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Lee Frederiksen describes the three important elements you need to have in your elevator pitch to be sure you’re describing clearly and succinctly what your firm does.
Transcription:
Hi. Today, I want to talk to you about improving your elevator pitch. Now, what is an elevator pitch? It’s not just if you’re looking to raise funding. It’s a simple, compact way of describing clearly and succinctly what your firm does. Now, there are three important elements you need to have in an elevator pitch.
Three questions your elevator pitch must answer
First and foremost, it needs to explain what you do. Answer that question, what do you do? Second thing it needs to do is explain who you do it for. Who’s your target audience? And this is important for people to make the appropriate referral, even if the person you’re talking to is not in your target audience. And the third thing it needs to do…and describe something about how you are different. In other words, why people choose your firm as opposed to another one.
Tips for an effective elevator pitch
Now, doing that in a succinct way is a little bit of an art form, and you might have to practice it and try it different ways. Here’s a few tips that can be helpful. First of all, make it short enough so it’s easy to remember and easy to do. You don’t want a long-crafted thing that sounds like you’re giving a speech to someone. So get right to the point with it, and make it easy to remember.
Related: Combine These 21 Differentiators to Create a Powerful Competitive Advantage
Second, make sure it’s in a natural-sounding. Don’t write something out that looks good on paper, but when you actually say it, it sounds kinda funny or something. So try just saying it, and make sure that it sounds natural, it sounds very straightforward, and something you would use in a conversation. The third thing is to avoid industry jargon. Now, that might be great if you’re at a conference and everybody at the conference is from the industry and they all know it. But so many of the things we do, the networking we do, is in other kinds of situations, even social situations, where people ask, “Oh, and what do you do?” So giving that pitch in a natural, easy-to-understand way that avoids any jargon helps you do that and helps people remember it.
And the best kind, and this is probably one of the most important tips, is something that tells a little story. In other words, you might say something. “You know, I used to get frustrated, and here’s what I did. I started this firm that does this.” In other words, make it something. Because it’s a story, it’s easier for people to remember.
So with those tips, best of luck in finding the differentiation approach and the elevator pitch that communicates it. If you want to learn more and go deeper in this topic, I suggest going to hingeuniversity.comdifferentiation. And check out the differentiation course. That’ll go deeper and give you more insight on how to make it work for your firm.