ElevatorPitchEssentials.com > EPE > Sample Elevator Pitches > Elevator Pitch Essentials

ElevatorPitchEssentials.com

Home | Book | Buy | Speaking | Services | Elevator Pitch 101 | Essays | Blog

Elevator Pitch Essentials

Good things, when short, are twice as good.

– Baltasar Gracian

As I was writing this book and talking about it with my friends and family, they would constantly ask me, “So what’s your book about?” After having this happen to me 10 or so times, and stumbling through an answer to that question, I realized I needed to follow my own advice and come up with an elevator pitch for Elevator Pitch Essentials. After going through a number of iterations, I ended up with this...

Elevator Pitch Essentials is a business book that explains to entrepreneurs, innovators, project champions, and others the secrets of writing and delivering an effective elevator pitch.

When you are selling an idea for a new product, service, project, or other Solution, you frequently come across situations where you meet someone who can help you achieve your goal, but you do not have the time to give them a complete, detailed, formal presentation.

That includes situations like…

• Running into an executive in an elevator.
• Meeting an influential person in a bar or buffet line.
• Being introduced to a potential investor.
• Introducing yourself to a group of people.

…and being asked to explain who you are and what you are doing.

Unless you want to come across as boorish and self-cen­tered, you only have a few seconds -– or in the best case a cou­ple of minutes –- to get your point across. As a result, you have to be prepared to give someone a quick overview of your Solution and leave the details to later.

Elevator Pitch Essentials teaches people how to handle those kinds of situations.

Elevator Pitch Essentials grew out of my experience writing elevator pitches for a series of startups I worked for or with. About 5 years ago, I pulled all that knowledge together and put together a seminar about elevator pitches for Washington University in St. Louis. I then turned that presentation into this book.

As you can see, I followed the advice I give in this book when writing the elevator pitch for Elevator Pitch Essentials.

1. CONCISE

The Elevator Pitch Essentials summary sentence contains just 27 words and the entire elevator pitch contains just 244 words. As a result, the sum­mary sentence can be delivered in less than 15 seconds and the entire pitch can be delivered in less than 2 minutes.

2. Clear

I start the Elevator Pitch Essentials elevator pitch with a relatively short summary sentence in order to ensure that it is clear...

Elevator Pitch Essentials is a business book that explains to entrepreneurs, innovators, project champions, and others the secrets of writing and delivering an effective elevator pitch.

I did this because I wanted to make sure that the listener would have a sense of where I was going before I got too far into the details. The nice thing about this summary sentence was that it could stand on its own but also gave the listener a preview of my entire elevator pitch.

3. COMPELLING

After giving my summary sentence, I immediately launch into a discussion of the problem the book solves. In this case, I do it through the use of a number of scenarios that people can easily relate to...

When you are selling an idea for a new product, service, project, or other Solution, you frequently come across situations where you meet someone who can help you achieve your goal, but you do not have the time to give them a complete, detailed, for­mal presentation.

That includes situations like…

• Running into an executive in an elevator.
• Meeting an influential person in a bar or buffet line.
• Being introduced to a potential investor.
• Introducing yourself to a group of people.

…and being asked to explain who you are and what you are doing.

Unless you want to come across as boorish and self-cen­tered, you only have a few seconds – or in the best case a cou­ple of minutes – to get your point across. As a result, you have to be prepared to give someone a quick overview of your Solution and leave the details to later.

Elevator Pitch Essentials teaches people how to handle those kinds of situations.

Explaining the problem that you solve through three or four scenarios is a good way of making sure that your elevator pitch is both clear and compelling.

4. CREDIBLE

When it comes to non-fiction books, most people want to know that the writer is an expert in the field. As a result, in order to establish my credibility with the audience, I budgeted 50 or so words to explain my experience with writing and delivering elevator pitches...

Elevator Pitch Essentials grew out of my experience writing elevator pitches for a series of start-ups I worked for or with. About 5 years ago, I pulled all that knowledge together and put together a seminar about elevator pitches for Washington University in St. Louis. I then turned that presentation into this book.

The goal was to increase the likelihood that the audience would see me as an expert in the subject and take seriously what I had to say.

5. CONCEPTUAL

Instead of getting into the low-level details of the book, like the number and contents of each chapter, in the Elevator Pitch Essentials elevator pitch I instead talk about the problem the book solves and the intended audience for the book. If I find that someone wants to know more about my book, then I can go into the details, but not until then.

6. CONCRETE

The way I made my elevator pitch concrete was by building it around a sce­nario to which most people could relate. Nearly everyone has experienced that moment when they come face to face with the person who can help them achieve their goal. The problem is that too often people don’t know what to do.

7. CONSISTENT

While I would tailor parts of my pitch to the audience, I started off every version of my pitch with the same summary sentence and concluded every version with the same statement of my credentials.

8. CUSTOMIZED

When speaking with or writing to literary agents, I would add the phrase “non-fiction” to my summary sentence just to make it absolutely clear what type of book I was writing...

Elevator Pitch Essentials is a non-fiction, business book that explains to entrepreneurs, innovators, project champions, and others the secrets of writing and delivering an effective elevator pitch.

I did this because, just as venture capitalists tend to specialize in certain markets, so too do literary agents (and publishers). There are non-fiction literary agents and fiction literary agents. Within those two broad groups, there are many other subdivisions. I knew that literary agents who deal primarily in works of fiction wouldn’t be interested in my book, and I didn’t want to waste their time.

9. CONVERSATIONAL

The point of the Elevator Pitch Essentials elevator pitch wasn’t to close the deal then and there. Instead, it was to just get a conversation started with a potential literary agent or buyer of the book. As a result, I didn’t finish with a high-pressure close. Instead, I finished in a way that made it easy for the audience to ask a follow-up question if they were interested. If they weren’t interested in the topic –- if they didn’t have a need to know how to create an elevator pitch –- then I didn’t want to waste their time or mine.

Copyright Notice
This document is copyright © 2009 Chris O'Leary and the LIMB Press LLC. It is licensed for personal use only. Any organizational or institutional use must be approved by Chris O'Leary.

about | contact | copyright | chrisoleary.com