An “elevator pitch” is a concise, well-practiced description of your startup and your plan, delivered with conviction and enthusiasm that your mother should be able to understand in the time it would take to ride up an elevator. Everybody knows about these, but few people seem to deliver a good one. A good elevator pitch is not just for an elevator discussion. Use it in every networking situation and business conference introduction. The elevator pitch should be the first few paragraphs of your business plan, your executive summary, your investor presentation, and the first page of your website. A different message everywhere is no message. Nailing down a short pitch for why someone should invest in your business will come in handy at some point, even if you never actually end up in an elevator with the venture capitalist of your dreams.

How To Prepare To Give A Perfect Elevator Pitch?

Pitching an idea isn’t a skill you can perfect on your own. For one thing, you must get comfortable having an audience. That’s why a group effort like an incubator is so valuable: it provides the opportunity to mess up in front of friends, work out jitters, learn to hold a mic, and generally become an effective conduit for relaying your idea. The other half of this task is constructing a compact description of the opportunity and market. The goal is to be specifically memorable. Since investments are rarely an individual decision, the usual best outcome for a pitch is for it to be accurately repeated by your listeners.

Step By Step Process

Do you know who you are and what you do? Can you eloquently explain that to a stranger in one minute or less? Use these 5 steps to perfect your elevator pitch are as follows –

Introduce yourself

Start the elevator pitch with a brief, easy-to-absorb sentence that includes your name, your company name and the service you provide. For instance, “I’m Mary Smith; my company is Executive Express, and we offer courier service.”

Identify the problem you solve for your customers

“What is the problem the potential client may have that your service can solve?” Bahar Hewertson asks. “What’s in it for the listener has to resonate. Why should the person care what you do? Focus on the listener and the value of your proposition for him or her.”

Announce your promise of a solution

What product or service will you provide the client? “Be clear on the results the person can expect, but avoid selling,” Bahar Hewertson says.

Offer proof you can deliver and plan for next steps

How have you delivered on your promises prior to this? What have you accomplished, and what have people said about your work? “Offer proof with one or two killer facts—and they must be facts—and an anecdote that crystallizes everything you just said as real,” Scherer says. Finish your pitch by offering a plan of action for delivering on your promise. Make it as personal as possible to fit whomever you’re talking to and his or her business.

Know when to stop and listen

If at any point in your pitch you find that the listener is tuning out, stop talking.