The 5 Minute Method to Designing Your Elevator Pitch

The simplest things are sometimes the hardest to perfect and that means that a 10-second elevator pitch, the one, simple spiel that sums up your business or product as a whole can be the most challenging thing to come up with.

Recently, I was chatting with the newest member of the Female Founded Mastermind, talking about what she hopes to get out of the mastermind. For her, it was “clarity of mission and client”.

So I interviewed her a little with the goal of getting this clarity started for her. I asked her:

What is the purpose of the work she wants to do? And what products and services excite her to create?

Once we discovered that she enjoyed certain aspects of what she was doing – helping older people who find new technology overwhelming to confidently use it – and we discovered that she felt motivated to create offerings to help do this – such as a course like a ‘Seniors Guide to Setting Up and Using Your First iPhone’ – we were able to generate 2 sentences that summed up her businesses mission.

“Coaching and courses that help seniors integrate into this growing world of technology.”

Now, she will likely not use the exact sentences we came up within the moment as her official pitch, but it really helped us get on the same page about what she was doing so that we could move forward in the conversation.

There are multiple ways to skin a cat, but if you’re someone who is struggling with client AND company mission clarity, this little self-interview strategy will help you.

Here are some questions for you to get you on track:

1. What do you want your customer to have when they work with you/use your offering? An easier time? Confidence? A better relationship? A better understanding of a specific topic

2. What offerings/products excite you to create and share? Coaching sessions? Courses? A physical product?

3. What do you want to set you apart in your delivery of the above? A feminine vibe? A team or community? Is your product more aesthetic, functional or affordable? Maybe it’s more high end, for the high flying consumer?

By answering these questions, you should have all the ingredients you need for your first pitch.

Let’s use me as an example, I am an illustrator. If that’s all I say, that’s pretty vague. I need a better elevator pitch to be able to let people know exactly what I do and the client I want to attract.

1. What do I want my customer to have when they get an offering from me? I want them to feel special like someone spent the time to draw them in a way that was so detailed and thoughtful that they feel flattered. I want them to feel like they’re a celebrity and someone worthy of inspiring artwork. Not that they were just another drawing commission.

2. What offerings/products excite me to create and share? I’m excited to draw custom, digital illustrations of women. I want to sell prints, stickers, and downloadable artwork. I’d even like to create a coloring book.

3. What do you want to set you apart in your delivery of the above? I want to ask people for their stories and deeply listen to them. Not just ask for what they want me to draw.

I want to use their story to theme the artwork. This shows them that their story has value and that the person who took their money - me - cherished this opportunity.

Then, I took 5 minutes to use these three questions and create my elevator pitch: “I create digital illustrations based on your unique story in order to show you that you are worthy of inspiring artwork. I create something beautiful for whatever purpose you need.”

Let us know how this method works for you! We want to know all of your elevator pitches!

Danielle