When would you use an elevator pitch?

You’re in line for coffee, you’re at a bar waiting on a drink, or you’re in a buffet line at a luncheon, conference, or awards ceremony – all of these seemingly insignificant interactions could be your chance to get new business with a captivating one minute elevator pitch.

Creating a Solid Elevator Pitch

  1. Connect with Empathy – Create a specific pain statement for the customers you want.
  2. Offer an Objective Solution – Continue showing them how smart you are by offering up an objective solution to their issues. Begin with: “Wouldn’t it be great if…?”
  3. Provide Differentiation – A true differentiator is something your competitor can’t do or won’t do without great effort or expense.

The What and the How (Example Pitch)

Warbird is a professional services firm that goes above and beyond by offering customized, value-driven accounting and financial solutions combined with highly-experienced resources.  Warbird supports healthcare, government and public sector clients as well as a multitude of industries, all who have project needs that demand special attention, rapid response and scalable services.  Warbird helps clients resolve their most complex business challenges by delivering measurable and sustainable results.

Tips

  • Make sure your pitch is fresh and adjust your pitch according to who is listening – you’ll be sure to get their attention
  • Leave them wanting more- elevator pitches are supposed to be short
  • Test yourself and get as much feedback as you can

Don’t miss out on your chance to use your elevator speech; you never know where it might take you!

The book, Crucial Conversations, provides a blueprint for “power listening.” Clients under duress often need our help to open up and discuss their challenges and we are often their best source of objective feedback. To assist your client, follow this blueprint.

  • Ask: invite them to share their concerns when they are struggling to express them. This tactic shows genuine interest in your clients problem and will help create a trusting relationship.
  • Mirror: when non-verbal cues don’t sync with words. For example, “you say nothing is bothering you but you appear distraught”. Use non-verbal clues to decipher how your client is feeling.
  •  Paraphrase: share their concern in your words as they begin to open up, “so you are concerned about xyz deadlines”. This helps ensure that you and your client are on the same page.
  •  Prime: Take your best guess at what is causing the anxiety if they are still unable to express their concern.

Power listening with AMPPS can help us become a trusted advisor to the clients we serve. Master your stories to better engage with your client. It is often the “stories” (without having the facts) we tell ourselves about the motives of others that create strong emotions and when we act on them it can derail relationships. If the story is incorrect our emotions, and ensuing actions can be unconstructive. Suspending our stories until we have the facts can help us avoid these strong emotions and prevent us from acting them out in ways that damage client relationships.

Maintaining respectfulness with your client is key. Under stress we are all hard pressed to maintain composure. When we feel the heat, respectfulness in our tone of voice and body language is frequently the first thing that slips. Being disrespectful even when facing unfair criticism is an absolute and without it we lose all hope of a constructive client relationship.

Tips above are from Crucial Conversations by Joseph Grenny et al.