How to pitch your business with confidence
Pitching is an integral part of business, whether you’re a brand new entrepreneur, freelancer, or established business looking to land more clients. Every business owner needs to pitch their ideas to a prospective. This showcases their professionalism and experience, as well as establishes new relationships.
There are different types of pitches namely an “elevator pitch”, “competition pitch”, and an “investor pitch”.
Each one plays an important role but differ from one another. In this blog, we will focus on the “Elevator pitch”.
What is an elevator pitch?
An elevator pitch, as its name suggests, is a brief outline of what you do or sell with the intention of making a new connection and possibly even landing a new client.
The name comes from thinking of the time it takes to ride an elevator up or down. Bearing this in mind, your pitch has to be really short and to the point, at about 60 seconds or 90 seconds long.
Pitches can be tricky to master. The elevator pitch even more so due to the short length of time you have to cover all the important points with your audience.
That being said, you must understand the key factors and ways to perfect your elevator pitch before taking action. You also have to keep your audience entertained to convince or “drive home” the need to buy your service or product.
Your pitch is a form of marketing and branding all rolled into one.
There a few variables that affect whether your pitch will be good or not. If you zone in on these, they’ll help you perfect your elevator pitch.
How will your business benefit when you perfect your elevator pitch?
People will remember you/your services in the online market
If you’ve managed to nail a good pitch, then people will remember it and you for that matter. This is good, especially when you’re looking to expand your market and increase business profits through new leads which you can convert into paying clients.
It opens the door to engagement
A pitch makes room for engaging your audience and growing your network. But to achieve the “engagement factor”, it has to stand out from the rest. You can use this presentation opportunity to highlight what you do without sounding spammy, desperate or “salesy”.
A well-crafted pitch provides people with an easy way to understand your business, so that they can decide if it’s something that interests them.
Your pitch will give your viewers the gist of what your company is about. Through your elevator pitch, you can simplify things for them. In other words, the simpler your pitch, the more memorable it’ll be, and that’s what you want to aim for.
“Before you pitch, you need to plan and coordinate”
Here’s how to write and perfect your elevator pitch
Before executing your pitch, having it down on paper is a clean and seamless way to get the heavy lifting done without too much hassle. Speaking of preparations, things seem easier when you have a template right? So use the tips below to help you create and perfect your elevator pitch.
The intro
A captivating introduction will set you off to a good start. Explain with confidence who you are and what you do. These details can include your brand, the service or products you offer etc. The introduction will help your audience get an idea of who you are.
Remember when adding what you do in the summery, be very brief about it because the next stage will expand more. So don’t give them everything in the beginning, instead just a teaser and enough to know who you are.
You could also add a back story into the introduction. This is a small introduction to how it all began. Don’t forget to keep things brief because elevator pitches are not a drag.
Elaborate on what you do and how you can solve their problems
This middle section of your pitch goes into more detail about your business module, what are your core values.
Tell your audience what sets your business apart from the competitors and how they will benefit from what you have to offer. This concept is known as a USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Every consumer has a problem they need solving, so tell them how you can solve theirs.
Engage with a question
Towards the end of your pitch, reach out by asking your audience what in this market would they be better off with when the problem is solved? This is the ideal opportunity to engage your audience and engagement is an essential part of all business operations. Go ahead and ask them how you can be of service.
Practice your pitch beforehand
Few things will seem as annoying as you not being able to present your pitch in a smooth and coordinated manner. If you’re stumbling over your words or getting stuck in the “um”, then the person you’re speaking to might get bored really quickly.
Practice your pitch over and over again. Practice to your colleagues and family until it sounds effortless and you’re able to deliver it off the cuff. It will make things simpler to remember and it will help you stay on track with your time.
Mastering your elevator pitch is key to creating new connections.
How to “execute” the perfect elevator pitch
Formulate your ideas
Gather your thoughts and concept about your business brand and what it stands for. What gives you the energy to do what you do every day and why? Think about how you will explain who you are to your audience. Don’t get too involved with jargon and industry talk because it isn’t always clear when pitching.
In this first step, also consider what your goals are as a business owner and what you have already achieved during this time.
Keep the vibe light and positive
It’s not easy to stay neutral and positive while tackling the uncertainties and stress of running a small business. But when making your elevator pitch, be sure that you come across as a positive person who is also flexible with their time.
Pitches are not hard-sells. They should be delivered in a casual, but professional manner.
By this, we mean that you shouldn’t straight away drop the fact that you can only travel to the office on certain days of the week. Don’t be mistaken, you have to let them know about these details but secure your pitch and make a good, yet positive impression.
Remember, the pitch is not even about you, it’s about what you can do for them.
Go with a call to action
A call to action is the next step of engagement as it sparks that interest that goes beyond inquisitiveness. If you get the impression that the person is interested in what you’re saying, feel free to take the connection further. Hand out your business card or say “Can I connect with you on LinkedIn?”.
This part of your elevator pitch must be more persuasive and drive home the reasons why your service or product is needed. Your CTA (Call To Action) is like tying everything up in one neat bow at the end of the pitch. But you need to read the room and judge how direct your CTA should be.
Someone who isn’t maintaining eye contact is probably not interested, so you might just thank them for their time and leave it at that.
Someone else might be super keen and ask you directly how to get hold of you, or they might ask to see your product catalogue or similar. These are hot leads and you can guide them where you want them with a clever CTA.
More tips to help you “go for pro” with your elevator pitch
Identify your audience
Do you know who your audience is? It will be easier if you already know who you’re going to speak to because this will help you customise the content of your pitch for them. How can your business help them solve their problem?
Are you addressing other business owners, or are you addressing the consumer? The tone and content will differ for both and you might need to craft perfect elevator pitches for various audiences.
Only say what you need to say
It’s easy to think that more is better, but it isn’t. Since elevator pitches are about limited time, you need to keep it in these parameters and only use what you need. At the end of the day, your “more is less” approach will help you deliver a powerful message.
Grab their focus right in the beginning
Think about “breaking the ice” but in doing so, your words demand attention. Some prefer calling it a “hook” like using bait to hook your audience, open your pitch with something interesting and hard to ignore.
Can you speak to them again?
Create an opportunity to follow up. You can do this by creating a way in which you can go back and present them with a sample product. During your follow up, check and see how many enjoyed the product. This is versatile territory and while it may seem simple, it is very important to achieving an effective pitch.
The idea is not to sell on the spot but to entice the person to want to know more about your business and how it can help them.
Pro tips for the dos and don’ts
- Do speak clearly – Don’t let your audience lose you along the way.
- Don’t ramble – Some people speak fast, but when you pitch you want the audience to understand so pace yourself.
- Do smile – A smile can do wonders. Remember to smile and exude lively energy.
- Do be crystal clear – There’s no time to be ambiguous with your message, instead be as brief and direct as possible.
- Be confident, but not arrogant – Don’t come across as timid and inexperienced. Your elevator pitch is your chance to show off your leadership skills and confidence. That being said, avoid bragging or coming across as arrogant, as if you’re doing them a favour by pitching to them.
The takeaway about how you can perfect your elevator pitch
The pitch is a vital networking skill that we often don’t take the time to craft to perfection. Yet it’s an easy, free way to get strangers interested in your products and services.
Even if the person you speak to is not interested in your services for themselves, they might know someone else who is!
While you do need to practice your pitch, be sure to be yourself because part of building a brand reputation is trust and likeability.
So as much as you want to perfect your elevator pitch, be authentic and speak with confidence because you know your products or services are amazing.
Have you mastered your elevator pitch? And what annoys you most when people pitch to you?
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