A guide to… the “Elevator Pitch”

Sell Yourself

Peter Connolly is owner of a Digital Marketing business with WSI. He has also been an Area Leader with 4Networking for four years, where he currently looks after Peterborough and Grantham business network groups. He explains how the elevator pitch is a pivotal part of meetings that help generate interest and develop relationships – it’s not just what you do in a lift!

Most elevator pitches are delivered in networking events or in everyday environments where people meet each other. Use of a good and well prepared elevator pitch is your opportunity to stand out and promote yourself and your business. Notice I said “yourself” – people buy people before they buy products or services and so it’s you they are focused on at this stage – it’s very important to be friendly and smile so that you can quickly build rapport with other people. Networking is about building relationships – more on this later.

If you prepare your elevator pitch and practice it until it is fluent and sincere, then it will not matter where you deliver it. Your own self-esteem and self- image is very important here and will help you to achieve success – you will need to act with confidence and feel good about yourself and your abilities – these qualities are easily noticed by people you interact with.

Developing a good elevator pitch will give you more confidence about what you are going to say and you will be fully prepared for that question – “What do you do?” It will also stop the nerves and keep you focused when you have to get up on your feet in front of a group of people to tell them about your business.

If you want people to remember what you do, keep your script really simple and no more than 40 seconds – trying to tell people all aspects of your business will confuse them and more importantly, make it difficult to refer you to others because they aren’t really sure what you do.

The key aspects of a good Elevator script are identifying your USP’s (unique selling points), thinking about how your service, product or your USP can benefit potential customers and maybe relating it to a real life situation or problem. Write down what you intend to say during your Elevator pitch and make sure you learn it!

I have found using the following five openings to be quite helpful for some of our members wishing to work out a script, think about…

1. We work with…
2.Who have a problem with…
3.What we do is…
4.So that…
5.Which means…

Keep your script current by revising it to reflect changes or different aspects of your business and to maintain the interest of others. Be friendly and smile when you introduce yourself and speak clearly, enthusiastically and confidently when presenting your script.

Make your elevator pitch interesting and memorable – it should grab people’s attention so that they want to know more about you. This is the start of the relationship, but a word of caution when you get to tell them more about it, don’t blow it… I mentioned earlier that networking is about building relationships – it is so important to remember this and when you get the opportunity to follow on from your elevator pitch, don’t try and sell too early in the relationship. Remember that to be interesting, you have to be interested so don’t try the hard sell – you wouldn’t like it either! You need to build rapport and this can only come from you being adaptable to people and situations. It takes time for people to “Like” you, then “Know” you and finally “Trust” you – when they do, business can happen, either with them or through them!

WSI:

www.wsilincs.co.uk

4Networking

www.4networking.biz