Yesterday, I “attended” an online conference call given by Kellie D’Andrea for a free series she calls Marketing Mondays Minute. It’s actually about 30 minutes but I was surprised to find out that it wasn’t just one big infomercial. In fact the only pitching she did was in the first five minutes and I considered that the price of admission.
Anyway, the session was about creating a perfect elevator pitch and the framework for the session was imagining you are at a business function and someone asks you: “So what is it you do?”
The statistic given is that 98% of people give their job title (plumber, marketing consultant, banker, etc). Which means that only 2% give a unique or different answer that stands out. So the goal is to create an answer that captures their attention and makes the other person want to ask for more information.
To this Kellie offered a tried and true formula: A – Audience B- Benefit C- Creative Offering
Audience – Your audience is your target market or niche you serve. From your business planning you should have a solid idea of your target market and what they value.
Benefits- The benefits you provide have to be overt (obvious) and relate to a pain or pleasure of your target audience. Maybe you solve one of their biggest problem areas or you could provide a product or serivce that will make them more profitable.
Creative Offering – In other words what makes you unique or different. Why should the customer buy from you vs. any of your competitors.
Essentially, an elevator pitch is like wrapping a USP into a benefit statement regarding your target market.
Some important things to remember though:
After giving your elevator pitch don’t immediately dive into a 10 minute sales session. You have to let them lead the discussion by asking for more information. If you have a good pitch and they fit the target market it should naturally lead into further discussion. If they don’t ask, let it go, ask them about their own business…people love talking about themselves and love people who will listen.
You probably only have about 10 seconds to give the pitch. The elevators are much faster these days and people will not sit and listen to a 30 second or 60 second pitch anymore.
Wear your name tag on the right side of your coat. Most people are naturally right handed so the name tag usually winds up on the left lapel, which is furthest away from people when you shake hands. Placing it on your right puts it front and center so they can easily see your name.
Don’t transact business at these events, make sure you hand out a business card and if the discussion goes from a cold lead to a warm one ask for permission to follow up at a later date.
I was pleasantly surprised to find this free conference call. If you have time next Monday there is another topic and you can register at Kellie D’Andreas blog.
It’s currently 7:01 AM the day after Thanksgiving. My six year old super star hockey player is crawling on my back while across the room my daughter is transfixed by Dora The Explorer and her buddy boots. My wife, on the other hand, is at least two hours into a shopping bonanza.
I imagine her pushing her red Target shopping cart with a wobbly wheel, bumping plastic and steel around each corner trying to get her hands on the “door buster” deal of the day. I also wonder if she has given any thought to sleeping in until, oh…say 9:00, having a cup of coffee with me, maybe reading half of the daily disappointment newspaper and then heading out to the local shops to see what’s on sale.
So in light of that thought I decided to try a poll…
On the heals of a string of bad press coming out against Goldman Sachs regarding payment of bonuses in excess of $20 billion the company has announced a $500,000,0000 small business initiative in partnership with Warren Buffett, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. ,and the United States second richest man.
The “10,000 Small Businesses Initiative” will be guided by an advisory council co-chaired by Loyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Buffett and Harvard Business School’s Michael Porter. The council will include George Boggs, president and CEO of the American Association of Community Colleges, and Dan Danner, president and CEO of the National Federation of Independent Business.
The program will contribute $200 million to community colleges, universities and other institutions to provide small- business owners with practical business education. Goldman Sachs will invest $300 million through a combination of lending and philanthropic support to community development financial institutions.
The fund was formed with a $50 million contribution from Goldman Sachs and $80 million from partners at the firm, each of whom has an account and can guide how the money is spent.
In March 2008, the company said it planned to contribute $100 million over five years to provide business education to women in developing nations and elsewhere through an initiative called 10,000 Women. The program was established in 18 countries and has more than 60 partners.
On Friday, I received some news about my full time job that is not all good. The long and short of it is that in December I will have to reapply for my position and have a new boss…and possibly a pay cut.
As I moped around the house a couple of days later I received a text message from a friend that he is thinking of closing his business after loosing his biggest client. I immediately stopped feeling sorry for myself and texted back:
“You haven’t failed until you quit trying. Life is a series of choices & I am sure whatever you choose will be the right path for you…but there is always a way.”
Indeed…good advice even for myslef. Life is full of choices. A series of actions and reactions. But, sometimes, intertwined between those choices are moments. Some of mine that immediately spring to mind are: My first kiss, Jamming to blaring records in a dark room with my dad, My first day of college, My last day of college, My wedding day, Buying our first home, The birth of our three children, starting my first business, surviving the failure the same business.
In times like these it is comforting to remember those little moments and I am happy to have found this video to remind me that there are many more to come.
While Mr. BizPlan is on summer vacation Brandon Laughridge of www.SBALoans.com offered to fill in for this months small business loans post. Enjoy!
For most small business owners, soliciting venture capitalists isn’t part of the standard business plan…Now, it probably should be near the top of the list.
A little-known SBA loan program that directs venture capital to small businesses just got a big boost from the federal government. American entrepreneurs now have access to a $2 billion pool of capital aimed at spurring economic recovery and growth.
The SBA’s Small Business Investment Corporation (SBIC) program loans money to qualified venture capitalists. These federally licensed firms can use tax dollars to supplement private capital with a catch – they must help fund small businesses.
SBICs provide crucial capital for small businesses, from startup funding for fledgling companies to cash for growth and development for more established firms. Any business that meets the SBA’s definition of a small business can receive SBIC funding.
That funding pool is significantly deeper today. Provisions in the federal stimulus package (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) altered some of the program’s rules and restrictions. The goal was to free up even more capital for small business lending.
Some of the changes include:
SBICs can now obtain up to $150 million in federal dollars for a single fund, instead of the former maximum of $137 million
SBICs have to invest 25 percent of their capital into small businesses
SBICs can now invest up to 30 percent of an SBA-backed fund into a single company, instead of only 20 percent
SBICs with multiple venture capital funds can borrow up to $225 million total
The SBIC program has doled out more than $55 billion in venture capital to more than 100,000 small businesses since its creation in 1958. Companies like Apple and FedEx have received SBIC funding.
U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, lauded the provisions in mid-July.
“SBICs provide critical investment dollars to thousands of small businesses nationwide, and by implementing the provisions we passed in the Recovery Act, the SBA will make this program significantly more effective,” said Snowe, ranking member on the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. “As I noted in a letter to SBA Administrator Mills last month, while $3 billion of SBIC debentures were available for Fiscal Year 2008, the SBA used a meager $650.3 million, or 21.7 percent, of that funding. Putting these vital steps into action will help reverse this trend of underutilization.”
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