Entrepreneurs: You Need to Know How to Pitch
Author: Aron Schoenfeld
One of the entrepreneurial buzzwords I have heard in recent months has been “elevator pitch”. Many networking groups have been pushing elevator pitch events as can be evidenced by the 45 upcoming meetups scheduled for elevator pitches.
35 groups talk about elevator pitches in their description. But as someone who has attended many networking events and heard just about every entrepreneur at New York Entrepreneur Week pitching their idea, I think that the elevator pitch is no longer the key but rather the “pitch to pitch” is.
Lets face it; we no longer have the attention span we did 5 years ago. Twitter has shortened our attention span to 140 characters.
TiVo has taken away our ability to sit through a commercial and all these blackberries, Iphones and Ipad like devices have destroyed our ability to do one thing at a time. Think back to the last networking event you were at and think about how many times you were looking for the next person to talk to while someone was pitching you an idea or what else you were doing while you were getting an idea pitched over the phone.
Your first statement to someone can be summed up as your emotional pitch. You need to appeal to the person on some emotional level to get them to want more. Part of it is how you present yourself and look but nothing is as important as those first words out of your mouth.
Here are a few tips that can help you get someone’s attention so that they will want to hear your elevator pitch:
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Don’t pitch your idea right away – Everyone always says prepare your pitch in a 30 second pitch in case you see someone while you are running between rooms or in an elevator (hence the term elevator pitch), but you will not sell your idea in 30 seconds. Get the person to want to listen to you. Start with something that will make them remember you so you can follow up after. Maybe you like the same sports team or have common friends. If an elevator pitch fails, you have lost your only shot. If you hit them with something that appeals to them on an emotional level, you have opened the door for future and longer conversations.
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Go bold or go bust – Imagine seeing Sir Richard Branson in Starbucks sitting by himself drinking a coffee. You think to yourself that this is the opportunity of a lifetime to pitch him your new idea. You need to quickly grab his attention. Something like “Mr. Branson, do you have a minute to hear my idea?” just won’t cut it. You need to make an impact and make him want to listen to you. You need to be bold and tell him you mean business. Telling him “I am going to turn your coffee into a million dollars!” is something that will make him say “Sit down.” You only have one chance to pitch your idea so you need to be bold and tell that person that you are confident that what you have to tell them will be the next great idea. That opens the door for whatever pitch you need to make.
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Lead with a question - Get the person asking why or how. Asking a person “How are you?” or “Are you having a good time?” are great conversation starters, but a pitch is not a conversation; it’s a sale. You need to make them want to hear more. Evaluate what you are selling and lead with the appropriate question such as “Have you ever wanted to _?” or “Do you remember when_?” Once they respond, you have started to engage them and have gotten them interested in more information. If they answer it with a closed answer to cut off the conversation, they had no interest in the idea anyhow.
- Use well-known names/terms - Leverage the big names you know and work with. Use them early in the conversation. There is a significant difference between the following to sentences; “I run a music company that composes original music for television, film and commercials and we did the theme for Good Morning America” and “I wrote the theme for Good Morning America through my company which composes original music for television, film and commercials..” The placement of the big name will keep them interested and excited and want to understand what you do. If you use the name at the end of the sentence, you are just another music company and the big names value disappears.
Without a strong emotional pitch, your elevator pitch will most likely fall flat. You can practice and hire a coach to perfect it but you need to grab the proper attention first. Knowing how to deliver a strong emotional pitch will make you more confident and will help you get your message across to whomever your audience is.
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