Guest Post by Barbara Lopez – ” The Elevator Pitch Coach”

When was the last time someone asked you, “What do you do?”, and you promptly…drew a blank.  You KNOW what you do, but the challenge is taking everything that’s great about you and what you have to offer and condensing it down to a quick answer, wouldn’t you agree?

Many people avoid networking with people because of this very reason. Professionals often tell me that they don’t actively attend networking functions because they feel like they “don’t get anything out of them”. The biggest reason they may feel this way is because they don’t have an effective 30-second elevator pitch or verbal commercial.

This can be solved with one piece of action: being prepared with a clear, concise 30-second elevator pitch. Putting in even just a little bit of preparation before hitting your next networking function or opportunity does wonders for how effective your elevator pitch will be. This is especially crucial when you’re giving your elevator pitch in a “round robin” situation, introducing yourself to an entire room at once, like at a group function (Chamber or leads group function).

The very first thing you want to do is determine what your goals are for your elevator pitch. But what should those goals be? Allow me to share with you the four most important goals of an effective elevator pitch:

Make a good impression. If you’re attending a networking function to promote your business and make new contacts, you are investing not only your time, but sometimes your money (if there is a cost involved). The quickest way to make sure your investment works for you is to make a good impression. If you’re doing this in a “round robin” situation, and it’s your turn to give your elevator pitch, all eyes and ears are on you. This your chance to show that you are professional, approachable, and most of all an expert at what you do. Although sometimes it feels like an eternity, 30-seconds really does go by in a blink, so you really want to wow the room, and leave them with a great impression of you and your business.

The same can be said if you’re talking to someone in an individual one to one greeting, or even by introducing yourself over the phone.

Be clear and concise. The fastest way to making a good impression is making sure people understand who you are and what you do. Your language should be simple and easy to understand. You should be right to the point, and not leave anyone scratching their heads with confusion. Sticking to 30-seconds is extremely important as well, and will naturally show people you are able to explain what you do concisely. A typical 30-second introduction is usually only between 50 – 75 words. Take a look at your elevator pitch – is it within that timeframe, and is it easy to understand what you do?

Attract the audience/person to want to know more about what you have to offer. Again, you only have 30-seconds to pique interest, so you want to review the content of your elevator pitch and make sure that you’ve given them enough to want to know more. You can do this by simply having a call to action towards the end of your elevator pitch. A call to action simply means giving the audience/person something to do to get more information.

When giving your pitch “round robin style”, maybe you want people to come speak with you, or see a sample of your work following the meeting? Your goal should be to encourage conversation with people after the function. Will it happen every single time? Probably not, but if you have a great reason for people to approach you, your chances are higher of making a connection.

When giving your pitch in a one-to-one conversation, you want your elevator pitch to encourage the person whom you’re speaking to to want to know more. Their next question should be, “How do you do that?”. This opens up the conversation further, and allows you more time to explain the various services/products you have to offer.

Stand apart from your competition. If you’re attending a networking function, chances are there will be other people in the room who offer similar products or services as you, which is why it is critical to stand apart from your competition. There are many ways to do that, but the biggest one is just showing up with a professional elevator pitch (chances are, your competition won’t)! Think about who your competition might be, determine what the focus of their potential elevator pitch might be, and then make sure your elevator pitch rises above anything else.

The same can be said about a one-to-one introduction. When you introduce yourself, the other person will automatically think of someone else who does what you do – we can’t help it, it just happens. That’s why it’s even more important to be sure you don’t even give them the chance to do that. Instead, you need to immediately state why you’re different from your competition within that 30-second elevator pitch.

Whether you’re actively attending networking functions where you’re speaking to a group or just mixing individually with professionals, it’s important to go in with an effective elevator pitch. Using these four goals to focus on while working on your elevator pitch will set you on a focused course, and your time and effort for attending the function will be much more rewarded by filling your database with new contacts.

Don’t allow yourself to draw a blank when someone asks you what you do. Show up prepared, make a good impression, introduce yourself with a clear and concise 30-second elevator pitch, attract the audience to want to know more, and stand apart from your competition. You can do it! Now, go out there and knock their socks off!

