Imagine that you have just pressed the button for an elevator. At this moment, you are lost in thought, staring into space, thinking over and over again about that project that you are so excited about but that you need a clear initial push for. You are waiting for the elevator to arrive at your floor. The light on the button changes from red to green, indicating that the elevator has arrived. Ding! The doors open and there you find a person inside.Are you coming up? -Yes. -Okay. You enter the cubicle and glance at your companion. And suddenly, a small but hopeful thought pops into your head. Who tells me that this person is not the one I am waiting for to help me with my dream project? Suddenly, a torrent of arguments runs through your head, thousands of words crisscross your thoughts, trying to create the best speech that will capture that person's attention and make them decide to bet on you and your great business idea. But how? What could shock him so much that he would be interested in me?
What is the Elevator Pitch?
In this new post I bring you the solution to this situation: the elevator pitch. Surely, many of you already know the term, but for those who still don't know it, I'll clarify it for you. The Elevator Pitch is nothing more than a strategy of persuasion based on the creation of a "micro-speech" designed to impact in such a way that in less than 45 seconds (or what is equivalent to, during the time that an elevator ride lasts) you manage to convince your recipient that your idea is interesting and that they won't regret investing in you. It seems simple, right? Well, to me it seems extremely complicated.
Below, I will give you some tips so that you can start designing your impressive Elevator Pitch and leave everyone with their mouths open and, more importantly, create curiosity and a desire to get to know you and learn more about you.
En Inspira Workspaces, since we are dealing with a Business Center, there are many clients who rent each of the private offices We therefore think it is a very good idea that, every time a new client sets up their office in our workspace, we call a joint “Elevator Pitch” session between all the offices in our Coworking space. What does it consist of? Each coworker explains what his or her business consists of from a perspective aimed at establishing business relationships with the rest of the group. In this way, each office knows what economic activity its workspace neighbors carry out and agreements arise between them. It is a great networking action that always gives good results among our clients.
Well, as I was saying, the Elevator Pitch should consist of a short speech of such captivating quality that it manages to ignite a spark of curiosity in the person we are addressing. Curiosity that ends up leading them to contact us and ask us if, please, we can explain in more detail what that project is about that we talked about that day on that elevator ride… Bingo! You have it in your pocket.
Advice based on experience.
Next, I'm going to give you some advice on how to create your incredible and impactful cover letter, based on the experience I had during my time as a master's student. I remember that my Business Management professor asked us to create an Elevator Pitch in which we tried to define ourselves as people and workers. The speech couldn't last more than 20 seconds. So, basically what I did was list my studies and comment on some of my personal characteristics, pretty briefly... It's 20 seconds, what do you want me to tell you? Well, the next day, when my professor sent me to the podium to recite my speech, her comment was the following: "I think that by the time I got off the elevator, I had forgotten everything you told me."And I was extremely offended. But he was terribly right. Tell me, how many people do you know who are educated, organized, responsible, eager to learn and work, and who have a moderate command of English? Nowadays, either you give me something that surprises me and makes me want to know more about you, or I simply don't buy from you. To my relief, all my colleagues felt the same way.
Well, our teacher gave us another chance to rewrite our Elevator Pitch and present it the next day. I remember that in our next class, one of my classmates came up to speak. We were all amazed when he started speaking in perfect Korean. After 20 seconds of unintelligible sounds that absolutely no one in the room understood, this kid handed the teacher a small card. On it you could read: “Call me when you need to close deals with the world’s future economic powerhouse: South Korea.”
Wow! I'm convinced. It may well be that this person doesn't need an expert Korean speaker, but what if he does? If that were the case for me, I'd skip the resume review and stick with that guy who blew my mind on that elevator ride.
I'm going to leave you a video here, published by IurisDocTV, which I find very original and curious and which also helps a lot to understand the concept with a series of examples that show us which comments to include in our Elevator and which ones are best to avoid:
Conclusion.
The most important thing to keep in mind when writing your Elevator Pitch is to be striking, to be different from the rest, to make your message clear but from a perspective based on the search for surprise. Keep in mind that the main objective of this first contact will be to arouse curiosity in this person. If you succeed, you will create interest in him or her and he or she will call you to ask you to complete your presentation. It is at this point that you can show off your list of academic studies, your four years living in Korea and your 2 years of experience in that very important advertising company from which you gained enormous strategic knowledge.
From Inspira Workspaces I encourage you to put on your pajamas and settle down on the couch when you get home from work today, grab a notebook and a pencil, and unleash your most creative talents in defining your high potential as a person and worker, which I am sure you have.
