As you press the button for the 10th floor, you see a man hurrying to catch the elevator. You hold open the door and the man steps in. ‘Thanks!‘ he exclaims as he presses the button for the 15th floor. The man extends his hand and introduces himself. It turns out he is the CEO of this company, something you know all too well. You have wanted a meeting with him forever, and now he is asking you ‘So, what do you do?‘
The Elevator Pitch
An elevator pitch is just a sales pitch, used in certain situations where you have very little time. The story in the introduction is where the elevator pitch gets its name. You have a couple of floors in the elevator to pitch. Your goal is to get a meeting with whomever you are having the conversation with, for a more thorough talk.
Key Pointers
If your elevator pitch consists of ‘I eh, work in computers‘, you’ve just lost this opportunity forever. Rather, you want to have an elevator pitch that satisfies the following points, in this order:
- Who are we (or am I)?
- What is our product?
- How does it benefit the other person?
1. Introduction
In the introduction you tell the other person who you are or who your company is. The easiest way to do this is to start simple; for example I could say ‘Z Innovative Technology is a company based in The Netherlands that develops web applications‘. That’s all, nothing more.
Don’t overdo this part. Many people will try to explain exactly who they are, what they do and how they do it. Don’t. Think about it; the more you explain, the more you are specializing your offer. And a specialized offer has a very narrow market to sell in. So rather keep your introduction short and broad.
2. The product
When describing the product there is one big mistake you can make. That mistake is to talk about features. So if I would sell our web application, doing it the wrong way I would say: ‘Our product has a very intuitive user interface and there is no application out there that can match its level of configurability‘.
Why is this bad? These are fantastic features that everyone needs … The answer is because this will not get you the sell. People don’t buy because of features, they buy because of benefits. So rather than listing features, you want to prepare the other person for the next step in the pitch; how it benefits them.
So what you need to do is describe your products USPs (Unique Selling Point). Basically a USP is just what I described: a benefit for customers. When I am trying to sell our web application, I use USPs like ‘Our product allows you to reduce your customer registration time by 80%‘. Now I have their ear!
3. Customer benefits
This is the bit of the conversation where you need to use your feeling and know-how of the customer. The person you are talking to has an agenda. On this agenda are certain points that are important to him. An example might be that the company cannot grow anymore, unless it realizes a big productivity gain. Make sure you know this agenda.
The other part is feeling. Sometimes you just notice people getting excited about a certain USP in step 2. Then go for it, because enthusiasm is your biggest friend for making a sell.
The best way to close your sales pitch is to address the USP that your potential customer is interested in briefly and then asking them to discuss this matter in more detail another time. For example, if I am talking to a potential customer who I know needs to increase productivity I would say ‘Our product automates many of the tasks that are now done by hand in your company, such as the participant registration and certification. When can we plan a meeting so I can tell you all about the productivity increase our product has to offer? ‘
Your Personal Elevator Pitch
It is very handy to have an elevator pitch. But make sure that it is an elevator pitch that has the same content as other people in your company use for their elevator pitch. The best way to achieve this is to simply write down keywords. From these keywords everyone then writes their own elevator pitch, using their own words to describe the same thing. This prevents the elevator pitch from becoming something that isn’t close to yourself.
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[...] key to the elevator pitch is describing the features and benefits of your product or service, especially the benefits. Some additional things that you may want to cover is your target market, your competitive [...]