Barbara Lopez, “The Elevator Pitch Coach” with Brightfarm Introductions, helps business professionals introduce themselves with high impact. Everything in business STARTS with an introduction. If you’re ready to learn how to introduce yourself and your business professionally and comfortably, visit Barbara at www.brightfarm.com. Be sure to sign up for free weekly tips on how to keep your introduction fresh.

Like this article? Barbara will be a guest on the From Bright to Brilliant Radio Show this Sunday, July12th @ 9PM EST.

Listen live @ www.blogtalkradio.com/taigoodwin

Register here for a reminder and replay link.

As “The Career Makeover Coach”, Tai Goodwin is on a mission to help ambitious individuals reinvent their professional lives by centering on their passion and purpose. Holding as a core belief that we are all called to divine purpose and gifted with a unique passion, Tai uses a results driven, spiritually grounded approach to help clients create career paths to support the lifestyle they desire. Whether it’s helping people go from embittered to empowered professionals or making the transition from employee to entrepreneur, Tai is committed to helping clients tap into their own potential for brilliance. Tai has been empowering others through teaching and coaching for over 14 years. A gifted and insightful communicator, Tai holds a Bachelor of Science in Elementary Education from Drexel University and a Master of Science in Education from Capella University. She has completed ASTD’s (American Society for Training and Development) Coaching Certificate program and is pursuing professional coaching certification through the International Coach Academy. Originally from Philadelphia, Tai currently lives in Delaware with her daughter. She is currently working on her first book: Reclaiming Your Brilliance: Seven Ways to Take Your Life from Bright to Brilliant.

Web site: http://www.careermakeovercoach.com

Thanks to Israelnewsletter.com for submitting this post:

Benzi Ronen is currently on a quest for his next start-up. He and his partner Yossi Pik recently launched Buddy Runner (www.buddyrunner.com ), a personal virtual fitness trainer for your mobile phone.  Israel Newsletter recently had the opportunity to sit with Benzi to learn about his newest venture.

***************************

Most recently Benzi was Vice President of Product Management and User Experience at SAP. Prior to SAP, he co-founded and was CEO of Octago Inc. based in San Francisco. He was a product manager at both Microsoft (Redmond) and Netscape (Mountain View) and completed an MBA at the University of Michigan and a BA in Sociology and Anthropology at Tel-Aviv University. He met his business partner, Yossi Pik, at SAP where they had a chance to work together and realize that their skills and passions were complementary.  Yossi was VP of Research and Development where he led a team of 70 people.  You can read more about Benzi’s “Journey of an Entrepreneur” via his blog at http://benzironen.wordpress.com

Give us the elevator pitch about BuddyRunner
Benzi Ronen, co-founder, Buddy Runner: Buddy Runner provides the capabilities of an expensive GPS enabled personal trainer on your Android phone. Buddy Runner allows you to monitor each run by recording your distance, pace, time, elevation, and route. A personal dashboard is created for viewing, analyzing and sharing your progress. With over 10,000 downloads during the first 4 weeks of our launch as well as  being one of the highest ranked applications within the Android Market, we are much better positioned to place our next big bet.

Our premise for Buddy Runner is that smart phones will become our personal assistants for different aspects of our lives. Examples include; help with administration, managing our social lives, shopping assistance, and the area we are focused on which is a person trainer to get you fit and live a healthier life.

The convergence between a cellphone in everyone’s pocket , computing power on small devices, and mobile high speed Internet access created the perfect storm for the next technological gold rush.   Smart phones are in their infancy but became top of mind when Apple released the iPhone.  Why was this a significant transitional event and what makes a smart phone different from the phones we have seen to date?

• Smart phones provide a technology platform that enable developers to easily develop applications and make use of the different functionality of the phone.
• Smart Phone providers succeeded in circumventing the telecommunication companies that had a lock on what could run on the phone by delivering a market place where developers could freely upload their applications and consumers could easily download them.  In addition, there is a payment scheme on the store which provides incentives for developers to let their imaginations lose.
• iPhone’s slick user experience and savvy marketing quickly turned a geeky concept into a must have consumer electronics device for everyone.

