How To Write A Small Business Elevator Pitch

Warning…This Blog contains some homework.

But you shouldn’t be worried because it will only take a half hour of your time and the potential rewards when you discover how to write a small business elevator pitch can be amazing.

When you perfect your elevator pitch, attracting customers, clients, joint venture and referral partners, and even quality staff becomes much easier.

It becomes your secret weapon.

A few short sentences carefully crafted to connect and compel people to take notice, and take action.

It allows you to capitalise on opportunities that may have previously gone begging because the way you currently describe your business and your mission doesn’t capture the imagination of your target audience.

But not anymore.

Oh one more thing to always keep in mind, your elevator pitch should be simple to understand. Don’t get caught in the details, this is not a sales pitch.

It’s simply answering the major questions a prospect might have and ensuring you communicate who you help and how.

Got a pen?

Great, let’s get started.

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Step 1: Defining Your “Big Why”

Although you may not speak these words directly in your elevator pitch, conveying your “Big Why” is critical.

Your why is what will get people to join your cause. It will communicate your passion and drive, the reason you get out of bed.

It also gives you some clear criteria to judge your performance against. Does your product or service actually deliver on your promise?

For Example:

I want to help more small business owners survive and grow in their first 5 years in business because far too many good people go bankrupt, lose relationships and experience low self esteem and depression simply because they do not know how to effectively market their business.

This is your chance to define your higher reason for creating your business.

Now of course making money and creating a great lifestyle is why most of us go into business. But you can only do this by creating value in the World.

What deeper value and benefit does your product or service provide to your customers. That’s your “WHY”

Step 2: Specific Targeting and Results

As with all your marketing, your elevator pitch needs to be highly targeted.

You can’t be everything to everybody, and you don’t want to be.

You want to be the perfect solution for a very select group of people. People who have a problem that you can solve. People that you provide massive value to, people who need what you are selling.

When a prospective client hears or reads your elevator pitch you want them to feel a sense of relief that they have finally found exactly what they were looking for.

You also want to explain the specific results they can expect from your products or services.

For example I could say, “I’m a marketing consultant”.

Or “I’m a copywriter”…Boring!!!

What about this…

“I provide marketing education and automated, low cost lead generation and sales strategies for small local business owners so they can survive and flourish in their first 5 years of business.”

This talks directly to a very specific market that I serve and what results I will achieve for them. It gives my clients and I a way to judge whether I have delivered on my promise.

This is what your Elevator Pitch must communicate too.

If you have a broad target market now is the time to start refining it. Add some more filters to become laser focused on the people you can serve best.

Write down your target market in one sentence.

Now I want you to add at least three more criteria until you are left with the perfect profile of the ideal customer you want to attract.

Step 3: Highlight The Problem You Solve

What is the most intense problem your target market faces that you can provide a solution for?

If you have done step 2 properly and been very specific about who you are talking to, uncovering their deepest fears and problems is much easier.

Using the above example again you can see that I know my clients are worried about the future of their business if they don’t find a way to generate a consistent stream of leads and sales.

When you clearly describe how you provide a solution to someone specific problem they will listen to you.

But this can’t be done by guesswork. It takes thorough market research, which is some of the most important work you will do in your business.

Forums, Amazon book reviews and competitive product review sites are some of the best places to start to uncover the real problems your customers are dealing with.

4: Benefits – Give It To Them Straight

Every business must deliver a specific benefit to your customers. If you didn’t why would they buy?

Your elevator pitch is not the time for technical details or in-depth product feature descriptions. We need to instantly communicate at a higher level what it will do for them.

Do you help them…

• Make more money
• Lose weight
• Free up more time
• Boost confidence
• Find a partner

Write down the top 3 ways you improve your customer’s lives. When writing your elevator pitch you want to weave all these benefits in somehow, which can be tricky if you’re not an experienced copywriter.

But keep at it. With practice refinement and strict editing you will improve your elevator pitch.

5: Provide A Simple Next Step

If someone is interested in what you have said you want to make it easy for them to find out more about you and what you do.

Similar to a “Call To Action” in a sales letter, you want to be very clear what a good prospect should do next.

Example:

“Here’s my business card you can download a (free report of some kind) from my website.”

“Here’s my business card, call my secretary and we can arrange to have a chat next week to see if I can help you”

“Do you know of anyone who might be interested in xxx”?

Of course the situation may not always call for a next step, but if you are talking to someone you want to connect with or do business with, you need to have a system in place that brings them into your sales funnel or makes it easy for them to find out more about you.

6: Test and Refine

Finally you want to test your elevator pitch, first with friends and family, then with colleagues and prospects. Gauge their reaction and ask for honest feedback about how engages they were.

What can you improve?

As with everything in marketing you want be constantly refining your systems to increase response rates and this is no different.

If you’ve followed the steps you’re ready to write and test your own elevator pitch.

Add yours to the comments section and I’ll provide feedback if I have the time.

Cheers,

James Brine
The Barefoot Marketer

P.S. If you want to grow your business you can access our Free online marketing training course here