How To Create The Best Elevator Pitch To Get Sales [3 Step Tutorial With Examples]
Created on: March 14, 2022 by Christopher Prouty
You know that you need to have an incredible elevator pitch.
But how do you write one?
I'm going to teach you the three key steps to writing your best pitch and give you some examples of what not to do.
Watch the training video here.
I'm going to show you how to write and deliver an elevator pitch that gets more sale and how to do it very easily.
You'll learn how to make every single word count.
And your audience is going to say, wow, without it seeming like you're trying so hard.
And as you watch this, please let me know what your biggest takeaways are.
I want to welcome you to this training called How Can I Pitch My Business in 30 Seconds?
And let's just get right into it.
Here's what we're going to learn today.
First of all, we're going to talk about the difference between an effective pitch and a pitch that falls flat.
And then I'm going to show you a scientifically tested pitch formula that flat out works, and you're going to be able to do it starting right now.
You're going to be able to go step by step right through that formula and create your own pitch.
And then we're going to finish off by talking about how to pitch your business in about 30 seconds.
All right, so here we go.
A poorly executed pitch.
We really do need to know the mistakes that so many people make when they're pitching.
And you see this all the time, especially when you're on the Zoom meetings where people are pitching or you might be at a Chamber meeting or a BNI meeting, wherever you happen to be.
And people are pitching, you see this all the time.
It just happens.
People spend more time talking about themselves.
They say, me or I more instead of talking about the transformation that they offer.
So always look at your pitches and say, Am I talking about me too much or am I spending more time talking about the transformation that I offer?
That's what people want to hear when you're pitching.
They want to hear about the transformation that you offer instead of always talking about yourself.
In fact, the moment you start to talk about yourself in a pitch, people kind of tune out and they really do stop listening and that makes you boring.
You don't want to be boring when you pitch.
So you watch these people when you're in these meetings and they're always talking about themselves, you're bored to death by that.
So it's time to stop, and it's time to start talking about the transformation.
I'm going to show you how to do that in this class today, okay?
A poorly executed pitch has no structure and just kind of goes in weird directions.
It's very hard to follow, and that makes it very difficult to know what to do next.
If you're the prospect and you're listening to that pitch, it doesn't tell a good story.
It doesn't captivate you in any way, and it's missing the details that you need.
If you want to know if you want to talk to that person more about what they do, and that leaves the prospect unsure of what to do next.
You're going to start to notice all of these things as you're listening to pitches after you go through this class.
An effective pitch showcases the transformation that you offer.
That's one of the most important things is being able to tell people about the transformation that you offer, and that needs to be a big part of your pitch.
And your pitch has to be engaging and energizing, has a structure and follows a path that tells a captivating story to your audience, has enough details to heighten the interest, but not so many details that people get freaked out and they stop listening to you and then provides clear direction on what to do next.
And that's so very important that you leave your audience with clear direction on the next the very next thing that you want them to do.
So let's go into this scientifically tested pitch formula that flat out works.
And I've been using this pitch formula for years and years, and it's one of the things that absolutely has caused my business to explode, especially when I'm talking to a group of people, and I'm able to give this pitch or a pitch that uses this formula.
You're ready to go?
Let's go.
So here are the three steps to this pitch formula, and they're all really easy to execute on.
First, we start out with a short impactful story.
Then we follow that with something called the PAS framework.
I'm going to describe what the Pas framework is as we get into it, but in short, it stands for problem, agitate and solution.
And that's a framework that we're going to use inside of this pitch formula.
And then we finish with a clear next step.
Sometimes you might call that a call to action.
So those are the three steps to a Wellstructured very effective pitch that is going to get you more sales.
You ready.
So we're going to start with an impactful story.
And this story, most importantly, should be true.
An audience is always going to be able to tell when you're making up a story.
They have this 6th sense for this.
So we start our pitch with an impactful story, something that is going to catch the attention of the audience and that is going to get them to focus on what you're saying.
Think about what everyone else's pitches sounds like it gets to that person.
And what do they start with?
They start with high, and then they say my name is and then they say their name, and then they tell you their entire life story.
Nobody wants to hear your life story in a pitch.
They want to hear what's in it for them if they work with you.
And a great way for you to tell them that is by sharing a very short and impactful story.
Think about what that's going to do when it comes to your turn to pitch.
When you're in a large group, it's going to just break everybody's consciousness so that they're focused on you because who starts a pitch with a story?
Well, you do.
And that's what's going to get people to really Zoom in on what you're saying.
Now this also works.
If you're one on one with someone, you're at a networking event, you're on a call, you run into someone at the grocery store.
You can start a pitch with a short impactful story.
In fact, I'm going to give you an example of one that literally just happened last week for me, and this is how I would start a pitch.
So it goes a little like this.
One of my clients has attracted so much business through social media that they were able to leave their traditional job and joyfully start their own business.
Imagine if I was in a room full of people who have all just started with Hi, my name is.
