The elevator door opens. And there stands your ideal investor. It's the chance of a lifetime. But that chance only lasts as long as the elevator ride - you have less than a minute to make an impression. Hopefully, you've got a well-crafted elevator pitch ready to give.
The elevator pitch is not the hurried presentation of a full-blown business plan. It's an introduction, an overview and a pitch - and a short one at that - meant to capture the attention of a potential investor. Of course, an elevator ride is a short one. Guides for elevator speeches that say you have one minute surely overestimate the amount of time it takes for an elevator to move from floor to floor. Of course, an elevator speech isn't restricted to elevators. Rather, it comes in handy for any occasion where a concise presentation is appropriate.
When crafting your pitch there are two key things to keep in mind: its content and its form. In other words, it's not just what you say but how you say it. Here are a 10 tips to keep in mind as you craft your elevator pitch.
1. Keep it short. Be succinct. According to Wikipedia, an adult's attention span is eight seconds, so be sure to give just enough information (and more importantly perhaps the right information) so that after only hearing a sentence or two, someone knows what you do - and if it's a pitch, what you need.
2. Have a hook. As Mel Pirchesky advises, "The objective of the first ten or fifteen seconds is to have your prospective investors want to listen to the next forty-five or fifty seconds differently, more intently than they would have otherwise."
3. Pitch yourself, not your ideas. As Chris Dixon writes, "The reality is ideas don't matter that much. First of all, in almost all startups, the idea changes - often dramatically - over time. Secondly, ideas are relatively abundant." Instead of talking about ideas, highlight what you've done - the concrete accomplishments or skills - rather than some intangible concept or a future goal.
To read the full, original article click on this link: The Art of the Elevator Pitch: 10 Great Tips - ReadWriteStart
Author: Audrey Watters
