What’s your elevator pitch?
I received a call last week from Justin, a marketing director who wanted me to help him grow his company’s sales. It was typical of many such calls I get each year.
“So tell me Justin,” I said, “What do you do there at Local Financial?”
“Oh?” said Justin (he seemed surprised by my question). “Um, we provide a unique kind of financial advice and end-to-end relationship solutions to corporate businesses … and things like that.”
He paused, so I asked if he could elaborate.
“Well, as an industry leader, we offer a broad spectrum of products, services and solutions that can be customised to meet a variety of corporate and personal requirements … our team comprises highly seasoned financial services professionals who have the diversity and experience that allows us to offer our customers the highest level of service, advice and responsiveness.”
“Highly seasoned?” I thought to myself (I was starting to feel hungry). I also wondered which of his competitors wouldn’t also claim to have the “highest level of service, advice and responsiveness?”
“Are you a bank?” I asked.
“Not exactly,” Justin replied.
This was going to be a long conversation.
I’m astounded by how many people in business are unable to explain, simply and clearly, what they do and how they help their customers. Too many simply regurgitate buzz words, clichéd phrases and vague, generic pitches. It’s no wonder they can find it difficult to generate enough leads and close enough sales to support their growth targets.
Attracting interest in your product or service begins with an effective elevator pitch – a 30-second to two-minute summary of your business and value proposition.
How do you develop your elevator pitch?
In my humble opinion, the key elements are problem, value, credibility, difference and action.
Problem
What problem does your product or service solve? What pain is your ideal customer experiencing?
Value
How does your product or service deliver value (i.e. results in terms of dollars, time or quality)? In even simpler terms, how do you help people or businesses?
Credibility
What can you say that will demonstrate your ability to deliver value? How can you support your claims? What evidence do you have? How have you delivered value to others?
Difference
How is your business, your product or your service different? How is it better than the potential alternatives? What’s your unique selling proposition? (Hint – it can’t be the same thing your competitors promise.)
Action
After you’ve delivered your elevator pitch, the only action you require from the other person is an agreement to continue the conversation, either immediately or at a later date. The best way to achieve this is by offering something rather than asking. Once you give something to someone, in a spirit of real generosity, they’re more likely to open up to continued interaction.
The elevator pitch in practice
Remember Justin? How could he have improved his pitch to explain – simply, clearly and persuasively – why I should be interested in his business.
Here’s what he might have said:
People and businesses often lack the capital to turn their goals and dreams into a reality. [Problem]
At Local Financial, we help people get the money they need to grow and prosper. We help them source the right amount of money for their needs – in record time, at the lowest cost, and with minimal red tape. [Value]
In fact, Local recently helped Meridian, a company much like yours, to raise $5 million to expand their business into South East Asia. [Credibility]
Susan Lee, Meridian’s CEO, told me that working with Local was easier and faster than dealing with a bank. She said our interest rates were extremely competitive and the repayment terms were more flexible. [Difference]
I’ve actually written a short case study on the Meridian deal. Can I send this to you? [Action]
You can use different parts of this pitch at different times and change the action to suit the situation.
It’s not about regurgitating a script verbatim. It’s about having a clear, concise message in your mind that you can draw on and adapt to the person you’re speaking with – to communicate how you can help them and why they should engage with you further.
Once you have this, you can use it at networking events, adapt it for your website and social media channels, expand it for a corporate brochure or use it in a footnote at the bottom of any articles you write. You never know, one day you may even meet a prospect in an elevator and you can use it then.
By the way, now I have your attention, here’s my elevator pitch for FMG:
Many businesses struggle to generate a consistent number of good quality sales leads that will enable them to achieve their revenue, profit and growth objectives.
At Forrest Marketing Group we support your sales team by generating qualified sales leads, opening sales conversations, setting appointments and winning customers.
In the past year, we’ve uncovered sales opportunities that have resulted in millions of dollars of new business for our clients.
Selling on the phone is all we do. We have the specialist expertise to help you begin a host of lucrative new business relationships.
I’d be happy to share some videos of our clients’ success stories with you. All I need is your email address.
[See what I did there? Problem, value, credibility, difference, action.]
What’s your elevator pitch? Does it articulate a core problem that your product or service solves? Does it clearly explain, in simple language, how your product or service delivers value? Does it provide an example of how you’ve delivered value to others? Does it describe your USP? Does it provide an incentive to the other person to continue the conversation with you?
Richard Forrest regularly writes about business-to-business selling, lead generation and business to business communications. If you want to find out how FMG can help you contact us today. You can also check out Richard’s other recent posts
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