Explain Your Solution in 60 Seconds or Less – Here’s How

Published on: 14 November 2018 Last Updated on: 24 July 2024

Do you have an elevator pitch?

Whether you’re an ambitious entrepreneur with nothing more than a good idea, a fully funded startup gearing up for further funding rounds or your long-anticipated go-to-market, or a mature company looking to retake control of its reputation, a succinct encapsulation of your identity and solution(s) is crucial to a cogent market strategy.

Elevator pitches are important for individual professionals, too. “Your elevator pitch is a way to share your expertise and credentials quickly and effectively with people who don’t know you,” writes personal branding expert Alison Doyle.

Here’s what you need to do to develop and refine your elevator pitch. Your ultimate goal: a comprehensive spiel that answers one question — “what do you do?” — in 60 seconds or less.

1. Start With a Concise Directory Description

The nub of your elevator pitch is a company description (or a personal one, if you’re still pitching an idea) that factually describes what you do (or hope to do). If you haven’t already done so, develop a descriptive statement for your social media and business directory profiles, along with the lines of this Crunchbase profile for Florida entrepreneur Steve Dorfman. This statement won’t be compelling enough to build your entire elevator pitch around, but it’s a good skeleton for the initial who-what-where.

2. Identify Your Core Audience Groups

How much do you know about audience segmentation? If your answer is, “not much,” get up to speed on the process and spend some time drilling down on the core audience groups to which your pitch needs to speak (if you’re not already reaching out to them in other ways). Remember, you can draft multiple iterations of the same pitch, depending on who’s in the room or on the page.

3. Set Yourself Apart from the Competition (Without Disparaging Them)

Now comes the real meat of your pitch: a unique selling proposition that differentiates your idea or solution from competing concepts — theoretical or otherwise — without throwing shade. Generally speaking, you don’t want to name names, unless your solution is an explicit offshoot of something that came before.

4. Isolate One or Two Key Factoids or Stats

You don’t have a lot of time to throw facts or stats out at your audience. Nor should you dwell on specifics, for their (and your) sanity. But a well-placed nugget or two may well be what’s needed to concentrate minds. Again, your audience may dictate which nugget you choose to include in any given iteration.

5. Make the Ask

You won’t know if you don’t ask — to make the ask, smoothly. Regardless of who’s listening, your pitch should conclude with a clear call to action that doesn’t read like a pro forma sales pitch. Make your audience believe in what you’re asking them to do.

You’re Talking — Is Anybody Listening?

We’ve all been there: explaining a concept near and dear to our hearts so earnestly that we become lost in our own narrative — only to pull back and realize that the audience has nodded off or lost the plot.

A concise, well-articulated, well-organized elevator pitch should hold your audience’s attention, if only because it’s not long enough to put anyone to sleep. Striving to be the entrepreneur who listens twice as much as they talk doesn’t preclude you from being the entrepreneur who effortlessly commands a room, too.

Read Also:

Content Rally

Content Rally wrapped around an online publication where you can publish your own intellectuals. It is a publishing platform designed to make great stories by content creators. This is your era, your place to be online. So come forward share your views, thoughts and ideas via Content Rally.

View all posts

7 Startup Essentials Entrepreneurs Should Know About

Getting started in business is extremely challenging, there are many different elements that you have to monitor and manage from day 1. In all probability you’ll be doing most, if not all, of these tasks yourself, startups rarely have the funds needed to employ an array of staff. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible to get started and become successful; plenty of people do it. However, the following 7 tips will help to ensure your startup goes well: 1. Decide Your Company: Before you can launch you need to create a company or be a sole-trader. There are pluses and minuses to all the different types of business models; you need to speak to an expert in order to make sure you know the right entity to use. This will help protect you and your business as you start trading; 2. Draft Founders Agreement: This is especially important if there is more than one person involved in the startup process. A founders’ agreement ensures everyone knows their contribution, role, and responsibilities. It can make it much easy for everyone to focus their efforts and can help if you do have any disputes. It also allows you to establish ownership of intellectual ideas. 3. Going Online: In order to survive and flourish every business needs a website and an online presence. You can’t afford to wait for this if you do you’re missing out on a huge number of potential customers. Make sure the website is professionally developed so that it looks good and reflects the values of your business; this is your public image and it will stick. 4. Trademarks: In every industry, there is a giant or two that get instant recognition, such as Nike. You need to trademark your name, you may not be big today but who knows in the future; doing this now will help to stop larger competitors from overrunning your business. 5. Funding: There’s a good chance you’ll need funding to establish your business; If this is the case you should draw up an agreement that establishes the roles of investors and their potential rewards; these should be different to those of the shareholders. Getting this right at the start will help you to benefit in the future when the company starts to do well. 6. Don’t Forget Vat & Tax: With everything else going on it is easy to forget the legal side of things. You’re probably going to need to register for VAT and there may be service taxes or other taxes that are due. Make sure you’re aware of these before you start trading and you register in time. This will prevent any unexpected and nasty surprises. 7. Delegate: When you first come up with your business idea you were probably by yourself. However, as your startup and build the necessary services and links, others will become involved. This is when it is essential to recognize the skills of every person on your team and delegate where possible. You don’t need to do everything. In fact, you should focus solely on your areas of expertise and growing the vision of the company; that will help you to be successful. Read Also: 5 Features To Look For In A Business Energy Provider 7 Ways To Plan A Smooth Business Succession How To Attract The Best Talents For Your Startup Investing And Trading 101: Investment Ideas For Newbies

