How do you meet someone and immediately get them interested in who you are and what you are doing? Create a super polished 30 second elevator pitch.
So when you begin putting an elevator pitch together, nail down the best way to describe your unique selling proposition—Hi my name is Toby Salgado and I am the downtown condo expert and I help people find the best deals to invest in— for example. Until you can be very clear on what you do—nobody can help you find it.
2. Put it on paper. Write down everything you’d want a to know about your skills, accomplishments and work experiences that are relevant to your target position. Then grab a red pen and mercilessly delete everything that’s not critical to your pitch.
Keep editing until you’ve got the speech down to a few key bullet points or sentences. Your goal is to interest the listener in learning more, not to tell your whole life story. So remove extraneous details that detract from your core message.
3. Format it. A good pitch should answer three questions: Who are you? What you do? and How you can help–
Here’s an example of how to begin a pitch that includes the essentials: “Hi. I am Toby Salgado. I am a realtor with 10 years experience of selling downtown luxury property
That speech would take about 15 seconds. Jessica would then want to use her next 15 seconds to add details about her unique selling proposition, special skills and specific ways she could help a person or family
4. Tailor the pitch to them, not you. It’s important to remember that the people listening to your speech will have their antennas tuned to WIFM
your speech will have their antennas tuned to WIFM (What’s in It for Me?) So be sure to focus your message on their needs.
For example, this introduction: “I am a real estate agent with 10 years experience selling downtown luxury property.
The pitch would be more powerful if you said, “I am a realtor with 10 years experience selling downtown luxury property with a strong track record of getting my clients the most money in the shortest amount of time—
Using benefit-focused terminology will help convince an interviewer that you have the experience, savvy and skills to get the job done at his or her business.
5. Eliminate industry jargon. You need to make your pitch easy for anyone to understand, so avoid using acronyms and jargon that the average person or job interviewer might not understand. The whole industry designation stuff ABR ABRM ALC CCIM CIPS CRB CRE CRP CRS CSP ePro GRI LTG QSC SIOR SRES I see a lot of this and to most people these designations dont mean anything
The last thing you want to do is make your listener feel stupid or uninformed.
6. Read your pitch out loud. As Fast Company’s Deborah Grayson Riegel recently pointed out in her article “The Problem With Your Elevator Pitch and How to Fix It,” writing is more formal and structured than speaking. If you’re not careful, your elevator pitch can come off sounding more like an infomercial than a conversation.
Reading it aloud then tinkering with the words will help you sound more authentic.
7. Practice, practice, practice (then solicit feedback). Rehearse your pitch in front of a mirror or use the recording capabilities of your computer, so you can see and hear how you sound.
This might feel awkward at first, but the more you practice, the smoother your delivery will be.
Keep tweaking your pitch until it no longer sounds rehearsed. When your presentation is polished to your satisfaction, try it out on a few friends and ask them what they thought your key points were. If their response doesn’t square with your objective, the speech still needs work.
8. Prepare a few variations. You might want to say things slightly differently to an interviewer than to a former colleague. Also, sometimes you’ll just have 15 seconds for a pitch (kind of a short elevator ride), other times you may have a minute or two.
So focus on mastering a few key talking points then work up ways to customize your speech for particular situations.
Use the word count feature on your computer to create shorter and longer pitches; a good rule of thumb is that you can say about 150 words in one minute.
9. Nail it with confidence. The best-worded elevator pitch in the world will fall flat unless it’s conveyed well.
When you give the speech, look the person in the eye, smile and deliver your message with a confident, upbeat delivery.
Get your pitch right and you will start seeing more numbers on the board
This was written by Toby Salgado–@superagentslive
