Going Up? You’ll be with this New Elevator Pitch!
As promised here’s your Monday dose of sage advice. This week: Your Elevator Pitch — If Aunt Sophie Doesn’t Get it You’re in Trouble! This week’s vid is shorter and even more entertaining than last week! Enjoy!
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Elevator pitches! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the concept, let me explain it, it’s a good one. You’re on the 14thfloor of a skyscraper, you step into the elevator and the doors close, then you go down one floor, and on the next floor the doors open and in walks the perfect prospect, that’s they guy you want to close. He walks in, he stands next to you, and you have exactly 13 floors to the lobby to explain to him what you do. That’s an elevator pitch, and if you’re in a high-speed elevator, you have to talk fast.
But what happens with people in elevator pitches is that because they know they have to be very short, and condensed, and tight, they tend to use a lot of insider lingo, insider market lingo and acronyms that really make the elevator pitch only comprehensible to that one perfect prospect or to a finite group of people even inside their client companies. Now, I have always said that you really need two kinds of elevator pitches, the second is what I call the Family Party Picnic Pitch. Can you say that three times fast?
Now, for the Family Party Picnic Pitch, you need a pitch that explains what you do to aunt Sophie. Now, just because she’s old and you know, a little grey, doesn’t mean she’s a dummy. She wants to be proud of you, she wants to brag about you, she wants to talk about you when she plays Canasta with her friends. How would you explain what you do to aunt Sophie? briefly, without talking down to her, making her understand what you do, and sharing the excitement you have about your job and what you do about your company, and what it does, and its purpose. Sharing that with enthusiasm with aunt Sophie, so that when aunt Sophie goes to her Canasta party she can brag about you and tell all of her friends around the table what you do, and why what you do is so great. That’s the Family Party Picnic Pitch.
Okay, you may say “Really? Aunt Sophie is not going to get me any business”. I wouldn’t bet on that, aunt Sophie has friends and they’ve got kids too, and some of them are good looking, you never know what could happened. But alright, what’s my point here? This is the deal; if you can explain what you do to aunt Sophie, the you have just broadened out what you do, your explanation, your pitch, to the entire committee you’re selling to inside your client companies. Why is this important? Because that committee has gotten larger over the years, and there are people in that buying committee who do not understand exactly what your company does, and they are often the guys who sign the checks. They need to know too, they need to know what you’re doing, and they need to know without all that extra lingo. That’s really important.
You’re also explaining it to your employees, because your employees have families too, and they want to be proud of the company they work for, they want to share what they do with enthusiasm, they want their family members to tell other people about the great things they’re doing, and they can’t do that with an alphabet soup of acronyms. They can do it with clear, concise communication that broadens what you do to the general public.
So, elevator pitch, great. You can get all alphabet soupy on that. But, Family Party Picnic Pitch, bring it down to the basics, communicate it out, and make your family and the greater public proud of what you do.
Okay well, we have some juicy downloads for inspirations. I’ve created a guide and it’s down below with some example of elevator pitches Family Party Picnic Pitches. If you’ve enjoyed this video please comment, subscribe, follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook. Until next time, have a great business day.
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