How Effective is Your Elevator Pitch?
by Alan Rigg
Published on this site: September 23rd, 2005 - See
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Do you truly believe that your company’s products and
services will help your prospects? Have you ever thought,
“I KNOW I could find ways to help (company name) if I
could just get (prospect name) to talk to me for 20 minutes!”
Why is it so difficult to convince prospects to schedule
time to talk with us? There are two main answers to this question.
First, dozens (or even hundreds) of salespeople may be asking
for your prospects’ time. If prospects gave everyone
who asked the time they ask for, they would never have time
to get any work done! Second, chances are that your prospects
are not just sitting around waiting for salespeople to contact
them. They are focused on their own (business and personal)
objectives, issues and concerns. When you contact them, you
need to find some way to break through this “mental clutter”,
grab their attention, and focus it on what you are saying.
This makes developing an effective "elevator pitch"
the single most important step in sales prospecting. After
all, what good is it to have fabulous solutions to problems
if we can’t get the people who have the problems to talk
to us? Plus, how many times a day are you asked, “What
do you do for a living?” How many prospects (and referrals) might you uncover if you had a highly
effective and intriguing answer that rolls right off your
tongue?
The concept behind an elevator pitch is simple. Imagine you
are riding in an elevator. The doors open and one of your
top prospects steps into the elevator. You now have a very
brief (thirty to sixty second) opportunity to introduce yourself
and convince your prospect that they need to have a longer
conversation with you. What are you going to say?
To be effective, your elevator pitch must 1) differentiate
you from all the other salespeople who contact your prospects;
and 2) break through your prospects’ mental clutter and
grab their attention. The best way to begin to develop an
effective elevator pitch is by considering the following questions:
- Who are your target prospects? What do they do? What
job titles do they hold? What vertical markets are they
in?
- How will your products and services help your prospects?
How will their lives be different after they work with you?
- What are the QUANTIFIED IMPACTS (dollars or percentages
and time frames) that have been produced by your company’s
products and services? How SPECIFICALLY has your company
helped its customers?
Here are sample answers to these questions based upon my
own company’s products and services:
- Q1: Who are your target prospects? What do they
do? What job titles do they hold? What vertical markets
are they in?
- A1: My target prospects are business owners, executives,
and managers. Because I address sales performance issues,
and these issues occur in all vertical markets, I do not
focus on specific vertical markets.
- Q2: How will your products and services help your
prospects? How will their lives be different after they
work with you?
- A2: My products and services help my customers
end the frustration of 80/20 sales team performance, where
20% of salespeople produce 80% of sales.
- Q3: What are the QUANTIFIED IMPACTS (dollars or
percentages and time frames) that have been produced by
your company’s products and services? How SPECIFICALLY
has your company helped its customers?
- A3: Some of my customers have seen their sales
DOUBLE in as little as EIGHT MONTHS.
Once you have answered all three questions, you can combine
your answers to create an elevator pitch. Here is an example
based upon the preceding information:
“I help business owners, executives, and managers end
the frustration of 80/20 sales team performance (where 20%
of salespeople produce 80% of sales). In fact, some of my
customers have seen their sales double in as little as eight
months!”
If you have never measured the quantified impacts of your
company’s products and services, that’s OK –
it is a new concept for many salespeople and companies. However,
it is CRUCIAL that you collect some quantified impact information
as soon as possible! Why? Because nothing breaks through a
prospect’s mental clutter like quantified impacts!
Here are several questions you can ask yourself and your
customers to define quantified impacts for your company’s
products and services:
- What BUSINESS PROBLEMS is your company especially good
at solving? (Make a comprehensive list – it will provide
a useful outline for your conversations with customers.)
- How have you or your company helped a customer in a way
that was unusual or especially valuable? In other words,
when have you or your company really been “a hero"
in a customer's eyes?
- What (specific dollar value or percentage) increase in
revenue or reduction in expenses can the customer associate
with each identified example of “unusual value”?
Over what time frame was this value delivered?
In conclusion, if you want to pump up your sales prospecting
success rate, develop a truly compelling elevator pitch. Make
sure your elevator pitch identifies your TARGET PROSPECTS,
how they will BENEFIT from using your company's products and
services, and one or more examples of QUANTIFIED IMPACTS that
you (or your company) have actually produced for other customers.
A properly designed elevator pitch will help you stand out
from other salespeople, break through your prospects' mental
clutter, and grab their attention. These are crucial first
steps to convincing prospects to schedule time for more in-
depth conversations.
Sales performance expert Alan Rigg is the author
of How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Selling: Why Most Salespeople
Don't Perform and What to Do About It. To learn more about
his book and sign up for more FREE sales and sales management
tips, visit: http://www.8020salesperformance.com
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