Most People Are Not Interested in Listening to You
Elevator pitches. The first three seconds are critical. This is one thing that I learned from reading the book the Way of The Wolf by Jordan Belfort. Years ago you could talk to someone for a little while and they would keep interest. Nowadays, you have to be on the ball and be ready with some decent great things to say. You really need to hone in with a sniper approach as to what it is that you do, how you do it, and why that’s relevant to the person that you’re talking about.
There’s a lot of engineering that goes into an elevator pitch. In the modern world, everyone is just clicking, click, click, they’re clicking next, they’re swiping up, they’re swiping down, and most people are not interested in listening to you for an extended period of time. The first three seconds are critical. I can’t stress that enough. Make sure that you have the person that you’re listening to engaged in the first three seconds, and think about who it is that you’re listening to.
Analyse
One of the first dos is to analyse your audience. If you’re at a barbecue and someone asks, what do you do in business, make sure the things that you are talking about are relevant to that person at the barbecue. If you’re at a business conference, your elevator pitch might be completely different. If you’re at an industry-specific event where you’re surrounded by your peers, again, your elevator pitch will change. You don’t want to be saying to a prospect the same elevator pitch that you’d be saying to a competitor. It doesn’t make any sense.
Position Yourself
Ideally, you want to position yourself with the competitors, so you don’t sound like a competitor. Sounds like an interesting thing to do, but depending on the industry that you’re in, it’s not that difficult. Predominantly I’m in IT, and so I do business management, IT auditing, and overall make sure the health of the business and its uptime is where it should be, up. Other people might just say, “oh, you’re in IT,” and you say, “oh yeah, I’m in IT.” That’s a terrible way to introduce yourself. You want to make sure your elevator pitch is clear and concise.
Don’t Waffle
The next one is making sure you’re aware of waffle. You don’t want to be there talking for ages or going off track. This isn’t just for an elevator pitch. This also just goes into general communication that you would have if you’re at like a networking event or something like that. Networking events especially have lots of people that are there, for one thing, that’s right, to network and to talk to lots of people. So, don’t get caught up talking to just the one person if you can talk to multiple people at once.
Make sure you’re covering off on their needs and wants, but mostly their want over their need, and don’t discuss your needs and wants. People don’t spend $700 on a bottle of wine to get drunk. They spend it on the experience. This goes the same for fancy restaurants and everything else. The food isn’t more nutritious. It’s the experience that comes with it. That’s why people go and buy fancy things. Make sure that you’re selling the experience and you’re really honing in on what they want.
Hone in on What They Want
Most people won’t buy what they need. Make sure that your elevator pitch has exactly what they want in it. If you don’t know what that is yet, ask different people that you’re already working with, and trial out your elevator pitch with different friends and family to see what they say. Make sure it’s no longer than 30 seconds. That is at a max. You want to get them hooked in 3 seconds and be comfortable to listen for 30.
Don’t talk about “we and us” if the business is just you. It distances yourself from the business and it shows a level of falseness that you don’t really want to have to go across. If you’re passionate about it, talk about it. Mention how interested you are in this.
Remember This
In closing, the most important things are, keep it short, concise, hone in on what they want, read your audience, and make sure that you’re ready to go. Good luck and stay good!
