaining what benefit they will get from it.
Some English phrases that can help you with your next "elevator pitch"
Describe
Mr/Mrs. _____, please allow me to introduce myself. My name is __________ and I’m the project leader for the new __________.
I own/I’m the owner of a marketing firm downtown that has successfully rebranded over 200 local, mid-sized companies into world-renowned international symbols.
We have just developed/just launched a new __________ with the purpose of __________.
The aim of our organization is __________.
We strive to __________.
Our focus is __________.
We’re passionate about __________.
Help
I’d like to propose a way in which you can increase employee retention and decrease absenteeism.
If you implement our new CRM system, your company can double its revenue in 6 months by never allowing any lead to fall through the cracks.
By choosing our service, you can save countless hours in managing customer complaints.
We’re happy to share that our customers have seen an average of $1 million in savings per year thanks to our system.
We provide companies with time-tracking software that is proven to increase productivity by 20%.
Our focus is on providing our customers with cost-effective apps that allow them to focus their time on more strategic activities, rather than the day-to-day.
Question
How do you currently manage your opportunities/complaints/employee scheduling?
What’s an aspect of your customer interaction that you’ve wanted to improve?
How often do you receive interactions from customers who are only English speaking?
Why don’t/How about I give you a call on Friday so we can discuss in more detail/set up a meeting?
Would you be interested in receiving our product catalog?
Could I stop by your office next week and quickly show you the new prototype?
Finally, the speech should remain as informal as possible. The idea is to express what you do and how it could be of interest to the person without making them feel like you are trying to sell them something.
The LV Linguistics team loves writing about topics related to business culture and enjoys finding ways to use them to help readers improve their English skills. In addition to these articles related to the business world, entrepreneurship and work-life balance, we work hard to create and share English grammar and vocabulary exercises that we hope will help you shine in your conversations.
Please let us know if there is a topic you would like us to cover in these pages!
