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.
Donovan Wadholm
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