1K Blog Marathon: Day 59
You only have 30 minutes. No no, 10 minutes. Okay, let’s trim it down to 5 minutes – you have 5 minutes to pitch in your idea and proposals to your boss or to a potential customer. How will you do it? How will you start it? And most importantly, how will you end it?
What is Elevator Pitch – and why elevator?
Elevator Pitch is a kind of pitch that runs for a short period of time. Unlike a full project or business proposal which consists of an hour of presentation, and a couple of meetings until the investors say “Yes”, Elevator Pitch is a very short way of presenting – you can literally do it inside the elevator.
Elevator pitch, by being brief, should be concise, fast yet full of information. But the presentation itself should not suffer because of the limited time. You should find a way to fit your whole idea in 3 to 5 minute speech without compromising the quality of your presentation. Let’s take a look at the best floor to go into!
Communication
We are accustomed to listening, and very limited number of people are engaging into speaking in front of one or many audience. But with communication, we are not only listening to market feed back, we should also be the one who tells them the values of your product, service or business.
By communication, we should focus more on the audience. Yes, you got the ideas running on your mind, but how will you present it, how will you convey it to their minds is important. Communicate by heart, not with your mouth. If you come close to their hearts, Market will come to you.
Use the “Open-3-Close” pitch model by David Beckett
David Beckett, a well respected speaker and speech coach tells us how to make a better pitch by using these technique.
1. OPEN – Have a clear opening
Your opening should be clear and fast. You don’t have to tell them your biography, just a little introduction will do. You can tell them who you are, what you do and where your pitch will be going. Just that!
2. “3” – Identify your Audience, Clear Objective, Brainstorm
Identify your Audience
It’s not that you have a bad product or that you have a bad presentation. It is because you had the wrong audience. Audience that either not interested in what you offer of audience that interested but not buying anyway. You should learn first the who, what, when and how of your audience. Just like in Sun Tzu’s art of war: “Know the terrain, know the weather, and your success will be total.”
Clear Objective
Simplicity, clarity and focus – you objective should be simple to understand, clearly stated and focused on the main topic. You should be able to tell you audience “Why” they should bite from you apple. And the best way of telling them is by giving them your service. Give value first.
Brainstorm
Even before the time of your pitch, you should be able to practice it, analyze and extract all the necessary juice. It’s better if you will use a mind-mapping software, and make sure to shrink your topics into one main topic.
3. Closing
Same as if you start with a power, you should end it with a power. Don’t end with questions, like “Do you have any question”. Instead end it with a BANG.
That’s it folks. Here we learned the short and simple tips on how to make your elevator pitch stand out. Come back again tomorrow for more 1K blog! If you feel, please leave a comment on your thoughts! Thank you folks!
“And that’s one blog, stay hungry!”
“The purpose of an elevator pitch is to describe a situation or solution so compelling that the person you’re with wants to hear more even after the elevator ride is over.”
Seth Godin
Curbside Coder 