Start-up Business Management: How to Reduce Risk and Guarantee Success

When it comes to running a business - especially a start-up business - guaranteeing success is much easier said than done. There are those who would claim that managing a start-up business is often the most challenging period for a business owner, and they would not be wrong. However, it does not have to be a miserable time the whole way through! Managing a start-up business is all about prioritizing a few key things while ensuring that you are not bogged down by the stress of business management. Here are just a few ways in which you can reduce risk and guarantee success. Social media is your friend: No matter the industry, it can be challenging to market your business without the right kind of platform to support your efforts. It is especially true for start-up businesses without the necessary resources to go for traditional marketing. Fortunately, you can make use of a social media platform to ensure that your business has the marketing and brand exposure that it needs without having to spend a penny. Keep in mind that to ensure the success of your social media account, it is required that your account remains active to communicate with potential clients and customers. Considering it is a bridge between your company and your supporters, the effort is vital. Read more: Using Social Media To Promote Start-Up Businesses Modern technology has more to offer than social media: While social media can go a long way to marketing your company, there is still the issue of dealing with the most tedious factors of your business. If you want a method to streamline different processes to make it easier for you and the people working under you, there is no better solution than the use of business management software. With the help of eworksmanager.co.uk and other quality service providers, you can easily find the right type of software for your company. Want to effectively deal with asset management? What about mobile inventory? Or communication between departments? Business software always has you covered. Reduce risk by taking care of your employees: One of the biggest mistakes that many inexperienced owners tend to make is they do not give their employees enough attention due to all the pressing matters that come with start-up businesses. Those with experience in the matter will tell you that taking care of your employees first will ensure that you will have more than enough help to deal with other issues. Add some incentives, and be sure to recognize the hard work of your employees. Loyalty is not something to be taken lightly. While it is true that managing a start-up business can be quite stressful, the methods above will ensure that you have a means of taking care of the issue without suffering too much stress. Whether it is risk reduction through employee incentives or business software, you can guarantee the success of your business by giving it the focus and attention it needs to thrive. Read Also: Top 5 Types Of Startup Business Loans Effective Ways To Utilize Digital Marketing 6 Things You Should Know Before Starting A Business

Six Tips for Crowdfunding Success

Almost every start-up company these days considers crowdfunding as an avenue to receive funding. It is possible that an entrepreneur has already exhausted traditional sources of funds such as bank loans or peer-to-peer loans, and that crowdfunding is already the last resort to get a much-needed push for success. Fortunately, there are several crowdfunding sites to choose from, and each of them has unique features that work for specific types of campaigns. One of the main advantages of crowdfunding sites is that they will allow you to see the big picture and learn first-hand how your product or idea gets received by your target audience. Depending on how good or how poor the initial reaction by users is, you can make improvements and adjustments to increase your chances of success when the time comes for you to launch to a mass market officially. But you need to keep in mind that the crowdfunding formula doesn’t always work for all, no matter how unique or exciting your idea is. To increase your chances of success, consider the following tips. 1. Learn from other successful campaigns: You don’t always need to rely on your own devices to come up with a successful campaign. Copying and tweaking the ideas of other successful entrepreneurs on crowdfunding sites can help you get the boost you need. For example, you can test how well your backers respond to different kinds of rewards, or you can watch videos and success stories from other campaigns. 2. Do a lot of self-promotion: While crowdfunding sites will do a minimal amount of promotion, you can’t expect this to be enough marketing for your campaign. You’ll need to do the legwork if you want your campaign to reach media personnel, get featured on social media sites, and gain as much traction with users as possible. 3. Produce a stunning video: It is a proven fact that investors on crowdfunding sites prefer to watch short videos regarding campaigns they are supporting. If you want to attract a large following for your product or idea, you need to begin by producing a high-quality and content-rich video about your campaign. 4. Don’t make hasty decisions: Timing is also essential if you want to be successful in your crowdfunding campaign. There is generally no perfect time to launch a campaign, but you need to make sure that you have devoted enough time to develop your idea before you start asking for support from backers. 5. Plan your strategy after launching the campaign: If you don’t have a plan of action after starting the campaign, you may find yourself lost regarding the next steps you need to take. You need to have a contingency plan when you encounter challenges and, if possible, hire a marketing manager who will handle the promotional aspects of the campaign. 6. Patience is key: Aside from doing what you need to do to tap backers and investors for your project, you also need a considerable amount of patience and perseverance to succeed in crowdfunding. You can’t expect a miracle to happen overnight. In crowdfunding, there is no set timeline, and every step of the way is a learning process. Read Also: Six Pointers To Starting A Successful Business What Are The Benefits Associated With Crowdfunding For Businesses?

Explain Your Solution in 60 Seconds or Less – Here’s How