5 Truly Horrible Elevator Pitches

In the post "Why Your Elevator Pitch Stinks," I explained how a good elevator pitch has to be crisp, pertinent, energetic and focused. Unfortunately, that's advice that tends to fall on deaf ears. Most elevator pitches are truly awful, even from companies that are otherwise pretty savvy.

This post contains five truly awful elevator pitches which, incredibly, somebody felt were memorable enough to post on YouTube. For each example in this "hall of shame," I've added a comment describing why I feel the pitch is so lousy.

Please note that I didn't even bother looking at elevator pitches that were more than one minute long. Pitches that long aren't elevator pitches, unless you work at the top floor of the Empire State Building.

Tomorrow I'll provide five elevator pitches that, while not exactly spectacular, are much better than average.

Click here for the first terrible elevator pitch»
NUMBER 5

Click here for my comment» NUMBER 5
An effective elevator pitch requires congruence between what's being offered and the appearance and image of the company and the spokesperson. This pitch is intended to interest executives as large enterprises, but the pitchman is scruffy and the products (e.g. "widgets") are sound small-time.

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NUMBER 4

Click here for my comment» NUMBER 4
An effective elevator pitch doesn't describe what your firm or its offering do, but impact it will have on the customer. This bland offering is just a list of features and a description of how they're integrated (whatever that means).

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NUMBER 3

Click here for my comment» NUMBER 3
An effective elevator pitch doesn't try to communicate too much information. This pitch tries to explain everything that the product does, all the platforms that it supports, and all sort of irrelevant yada-yada-yada.

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NUMBER 2

Click here for my comment» NUMBER 2
While an effective elevator speech can't communicate too much, it also can't communicate too litte. This example pends the first half providing the guy's name (three times) and then repeats a set of generic services. Just who I want to hire...an inarticulate lawyer.

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NUMBER 1

Click here for my comment» NUMBER 1
An effective elevator pitch is about the customer, not about how cute you can be. In this truly horrible example, the guy tries so hard to be funny and engaging that you pretty much want to slap him up the side of the head.