How's Your Personal Elevator Pitch
People subconsciously form an impression of you within 10 seconds of meeting. So when they ask you what you do, can you add to that first impression by succinctly, accurately and interestingly describing what you do in an elevator pitch lasting no more than 15 seconds?
Your elevator pitch should describe why someone should be interested in you and should help you to make an emotional connection with them.
You may want to do it on the fly, but it's a good idea to have a series of rehearsed phrases that you have tried out a few times and that generally get a good response.
During this conversation you are your business card. You are presenting through your own appearance that your business is professional, and you are expressing through your pitch how you can help your clients.
Please don't say in so many boring words 'what you do'. Your elevator pitch is not a sales pitch. People hate being sold to, so it is a chance to express in a clear and concise way how what you do can positively affect your listener's business (or someone's he/she knows) and it's about getting them curious.
A 'stop and listen' pitch must do at least five things:
- Let's imagine you're in IT. Be short and to the point, in a networking situation, you've got to let them know what you can do for them in a very short space of time before someone else interrupts. You don't want their eyes to glaze over if you're providing a long-winded explanation of your technical speciality. This might be better: "The people who find me most useful are CIO's of FTSE-500 companies".
- Elicit a curious response from the listener -- "Oh really? Why is that?" or "I know someone who might be interested in that". Find something to hook their attention, something that will solve a problem for them or someone in their network.
- Your pitch should also identify a target market. "I'm looking for connections in......" Even if your listener is not in that target market, they may know others who are and could offer you a great introduction.
- Make sure you're identifying a problem that you can solve. We are, most of us, more motivated to avoid pain than to seek pleasure, so give people a solution to their big problem.
- Differentiate your offering by finding some unusual uses for it, and avoid jargon like, "I work in asset-specific, complex event processing, low latency reduction" Uh???? Unless you were in a similar industry you'd have no idea what was being said. Your pitch needs to leave the listener with a basic understanding of your business.