Josh Anstey’s Blog

An elevator pitch is carefully planned, concise and brief overview of a product, service or business. It is called an elevator pitch, because it should be no longer than an elevator ride (a 30 second elevator ride, not a ride up 150 floors).

Elevator pitches are especially useful for entrepreneurs, when pitching ideas to potential partners, venture capitalists, or future customers. You need to be able to convey all the relevant information in a way that is likeable, and will entice a person to want to hear more. Elevator pitches need to be well rehearsed, and smooth when presented. After all, you never know when you will have to do your elevator pitch in an actual elevator. Elevator pitches are not sales pitches, but rather a way of marketing yourself, networking yourself, and showing that as an entrepreneur or businessman, you have credibility, an idea, product or service that can solve a need and be beneficial for the person you are talking to.

Some important elements of an elevator pitch include:

• What’s the idea?
• What market does the product address?
• Why it was created?
• What need it satisfies / what does it do for the buyer?
• What is your competitive advantage
• Who you are
• Your revenue model?
• A long term plan

Your elevator pitch needs to contain a ‘hook’ or something that will make people want to hear more and you need to effectively convey your passion for the idea.

Dan Schawbel’s ‘Personal Branding Blog’, has a video on how to construct and deliver an elevator pitch. Click here to watch it.

Remember to have your elevator pitch well prepared, rehearsed and ready to go. After all, mastering the ‘Art of the Elevator Pitch’ can take you to places you never imagined. Always be ready, because you never know when you will have to deliver it.

Good luck elevator pitching!

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 10:22 am and is filed under Business, Entrepreneur, Ideas, Marketing, Networking, Start-ups. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.