Principles of an Elevator Pitch
From Austin Toastmasters (Balcones, Club #3407)
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What is an Elevator Speech
You get on an elevator with another person. The person asks you, so...what do you do? You have until the person gets off the elevator to deliver a concise answer to this question. Dugg told me that historically, elevator speeches developed in urban settings when sales people wanted to sell their product to a new client. They would get on an elevator with the prospect and engage them in conversation, using the time they had to convince the prospect to move to the next step – usually a meeting where more information could be exchanged. So the elevator speech not only tells what it is that you do, but also is a teaser, leaving the prospect wanting to know more. Some questions an elevator speech answers might be:
- What do you do?
- Why do I need it?
- How is it done?
- What does it have to do with me?
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Thoughts on the format of an Elevator Speech Meeting
- The Toastmaster of the Day is more of a meeting facilitator, no theme or long introductions. The Toastmaster should explain the special meeting format to all, especially unsuspecting guests, and encourage all attendees to write down feedback for the participants. The Toastmaster will call for a vote for Best Speaker, Best Evaluator and Most Improved after the last participant.
- The Timekeeper should be ruthless, perhaps clinking on their glass at Red times. The ideal pitch is 1 minute and feedback should be limited to 2 minutes. If this is held, more participants will be possible.
- Immediate feedback on each pitch is more powerful than doing all pitches, then all evaluations.
- Since there is no grammarian, evaluators can include “ah”, “you know”, and other counts.
- If there are only a few pitch participants, it would be possible to allow them to re-do their pitch, after all others have had their turn so see if they can incorporate the changes suggested or use techniques learned from watching other pitches.
- It is preferred that the pitch be real not storytelling.
