Is your elevator pitch a bit like soggy bread? Unappealing, inedible and unexciting. Does your mind go blank after reading the words, elevator pitch? Okay, so maybe you have an elevator pitch, or maybe you are starting from scratch. Good!

Top Floor Please! How To Write An Elevator Pitch.

What Is An Elevator Pitch?

Even if you’ve never set out to write and memorize one for your small business, you’ve used one in the past. An elevator pitch is simply a brief description of who you are, what you do and what products, services and solutions you provide. It’s a short pitch, usually thirty seconds but sometimes as long as two minutes, to promote yourself and your business without sounding like a used car salesman. An elevator pitch is most often used anytime you encounter someone at a networking event, when a business situation presents itself, such as riding in an elevator with a big hitter in your industry, or when someone asks, “what do you do?” The goal of your elevator pitch is to simply inform and get a conversation started.

How To Write An Elevator Pitch

The Lead Sentence
Start off your elevator pitch with a quick summary sentence. Keep your summary short and well-organized. You’ll want to focus your summary sentence on what you or your small business does, not how. So, for example, “I’m a marketing consultant that specializes in web development and new media marketing” — is pretty crappy! Straighten it up and make the other person stop and say, “hmm, that’s interesting, how do you do such and such.” A better rewrite to my lead sentence would be, “I help small business owners like you read the minds of their customers and persuade them to buy from you.”

Identify Their Problem
Great, you’ve got the person’s attention! Now what? Elbow, elbow, psst… what is the pain or problem your business solves? Following up on the elevator pitch example above, now we target the problem your business solves. So, a decent follow on would be something along the lines of, “Unfortunately, I’ve found a lot of small business owners dig their own grave by not getting inside the head of their customers, and are either too nervous or don’t know how to jump into websites and online marketing.”

Introduce Your Solution
Now the person opposite you has a clearer picture on where this conversation is heading. Continue your elevator pitch by introducing your business, product or service as the solution to their problem. Now you want to be clear and a bit more technical, so something along the lines of, “Since 2003, my firm Formulis has been advising clients on how to target customers’ purchasing triggers and leverage that knowledge to produce eye-popping custom websites and creative internet marketing.”

Calling For Action
Now you’ll want to force action in your elevator pitch. Depending on your situation and how you are using your elevator pitch, you may want to request a meeting to continue your conversation, ask for permission to send follow up marketing materials, or simply continue the conversation. For the elevator pitch example I’ve been writing, let’s finish things off with a question to get the other person to open up and talk about their business needs in relation to my small business web design services. So, I’ll flip things around and ask something like, “What problem areas are you having with your website and online marketing?” My goal is to simply get them talking to identify what hot buttons are of interest to them and what services I can offer without sounding forced or unnatural.

An Example Elevator Pitch

If you’ve been following along and didn’t skip ahead, here’s the resulting elevator pitch for my firm’s small business web design and small business marketing services. It would be perfect for low-pressure situations, such as a chamber of commerce meet and greet.

“I help small business owners like you read the minds of their customers and persuade them to buy from you. Unfortunately, I’ve found a lot of small business owners dig their own grave by not getting inside the head of their customers, and they are either too nervous or don’t know how to jump into websites and online marketing. Since 2003, my firm Formulis has been advising clients on how to target customers’ purchasing triggers and leverage that knowledge to produce eye-popping custom websites and creative internet marketing. What problem areas are you having with your website and online marketing?”

Give us a shout! Now’s your chance to talk back like you always wanted to when you were younger! Give us some praise, ask a question or give us a tongue lashing. We’d appreciate your comments on writing an elevator pitch below. As always, thank you for reading!

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