Why an Entrepreneur Needs an Elevator Pitch? Let elevator pitch act as a catalyst and a tool to help you achieve your business goals
By Naval Goel
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Elevator pitch is a crisp and clear way to communicate your business idea & mission. More than anything else an entrepreneur should be always ready with his/her 45-60 seconds elevator pitch. His pitch should convey his business plan that can resolve some existing issues with value for money of his customers.
Well, the elevator pitch is the best way to connect with your potential customers and stakeholders. It can give an instant elevation to your projected vision.
As an entrepreneur, you must not leave any chance to network. Opportunity can come through customers, cofounders, a stakeholder whom you can meet at an elevator. The idea of an elevator pitch is to make maximum utilization of moment in minimum time. Your elevator pitch should communicate about your business in the most impressive and unique fashion. Why Entrepreneur must always be ready with elevator pitch is elaborated below.
Visibility
You got your product ready but still struggling to reach your first 100 customers. It might be because your business lacks visibility. You may have a small consulting business or IT product startup, how you can stand out is by getting some presence in the market. You may get invitations to attend seminars, conferences, and many other networking events. All you need is elevator pitch as an introduction to leave that lasting impression on people. If your product stands out no one can stop reaching you to more clients, all you may need is better visibility through the skills of an elevator pitch.
Reach
Every business needs maximum reach. You may be a startup or SME you will always want to expand your business. Way to reach faster is by meeting more and more people. You can meet many people but important is you must convey about your business in a way that they genuinely feel like going for your product or service. At times its how you convey, other time it's how you convey.
Brand Positioning
The way you position your brand can be a deal breaker. How you play with your elevator pitch can be a game changer for your brand. Elevator pitch for brand positioning should be precise enough to communicate about how your product can resolve the burning issue. You must rehearse many times before rolling out to your target audience. Apt communication of your brand can make all the difference. Let the 60 seconds of your elevator pitch in your next seminar be the invitation for 50% more clients.
Scaling-Up
There is a various threshold of businesses. Growth is an unending process. The best part about any venture is there is no limit to scale-up. Even the established firm hunt for opportunities for more and more success. What may change is your elevator pitch. Though elevator pitch is mostly associated with startups, it becomes all the more important when you want to scale up and plans to add more stakeholders to accelerate your business. Elevator pitch may be designed for raising capital or for IPO as well. Once you are clear whom you want to target, preparing elevator pitch will be a cake-walk.
Engagement
Your short elevator pitch should be engaging enough to stimulate your audience. Unless they connect or associate with what you trying to convey they will never come back. Well thought through elevator pitch with a clear idea of your target audience can make a lot of difference. If you wish to engage your investors than design your pitch accordingly.
Punch-Line
Every brand has some punchline that may have the highest recall value. You may add a line in your elevator pitch that people can associate with. They should get an explicit idea about the nature of your business. You must add such lines with the long-term vision of your business. You may recognize some brands merely by their punch line. Some of them can be "Just do it" by Nike. Likewise "Play safe" is the punchline of Bisleri. Purpose of adding punchline in your elevator pitch can be to give a better idea of your business to the people.
Competitive Edge
Last but not the least your elevator pitch can help you stand out of the crowd. It can act as a unique selling proposition that can give you the core competency that you need. You can get the credibility that your competitor might have missed because of lack of the elevator pitch.
You can always customize your elevator pitch as per your target audience. Let it act a catalyst and tool to help you achieve your business goal.