Making an “elevator speech” work

May 21st, 2006

Elevator pitches are a key part of most b2b sales and I read a good article by on this topic by Mike McLaughlin a site called “Guerrilla Consulting”

Although this particular article is focused on consultants, the essence of what is an effective answer to the question “so, what does your business do?” is no different.

The key observation in this article is that you need to create the “pitch” from your customers/clients perspective, not to grand-stand and to ask questions instead of blowing your own horn.

Now that may not sound too revolutionary to a lot of people, but it is by far the greatest mistake people make when they are put in the position to sell themselves or their service; they either undersell by giving some confused, convoluted, technical explanation or they go in to “sales” mode and lose credibility instantly.

Here is my spin on elevator pitches:

Write it down, rehearse it (tape it and listen to yourself) and refine it.