Five Ways To Make your Elevator Pitch Count

TO PITCH an idea, project or business proposition in five minutes is similar to asking a candidate explain his goals, ambitions of a lifetime and past experiences in a job interview. Every second counts, but the ‘elevator pitch’ can be one of the best rides of your career. Devina Sengupta shows how.

1 Know your Business Entrepreneur Hitesh Dhingra, ex CEO of online company Letsbuy, insists that any one who makes an elevator pitch should have thorough knowledge of his or her trade. The presentation should be within five slides and mailed a day before. “It helped me get our first seed funding,” he says.

2 Show the Big Picture To make an elevator pitch successful, one has to know the market and where the product will stand. The team should be clear about competition, and the chances of it being accepted. Numbers have to be on their fingertips, and they need to show the landscape clearly to the client — for instance, how the numbers will look in the next few years. 

3 Project the Team A client who will ink a pact with the team making the pitch needs to know the people behind it. It is best if the key people on the team are spoken about, says Dhingra. A slide on the group members, their background and what they bring to the table is important to instill confidence in the squad. 

4 List Out Ideas Elevator pitches, if done with help of power point presentations, should have three to five bullet points in each slide or just a paragraph. Some of the points that one can use to convince the listener to buy their argument or invest in the company include: a slide on customer focus, innovation in the product or idea, sales and a growth trajectory. 

5 Keep it Short In such pitches, there is no time to ramble and one should practice before going for the meeting. He should practice with teammates and have all probable questions and responses ready. If the client is bored, one should sense the mood but not become despondent, because it could be a technique to test how convinced you are of the product or idea. Clients and bosses keep an eye out for passion and anyone who loses interest at the mere thought of failure is ticked off. At the same time, a touch of humour without losing brevity helps as well.

(The Economic Times, Mumbai, 11-12-2012)