Elevator Pitching over Christmas?
At Christmas time, as Hollywood would have it, we all return to the home fires and meet up with old friends and their interesting friends, partners and take a break from our work lives….don’t we?
The reality is often not like the movies. In my experience, suddenly we are thrust into a world of mixture, where we can’t choose our companions as much as we usually do, where we need to make conversation with people outside of our immediate bubbles and soon enough the dreaded question will come. “So, what do YOU do?” It has to come, doesn’t it? It’s the ice-breaker, the easy question, the one that throws the ball into our court but how will you choose to handle it.
On the one hand the answer seems to us so dull that perhaps one wonders if we will even try to answer it. Over the years I have come up with all sorts of replies, all based on some sort of reality. “Zoo-keeper” was my firm favourite as I actually did have some experience of zoo-keeping in Western Australia when I was in my late teens. It gets the right sort of reaction too. An unexpected smile, lifting of the eyebrows, opening up of the face and an inquisitive follow-up interest in what I did, why I did it, what animals I looked after; washing the miniature hippos was my favourite as it happens.
In reality, as a professionally qualified chartered accountant, you might understand my dilemma. No happy smile for me if that is how I choose to introduce myself. Not even from my mate’s kindly Granny. Nope. Currently my daily professional life needs a new Elevator Pitch to match a new project that I am working on. The project's pretty interesting, it could appeal to even a non-financially minded Granny, but I have already fallen flat on my face more than once so far when talking about it. It is going to take some effort to get it right though, if I am going to hold people’s interest for more than 20 seconds.
So I have done my research, delved back into my career and come up with some foolsafe methods that I am going to use this year-end with some extra festive cheer.
First off, the secret to all good tales is the story hook. You know, “the biggest fish in the world is on the line, 100 miles from land and the boat is taking on water” kinda hook, leaving the audience gasping to know more; why you were there, whether you or the fish would make it etc. ?
Hmmh…not so easy. But in truth it's not so hard either. It could be a big deal you are working on or in my current case a new concept that I am trying to figure out. The hook is about peril, it raises the question “What will the outcome be?” and happily the audience doesn’t need to love fishing, deal making or new concepts for them to care. What they do need is to immediately understand your plight, build sympathy for your outcome and this will naturally lead to them wanting to hear more.
Once the hook is planted successfully, then it's time for the exciting part, the duel. But now you need to take into account the audience. Granny doesn’t do big deals in the financial markets but she probably does smaller deals all the time so knows that there’s a game of wits to be played. So before you even start on your pre-prepared Pitch, you’ve got to talk to her first to find out what she has to contend with every day, where it hurts and how she copes. It may be that she needs to persuade the dog not to bother the hedgehogs, or get Grandad to wash the dishes or she has had to negotiate while buying her veggies at the local market. If it is a teenager, they may have to negotiate their allowance with the parents or to be in the right group at school. Whichever, once you know something more, when it’s time for you to describe your duel, you can do so with reference to their daily duels. Perhaps hearing about yours will help them to solve theirs better, or vice-versa? Have you ever fallen asleep in a presentation, perhaps a movie or a lecture? I bet you didn’t when you were part of the action such as at a live comedy show but being just part of a passive audience gets pretty dull after a while. So focus on short pithy comments, about the benefits or outcomes for whoever wins the duel rather than just describing the contents (aka features) of your project. You want to leave gaps, get the other person to naturally ask questions. Personally this is my downfall. I want to just say what I have to say in my logically constructed manner and then it's done, however boringly. Phew! It’s off my chest - now it's your turn, yawn. Bad plan, need to change, must learn to follow my own advice.
OK - so you’ve learnt something about who you are talking to, found out that the plumber ripped them off last week and told them that you are helping to make pets fitter than they used to be. They are intrigued, asking you questions about how and why and you have control of the conversation. Congratulations - the main battle is won, now you need to complete your mission. There are a few points that you need to try to cover if you want to get out of there in good order, with the message properly delivered and your audience chasing you around the Christmas tree to find out how the story pans out.
Who are you? One sentence only. “I am a Father; Son; Brother; Partner.” Perhaps a bit pithy for Granny but better than “I am a Chartered Accountant of England & Wales”.
What do you do? Focussed on what benefit you bring rather than what you do. “I try to save innocent people from jail” works better than “I am a criminal barrister”.
How do you go about it? "I spend my days surrounded by clever people or beautiful surroundings or solving intricate problems." Whatever makes you happy about the world because you don’t want people to feel sorry for you from the outset. Do you? No you don't, I promise you.
Why does it work? Now’s the time to dazzle them with what is particularly different about whatever it is that you are doing. If you have invented a new vacuum cleaner then tell them about why all vacuum cleaners used to be designed in one way, and why you decided to do it differently.
End with a call to action. At a business networking event you can hand over a business card. Even better if you ask them for one of theirs along with their permission for you to contact them as a follow up. If it's a dating kinda chat then you could challenge each other to produce the best artly-crafted Xmas tree decoration before it's time to go home. Whatever is needed to let them know what they can do to follow up and hear more, and importantly how to do it.
So, I know it's another COVID Christmas and the chances of getting to try out these moves are shortening by the day. But I would say one last thing. If you think that you can do all of this off the cuff, well you are a better person than most of the top politicians, orators, actors in the world. Virtually everyone who does this successfully puts in a lot of practice before going out. It's time for an extended break with the notepad and the mirror I am afraid.
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