Given the openness of Google Android, is there a technical barrier to entry?  How will you differentiate?
BR: Yossi and I selected the Google Android platform as our beachhead before broadening to other smart phone platforms. Our rationale was driven by Google’s open platform approach which provided us with the ability to rapidly build, experiment, and iterate our technology development. This approach worked well since today we are able to leverage most of our technology investment (server side) as we traverse to additional smart phone devices.

The tsunami of smart phone applications (already over 25,000 for the iPhone) make it difficult to gain market attention. Most of the applications being offered involve relatively little development (less than 30 days of development), don’t have any technological patents and have a short shelf life since their cache wears off quickly. As a result, the application demand behaves similar to movie box office hits. There is a short window of opportunity to materialize a big hit and the general public’s attention quickly moves on to the next new thing.

With Buddy Runner we have focused on a lifestyle category. We don’t expect to appeal to the masses but are rather focused on gaining the attention of a homogeneous segment of users that run at least once a week outdoors, are interested in tracking their results, and are willing to run with their cellphone which they often also use as their music player. This group becomes a diehard segment since the application becomes more meaningful as it contains more of your personal workout data.

What is the next step for BuddyRunner?  Risks?
BR: Since we are bootstrapping the company, we need to quickly determine the best way to monetize our success without challenging our popularity among users. We are constantly debating our long term vision with the need to generate revenue in the short term.

The fitness category has a many large gorillas which have a big interest in securing their positions. Nike and Apple released a joint offering (Nike Plus) which includes a pedometer within the shoe that communicates with the iPod.  Garmin, Polar, Suunto each have their version of high end fitness watches. Each company is trying to leverage their strength (brand, market traction, technology) in order to become the leader in this category.
It is clear to us that we will not be able to become a significant contender by playing by the same rules. Our product roadmap depends on utilizing the unique benefits of a smart phone and incorporating them into your workout in a way that none of our competitors are capable of doing. In addition, we need to ensure we differentiate ourselves among other fitness application running on smart phones so that we can justify charging a fee that will provide us the gas to bootstrap our way to the future.

Enjoy your Run!

As seen on the TheMomEntrepreneur, a great site for information regarding working mothers, raising kids, and running your own business.

********************************

In The Mom Entrepreneur Online Support Group, I recently posted a topic on how to secure investment money to start or grow a business. There is a speed venture summit coming to our area hosted by the NH High Tech Council and I am considering presenting my business plan for The Mom Entrepreneur.

I asked members of the group if they had any advice. Julie Lenzer Kirk, president & CEO of Path Forward International offered the following tips:

• Know the forum, respect the forum. If you have 2 minutes, do not go over by even a second. If they give you an outline, follow it.
• Know what type of investor you’re pitching to. Angels are different than VC’s and will be listening for different things
• Be able to tell the investor how they will make their money back, how much they will make, and when.
• Focus on the problem you’re solving and monetize it if you can.
• Have a compelling elevator pitch ready and practiced. Include the market size (in $) where you can. For example, “We are targeting the 10M women entrepreneurs” is not as compelling as “We’re going after the $10B women entrepreneurs are spending on x”.

Susan Marks, CEO of Pinstripes, Inc. suggests checking out the Kaufman Foundation website. This organization is dedicated to all things entrepreneurial, and is a great resource for a wide variety of information, education, tools and connections.

Susan is both an experienced angel investor and a recipient of venture capital. She also recommends the book “Winning Angels: the 7 Fundamentals of Early Stage Investing” because it helped her think about her business plan and company from the investors perspective. “For a young company and entrepreneur, this is invaluable in shaping the message to the investor community.” Thanks to our members for their helpful information.

Traci Bisson has been a mom since February 2000 and an entrepreneur since August 2000. Eight weeks after she returned from maternity leave, the company where she had been employed for five years went out of business. She decided to try doing her own thing and failed miserably. After another year of working for two different companies (the first laid off the department she worked in and the other was showing signs of going under), she decided to try entrepreneurship again. Raising her two children and growing her company, Bisson Barcelona, has been both challenging and rewarding. Her story has been told in dozens of publications, including the Associated Press, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB.com), Plan Ahead Get Ahead (cover story), Union Leader, The Portsmouth Herald, Our Times and Seacoast Ventures.