What is an “Elevator Pitch”?
An “elevator pitch” is a concise, impactful, carefully prepared, and well-practiced presentation of a business, product, service or project.
It’s called an elevator pitch because it can be delivered in the span of an elevator ride or approximately thirty seconds to two minutes.
It sounds simple, but a good elevator pitch requires solid knowledge and diligent research from the deliverer.
One of the most important things businessmen should do, especially owners or somebody involved in the sales area, is to learn how to talk about their business with those around them, otherwise said how to best present it. The ability to summarize unique aspects of your service or your product in such a way as to raise anothers’ interest should be a fundamental skill of any businessman. However, in reality, many managers pay little attention to the continuous development of the elevator pitch, in other words, to the quick, brief presentation of what your company does or does not do.
What an Effective Elevator Pitch is or does?
- Convinces the “target person” (potential customer, business partner, investor) to schedule a longer meeting with you and to be more receptive to do business with your company.
- Stimulates, empowers and enables the “target person” to convince other appropriate people to become interested in your company. Resonates. Demonstrates sincerity.
- Communicates a sense of value, empathy, and urgency. Quantifies the value proposal clearly.
- Combines elaborate sales and market research.
- Requires no more than 1-2 minutes (55 seconds is best).
Examples of an elevator pitch
- Our company is called ConstructionBoots.com, an e-commerce website that sells brand name construction boots. There are currently no companies exclusively operatine in this niche. ConstructionBoots.com will drive traffic to the site by its link to other websites which cater to the construction industry as well as through word-of-mouth. In industry surveys, over 90% of construction workers have these three traits: 1) they have a favourite brand of boots, 2) they know their size, and 3) they hate shopping at stores. In our own polling, over 70% indicated that they rather buy their boots online and have them delivered. Accordingly, we expect a great market response and rapid sales ramp-up.
- We need $1.5 million in funding to get to the point where the company is self-sustaining. This should happen in the middle of our second year. Right now, we’re seeking $500,000 of initial funding in exchange for a 30% ownership stake in the company. I am the CEO with lots of operational experience and deep contacts with boot manufacturers. Our Marketing Director was instrumental in the growth and recent sale of a very successful e-commerce clothing company. If we hit our numbers, we expect to be able to sell ConstructionBoots.com to a ‘brick and mortar’ retailer within 3 years.
Elevator Pitch in the BMP program
The format of the elevator pitch exercise is verbal, one-on-one, face to face. At the end of the first day of each intensive session there will be an elevator pitch session on the topic covered by the course. During the day, seminar attendants will learn how to define and present an effective elevator pitch of their company, products, services, solutions or projects. At the end of the day, attendants will come before the jury and pitch them in maximum 2 minutes.
The Elevator Pitch exercise is created in such a way as to allow attendants to present their pitch in front of potential clients, business partners or investors (called “Jurors”) and to obtain real time feedback at the same time. Attendants can choose the role that must be played by the jurors to whom they present themselves (either an investor, a potential client or a business partner). The jurors will evaluate the effectiveness of each attendant’s pitch and will provide written and oral feedback. This interaction will last only 2 minutes, but afterwards attendants will have enough time to discuss, network with the jurors and with the other attendants.
It is hard work, for the participants, on the one side, who must present their business in the best possible way, and for the jurors, on the other, who must analyse these presentations very well and grade them, but incredibly useful and fun at the same time for all the parties involved. And at the end of the exercise the best pitches receive prizes.
The jurors of the previous BMP Elevator Pitch edition
The edition that ended this year was attended by remarkable people from various areas of activity, as jurors. Among them: Marius Ghenea (Fit Distribution), Gabriel Biris (Biris Goran), Dragos Roua (Mirabilis), Cosmina Noaghea (Publimedia), Valentina Ion (Microsoft), Dan Schwartz (SCOP Consulting), Andrei Dudoiu (Banca Transilvania), Dragos Pislaru (GEA Strategy & Consulting), Calin Fusu (Neogen), Adina Petre (Vodafone), Ana-Maria Andronic (Biris-Goran), Florin Talpes (Softwtin), Roxana Vitan (Romanian-American Fund), Eusebiu Burcas (BurCASH), Adrian Chindris (CAPA Finance), Bogdan Iordache (Wembrio), Mircea Tudor (MBTelecom), Cristi Manafu (Evensys).
And don’t forget! You only have one chance to make a first impression. So don’t miss the opportunity to exercise the elevator pitch during BMP in front of: investors, businessmen, potential clients or business partners.
