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Elevator Pitch 101

11/18/2008

Picture this.
     You’re an entrepreneur and are attending an emerging technology conference in a swanky hotel. You’re there to learn something about the world of Venture Capital and make a few contacts. At the end of the day, you decide to change clothes before going out for the night. You head over to the elevator bank, push the “Up” button, and step through the doors of a waiting elevator car. Just as the doors begin to close, you hear a voice shout out, “Hold the door, please.” You swing your notepad between the closing doors and, as they bounce back, through the door bounds a 40-something man who just happens to be one of the country’s top Venture Capitalists.
     Or maybe you’re a salesperson and have spent the last year penetrating an account. The client is ready to buy, but everything is being help up by your contact’s inability to get the approval of his V.P. After attending yet another status meeting, you step into an elevator to go down to your car. The only other person in the elevator is your contact’s V.P.
     Or maybe you’re a project champion or project manager in a large company and have just come up with an idea that will save -- or better yet make -- your company millions of dollars a year. After giving yet another presentation and getting yet another set of maybe’s, you get on the elevator to go back up to your office. As you step through the doors, you notice the CEO of your company standing on your left.
     In each case, what would you do?

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The Problem

While the scenes I paint above may seem a bit idyllic, encounters like these happen every day to entrepreneurs, inventors, salespeople, project champions, authors, screenwriters, job seekers, and many others.
     By virtue of design, luck, or connections, they come face to face with the person who can help them achieve their goal; who can help them sell their Solution, regardless of whether it is an idea, product, service, project, book, script, or themselves.
     The problem is too few people are prepared to deal with such a situation. They haven’t considered what they would do, much less prepared something to say or rehearsed saying it.
     As a result, instead of capitalizing on the opportunity, they just let it walk out the door.

The Solution

The goal of this book is to ensure that you know how to handle situations like the ones described above; to ensure you know what to do, and what to say, if you have just a minute or two to catch the attention of the person with whom you most want to speak.
This means developing an elevator pitch.
Before I get into all the specifics of what makes an elevator pitch effective, let me first take one of the lessons of this book to heart and give you a general sense of what an elevator pitch is and why you need one.

What's An Elevator Pitch?

What exactly is an elevator pitch?
     At its core, an elevator pitch (aka elevator speech, elevator presentation, or elevator story) is several things. Of course, an elevator pitch is a communication tool; it will help you articulate your message. An elevator pitch is also a sales tool; it will help you raise the money, and close the deals, you need to be successful.
     However, and most importantly, an elevator pitch is a teaching tool.
     While it’s of course important that you eventually close the deal, there is no point in trying to close the deal if the audience doesn’t understand what you are talking about and why they should care.
     As a result, an elevator pitch is designed to play the role of a primer; as a high-level and basic introduction to whatever it is that you are selling.
     Given that, an effective elevator pitch is designed to give the audience just enough information that they will have a sense of what you are talking about and want to know more. Second, and just as importantly, it is designed to not give The Audience so much information so that they feel overwhelmed (and tune you out).
     Think drinking fountain, not fire hose.
     If you are going to be successful, you’ve got to ease the audience into your subject; you’ve got to give them a chance to catch up to you and all of the thinking you have done over the past months or years.

Why You Need An Elevator Pitch

Why do you need an elevator pitch?
     While you no doubt love, are fascinated by, and are passionate about what you are doing and could spend hours talking about it, most people aren’t like you.
In all likelihood, when it comes to the people whose help you will need to bring your Solution to life, they aren’t going to be nearly as knowledgeable about or as interested in it as you are. As a result, they are unlikely to appreciate -- or even notice -- the intricacies, subtleties, and details of it. Instead, they will only understand and -- initially at least -- be interested in the big picture.
     Even if they do share your interest in and knowledge of your field, the odds are that they are extremely busy. Just like you, they have too many things to do and too little time to get them done. That means that they must constantly -- and quickly -- decide what to pay attention to and what to ignore.
     What’s more, it never fails that the more potentially helpful a person is, the busier they are likely to be.
As a result, you must come up with a way of explaining your Product that will grab the attention of someone who has seventeen other things on their mind. You must assume that people are looking for a reason to tune you out, not that they want to hear what you have to say. You must explain your idea in a manner that requires The Audience to do the least amount of work.
     Above all else, you must get to the point.
     Only by doing that will you get the attention of The Audience and even have a chance of getting into the details of what it is that you are selling.