And instead they come to me and I say, one of my clients has attracted so much business through social media that they were able to leave their traditional job and joyfully start their own business.
That's going to catch people's attention every day of the week.
So what I want you to do is think about that short impactful story that you can tell.
Look at this.
It's just a couple of words.
It took me about 5 seconds to say maybe even less, maybe 3 seconds to say, and it caught the attention of the audience. All right.
So first step in your pitch is to start with a short impactful story.
Now you might be saying, hey, I don't have any stories.
I don't even have any clients.
What am I going to start with?
Instead of starting with a story, if you don't have any clients, talk about what it would be like if that story had existed.
You could say, like so many entrepreneurs I know want to quit their traditional jobs and start their own businesses.
So what we're doing is instead of telling the story, we're talking about the premise of the story.
So if you don't have any examples, if you don't have any clients, you're starting absolutely fresh.
You can still do this by introducing the premise of the story. Okay.
I hope that makes sense.
Let me know if it doesn't. Okay.
So step number one, we started with a short impactful story.
Now, step number two, we're going to follow the problem agitate solution framework.
This is the body of our pitch started with a story.
Now we're going to talk about the problem, then we're going to agitate the problem just a little bit, and then we're going to introduce that there's a solution.
Let me show you how each of these letters works within step two, within the Pas framework.
By the way, the Pas framework is not mine.
This thing has been around forever.
It's a very common framework in writing, but I like to take it and shift it into using it in pitching.
Let's get right into this.
So the P, that's where you talk about the problem that you solve.
You see, when you're talking to any audience, 3% of that audience has the problem that you solve and is ready to take the next step to find the solution.
And about 7% of that audience has the problem.
But they didn't know there was a solution.
So you've got about 10% of any audience, one in ten people who have the problem you solve and are ready to take the next step or could be ready to take the next step if you present a compelling pitch to them.
So think about that the next time you're talking to a group of people.
So it is very wise to start with the problem so that the people who have the problem perk up and start listening to you. Okay.
So the thing that you want to say right after you tell that short impactful story is you want to highlight the problem that you solve.
Let me give you an example.
This is how I would pitch my business, which is my online school that teaches entrepreneurs how to grow their businesses.
So I would start with my story and then I would go into the problem many entrepreneurs face is that they know they can use social media to attract an abundance of clients, but they have no proven plan to follow to do that.
So I've called out the problem and notice I also said entrepreneurs in there.
I'm calling out the audience that I want to talk to as well.
I'm not interested in talking to people who work at a job somewhere.
I'm interested in talking to entrepreneurs, people who are starting their own business or have started their own business.
So once again, the problem many entrepreneurs face is that they know they can use social media to attract an abundance of clients, but they have no proven plan to follow to do that.
Now you could take this exactly what I've written here and change it into something that works for you and for your business.
Okay, so we started with a compelling story.
Then we went into the PAS framework.
P is the problem that we solved.
And now we're going to move to A, which is the agitate part of the PAS framework.
So we're going to agitate the problem by presenting details about the problem that the reader or the listener might not have initially considered.
So when you move to the agitate, you're adding things to it.
You're showing that listener or that reader that you know a lot about this problem and you know about details that they might not even know about.
That's going to make you look like an authority and an expert.
So here's what that looks like in my pitch.
And it can be unsettling and frustrating, guessing at what to do or worse, taking advice from people who mean well but just don't have the experience of actually growing businesses through social media.
You end up with no clients feeling unconfident and unhappy with the time you wasted.
So what I've just done is I've agitated the situation a little bit.
I let them know that there are people out there who are giving them bad advice, even though these people might mean well.
And I let them know what happens if they don't start getting clients?
They end up with no clients and they feel unconfident in their business.
They feel unhappy with the time that they've wasted.
So all of this is adding to that unsettling and frustrating feeling that they have if they don't have that plan to start attracting clients.
Okay, so that's the A.
That's the agitate.
So for you, you have to add some details to the problem that you solve as you're talking about this.
So we just got through the A, and that means it's time to move on to the S, which is to introduce the solution that you offer.
Now, a key here when you're talking about the solution is don't go crazy with the details.
You're just pitching.
You might have 30 seconds or a minute.
You don't have a lot of time.
Don't go crazy with the details.
Just introduce the solution from a very high level, the people who are interested that going to step out of the shadows and start coming to you.
That's the time to give some details.
But we really don't want to give a tremendous amount of details when we're pitching because it's going to put people into a place where they're overthinking the situation and that's going to drive them away.
So we want to give them enough to keep them curious and interested, but not so much that they feel overwhelmed and they step away.
Here's my example of what it looks like for me.
That's why I built my online school that teaches entrepreneurs how to confidently attract high paying clients through Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites.
So there's my solution.
We had the story at the very beginning, and we talked about the problem.
Entrepreneurs not knowing how to attract clients through social media. We agitated.
