In My Pinnacle Network, we refer to the elevator pitch as your verbal brand. For sake of clarity, we will use E.P. in this piece and over the next several weeks. Yet every one of us should not only reconsider what we call our elevator pitch but how we deliver it and what exactly we say.If you fall into the camp that tries to fit as much as humanly possible into your E.P. before you run out of breath/pass out or the person you’re talking nods off or, worse, walks away, you are far from alone. Of course, you will eventually be alone because elevator pitches done like that do not work. That’s because the goal of the E.P. is to make the listener WANT to know more and start asking questions. If you attempt to tell them everything, you will not only run out breath and deplete their attention span, you take away their reason for wanting to know more.
One of the better ways to get people to list to their elevator pitch is to listen to theirs first. So, E.P. pointer number one is to come up with a conversation starter that creates a more comfortable opening than, “what do you do?”. My Pinnacle Network Founder Steve Dubin offers the following:
Do you know exactly where your next prospect is coming from?
Try it out. Yet be prepared if the answer is “I don’t know”. Then, you might have to jump in with your answer.