Elevator Pitch Definition

Now that I’ve given you a high-level overview -- or in other words an elevator pitch -- of what an elevator pitch is and why you need one, let me give you a definition...

An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea, product, service, project, person, or other Solution and is designed to just get a conversation started.

While that definition is fairly self-explanatory, let me take a moment to discuss exactly what the most important of those words mean.

Overview

The point of an elevator pitch isn’t to get into every detail of what it is that you are selling. Instead, all you want to do -- and all you have time to do -- is to make sure the audience understands what you are talking about and what’s in it for them.

Idea, Service, Project, Person, or Other Solution

While the term “Elevator Pitch” is generally used in the context of entrepreneurship, and in particular in selling ideas for new businesses to Venture Capitalists, the truth is that the idea can be applied to a variety of contexts. While elevator pitches are most typically used by would-be entrepreneurs to sell their ideas for new products and services to Venture Capitalists, a good elevator pitch is an essential tool for a person trying to sell a project to their boss or for anyone who is looking for a job.

Just Get a Conversation Started

One reason why so many people deliver completely ineffective elevator pitches is they don’t understand the purpose of an elevator pitch. They act like the purpose of an elevator pitch is to close the deal while in truth the purpose of an elevator pitch is to just interest the audience in continuing to talk. No more, and no less.

The Nine C’s of an Effective
Elevator Pitch

Now that you have a high-level sense of what an elevator pitch is, and what an elevator pitch is designed to do, let me drop down a level and discuss the characteristics of an effective elevator pitch.
After working with hundreds of would-be entrepreneurs, and studying hundreds of effective and ineffective elevator pitches, I have found that an effective elevator pitch is nine things.

1. Concise
2. Clear
3. Compelling
4. Credible
5. Conceptual
6. Concrete
7. Consistent
8. Customized
9. Conversational

I discuss each of The Nine C’s at length elsewhere, but in the interests of repetition -- and one of the themes of this book is that repetition is good -- let me give you quick sense of what I mean.

1. Concise

An effective elevator pitch contains as few words as possible, but no fewer.
While many people say that an elevator pitch must be short to be effective, the truth is that it depends. Sometimes you do only have a few seconds to get your point across. In situations like those, your elevator pitch must be extremely short. However, in other cases – such as the elevator pitch competitions that are hosted by many schools and organizations – you have considerably more time to convey your message. Often, that may be as long as one or two minutes.
While you do not want to go long, you also do not want to waste any of the time you have been given.

2. Clear

Rather than being filled with acronyms, MBA-speak, and ten-dollar words, an effective elevator pitch can be understood by your grandparents, your spouse, and your children.
This runs counter to what many people have learned in their academic and/or professional lives; that the way to impress people is to show them how smart you are by speaking in the elaborate, coded language of your field.
While that approach certainly works in some settings, it doesn’t work when it comes to delivering an elevator pitch. Venture capitalists, angel investors, and executives are too experienced, and too busy, to want to deal with those kinds of games. Instead, they just want you to speak English.

