How to have an Effective Elevator Pitch?

I am sure you have met various people in various situations, for instance, in an inter-city bus, you met a person sitting by your side and talked to him – a talk that perhaps opened the door for a deep friendship and further relationships. Situations like this frequently occur in daily life – situations that have no specific purpose, with no preparation in advance and no previous knowledge about the individuals you encounter. One of such situations constitutes the title of this article: Elevator pitch or elevator presentation.

By Elevator Presentation we mean a short, brief, concise, and effective introduction, for example in an elevator we may over 20 to 60 seconds convince the person standing nearby to communicate further and get more information about the issue we are talking about. Please note that we are not talking about the conversation in an elevator, but about the specifics of an Elevator Pitch. The Elevator Presentation is a metaphorical title for a “one-minute introduction.” Whenever Elevator Presentation is mentioned, it always reminds me of the explanatory notes written by websites, and applications for film downloads and cinematographic magazines about movie introductions. If you have paid attention, a brief explanation, without spoiling the main script, introduces the customer to the different movies – a short, concise, exciting, and provocative explanation.

Let us talk a little bit more realistically and in the true sense of the word about it. Let us assume that you are the owner of a small software company and you have created new software – software that has a valuable, positive, competitive edge compared to other competitors. A situation arises where you must speak to a group of people about your business and products and you have only 60 seconds to do it. What will be your most important words? What will you talk about to persuade others to communicate more with you and become your customers?

If you include the words Elevator pitch, Elevator Presentation, or other methods of concise presentations in search engines, you will find many useful stories which we will certainly mention in this writing. However, let us look deeper into this issue and review the prerequisites a person needs to introduce himself, along with other issues.

• Know Yourself

Review yourself from all available dimensions and angles and try to understand your character and personality. Are you funny? Do you have a charming voice? Do you have a pleasing smile? etc. For further knowledge, you may ask people around you, or those who are in direct contact with you.

Ask them to explain your personality traits to you. Personality recognition tests including MBTI, archetypes, etc., may also help you to understand yourself better. The result of this research process is the knowledge of your strengths and weaknesses. You will now realize whether you have a pleasant, good sense of humour that you can use for attracting more attention and sincerity, or whether you have poor body language that requires improvement. The better you know yourself, the more successful your presentations will be, and the sooner you will achieve the desired results. Therefore, try to be your psychiatrist and psychologist.

• Know Other People

Try to recognize in every introduction, even in usual and non-professional communications, a person, and their personality type, and recognize their reactions to the conversation. Note what makes them happy or unhappy, bored, tired, or even uncomfortable. You may conclude that your sense of humour or personality does not suit the situation and may cause tension. A close, intimate approach to persons of a different personality type may have a better effect on the process of your conversation. When I was a waiter in a coffee shop, I carried a small notebook and wrote down the individual characteristics and peculiarities of everyone who came to the coffee shop. I tried to learn, by trial and error, how I could get more orders from them. I cannot say that I became a legendary waiter, but I scored many successes in customer loyalty and in striking valuable conversations which had a positive influence on my life – not only in those days but also in the later chapters of my life. The important point is to understand and recognize different people and personalities in society.

• Place the Important Subject at the Golden Point

You intend to introduce goods, services, or an event to someone you are not supposed to spend much time with. For that reason, emphasize the most important features at the golden point of your speech, as you would view a photograph. Photographers know that in every photograph the first thing seen by the observer is the golden point of the picture. Placing a golden subject at the golden point emphasizes its value and significance. But the question is: where is the golden point of a brief, useful, Elevator pitch? Allow us to seek help from mathematics in discovering these golden points. Consider a normal diagram. This diagram is like an algorithm of an Elevator Pitch. Less to more, inclination, more to less. Commensurate with this diagram, the beginning of our speech shall have a slow rhythm and include generalities at the start of the presentation. If the horizontal axis is considered as time and the vertical axis is the amount of attention to the speech, we will note that the amount of attention to speech has increased over time and starts to decrease in the middle of the speech. By relying on this diagram, the end of 1/3 of the early part of your speech will be listened to more and will probably be your golden point. Thus, it is better to state the most important sentences and the most valuable points at this juncture. Let us go back to the elevator. In the elevator, which is supposed to go to the thirtieth floor, your golden point will be the tenth floor. On the first ten floors, it is better to create the glee and excitement necessary to hear as you approach the tenth floor. Between floors ten and twelve, you should maintain focus on the speech golden point of the speech. On the twentieth to thirtieth floors, you should try to present the most exciting end possible.