It saying you end up feeling unsettled, frustrated, unhappy, unconfident, and you don't get any clients.
That's the perfect time to introduce the solution and the solution.
That's why I built my online school that teaches entrepreneurs how to confidently attract high paying clients through Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites.
I introduced the solution.
That leaves us with the last step, which is finishing with a clear next step.
We want to give people a call to action.
We want them to take the next step.
Now, depending on the situation that you're in, there's going to be different next steps that you're going to want people to take.
Sometimes you're just going to want to keep it very open and you're going to say something like, if you have any questions, I'm available to answer those.
And other times you're going to want to give people a direction to your calendar or to your email or to your website or to a landing page somewhere.
You're going to have to figure that out on a case-by-case basis.
So what I recommend doing is having a couple of different third steps that's finished with this clear next step.
Have a couple of different ones ready to go that you can use depending on the situation that you're in.
I'll show you examples.
I have three examples queued up for you.
So example number one, I would say, if this sounds like something that you and your business would benefit from, I'm open to showing you how it works. That's it.
I just left it very open. An invitation.
I'm open to showing you how it all works.
If you think this would benefit you, that's very open.
That would be great.
On a very large Zoom call, for example, or if you were talking at a Chamber meeting or in a BNI meeting, or if you were talking to a small group of people who this might be their first time meeting you, you're just saying, I'm not going to try to sell you here.
I'm just open to showing you how this works.
Example number one.
Example number two, of giving them that clear next step.
If this sounds like something that you and your business would benefit from, I'm open to showing you how it works on a twelve-minute call.
My calendar link is http://prouty. me.
So what I'm doing here is I'm giving them just that little bit more direction.
I can show them how it works.
It's only going to take twelve minutes.
That should reduce some friction for getting on a call with you.
And then I give my calendar link.
That really is my calendar link.
http://prouty.me
And so with this, it's very similar to example number one, which just says I'm open to showing you how it works.
But it takes it one step further and tells them what the actual next step is.
It's getting on a twelve-minute call, and you can line that up by getting on my calendar at proudly me as can you.
So let's then move on to the third example.
And the third example is a little bit different.
This works great.
One on one or one on very small group.
If I could show you the exact steps my client referencing the story from the beginning and thousands of others have followed to wildly grow their businesses, would that be of interest to you?
So what I'm doing is I'm finishing with a question, and this is great.
One on one or one on very small group, two, three or four people.
So if I could show you the exact steps my client and thousands of others have followed to wildly grow their businesses, would that be of interest to you?
And that is how we wrap up that pitch.
Now I'm going to take you through the entire pitch right now, starting at the very beginning with the story.
And it goes like this.
I'll just do the pitch from start to finish.
So it comes to being my time to pitch.
However, that happened to be one of my clients has attracted so much business through social media that they were able to leave their traditional job and joyfully start their own business.
The problem many entrepreneurs face is that they know they can use social media to attract an abundance of clients, but they have no proven plan to follow to do that.
And it can be unsettling and frustrating guessing at what to do, or worse, taking advice from people who mean well but just don't have the experience of actually growing businesses through social media, you end up with no clients feeling unconfident unhappy with the time that you wasted.
That's exactly why I built my online school that teaches entrepreneurs how to confidently attract high paying clients through Facebook, LinkedIn, and other social media sites.
If I could show you the exact steps my client and thousands of others have followed to wildly grow their businesses, would that be of interest to you?
Okay, so there it is.
There's my pitch from start to finish.
And let's talk about how to pitch your business in about 30 seconds.
That probably took a little bit longer than 30 seconds as I was doing that.
But if you need to keep it really tight, then let's be concise and to the point, let's make each word count, which means you're going to have to spend some time really practicing this and making sure every single word you use counts.
And I tried to do that throughout here, making sure that there wasn't a surplus of words that were saying the same thing over and over again.
So make sure every single word counts, and you want to paint a picture with the words that you use so important.
That's why starting with a story works so well because people will be able to place themselves in that story, especially when you're concise to the point every word counts.
Make sure you read the room and you know your audience.
So when you're pitching, you're not talking at too high a level or you're talking at too low a level, read the room, talk right at or just above the level of the audience that you're talking to.
What's incredibly important is that you take the time to practice your pitch because with practice comes perfection and it's going to feel very natural for you.
And clearly, this is a very short training video, and you have unique business and individual needs.
For this to truly work for you, you must make this work for your unique needs.
And I know that that can be difficult going at it alone.
That's why I'd like to offer you a free strategy session where we can look at your LinkedIn profile together, and I can make specific recommendations for you that will help move this forward fast.
Here is a link to my calendar.
If you're an entrepreneur or a solo prayer and you're serious about growing your business through LinkedIn, jump on my calendar.
We're going to spend about half an hour together working.
We're going to look at your LinkedIn profile, and I'm going to make specific recommendations for you so that you can get this done without having to guess and without having to wonder if you did it right.