3. Compelling

An effective elevator pitch explains the problem your Solution solves.
     In the world today there is this idea going around that people should never talk about problems and the pain they cause; that they should instead be “positive” and only talk about opportunities. The promise is that by focusing on the positive, only good things will happen. Conversely, we are warned that by focusing on pain, problems, and other “negative” things, only bad things will come to pass.
     While that idea is of questionable merit in general, it is completely wrong when it comes to entrepreneurship and innovation. If you study the lives and stories of successful entrepreneurs, intrapraneurs, and innovators, you will find that most are unabashed – and often serial – problem-solvers. They make their fortunes by finding, and then solving, good problems.
     The same thing is true of the venture capitalists, angel investors, and executives who back them. They are constantly on the lookout for people who understand the importance of finding, and then solving, good problems. As a result, an effective elevator pitch makes it clear that what you are selling is not a Solution In Search Of A Problem (or SISOAP).
     Instead, an effective elevator pitch very explicitly explains the problem you are trying to solve, for whom it is a problem, and exactly why it is a problem.

4. Credible

An effective elevator pitch explains why you are qualified to see the problem and to build the solution.
     While you may have all the faith in the world in the value of the Solution you are selling, when it comes to persuading others to back you, faith alone isn’t enough.
     Instead, you must give people a reason to believe what you are saying.
     As a result, an effective elevator pitch addresses the question of the credentials and qualifications of the team. The goal is to convince the audience that you know what you are talking about and that you have the knowledge, experience, and resources to get the job done.

5. Conceptual

An effective elevator pitch stays at a fairly high level and does not go into too much unnecessary detail.
Too often, when writing, developing, and delivering their elevator pitches, people spend much too much time talking about HOW their Solution works and HOW they are going to bring it to life and not nearly enough time explaining WHAT their Solution is, WHO will buy it, and WHY they will buy it.
Why this happens is perfectly understandable. When it comes to bringing an idea to life, you have to spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about questions of HOW you will bring your Solution to life. However, when you are explaining your Solution to someone you have never spoken to before, you must first ensure that they know WHAT it is that you are talking about before you start to answer all of the HOW questions that you are preoccupied with.

6. Concrete

As much as is possible, an effective elevator pitch is also specific and tangible.
While it’s important that an elevator pitch doesn’t get into too many operational and other unnecessary details, it is still important to make clear to the audience that your Solution isn’t just an idea. Instead, you want to make sure that the audience comes away with the sense that what you are talking about is real (or soon will be).
That means talking about specific products and not just technologies. That also means talking about demonstrable accomplishments, assuming – and hoping – you have some.

7. Consistent

Every version of an effective elevator pitch must convey the same basic message.
As I say repeatedly, research reveals that people have to be exposed to a message three times before it will start to sink in. As a result, while you must have different versions of your elevator pitch, each of which is tailored to the interests of the audience with which you will speak, those different versions must be similar.
That way, regardless of which version of your elevator pitch a person hears, they will still come to the same basic understanding of who you are what it is that you are selling.

8. Customized

An effective elevator pitch must also address the specific interests and concerns of the audience.
The way to get someone’s attention is to speak their language; to answer the questions they want to ask without their having to ask them. The way to do this is to customize your elevator pitch so that you can deliver (slightly) different versions to each variation of the audience with which you wish to speak.
In the case of a start-up company, this means having customized versions of your elevator pitch that target prospective team members, business partners, investors, and customers.

9. Conversational

One reason why so many elevator pitches go into so much unnecessary detail, and end up being so ineffective, is that too few people understand the goal of an elevator pitch. Rather than being to close the deal, the goal of an elevator pitch is to just get the ball rolling. Generally, that means starting a conversation, or a dialogue, with the audience. Only during later conversations will the audience be interested in the details -- the HOW -- of your Solution.

About This Essay

This essay is an excerpt from Chris O'Leary's book Elevator Pitch Essentials, which is a business book that explains how to quickly and clearly get your point across when selling a new product, service, project, or other Solution.
Elevator Pitch Essentials explains in detail how to create an effective elevator pitch and is full of real-life examples of effective and ineffective elevator pitches. Elevator Pitch Essentials also discusses what is good and bad about each sample elevator pitch.