Why You Need an Elevator Pitch

Great post by Michael Hyatt on the importance of being able to present your proposal quickly. Important for church planters!

Over the course of my career, I’ve listened to thousands of sales pitches. These have come from authors, speakers, vendors, employees, investors, and even politicians.

Some of these pitches were remarkable; most were not. Those making them squandered the opportunity to make the sale. What they needed was a carefully-crafted “elevator pitch.”

I’m sure your familiar with the concept. An elevator pitch is simply a short summary of your product offering, including your target market and your value proposition. The name comes from the idea that you should be able to deliver a succinct, compelling description of what you offer in the time it takes to ride an elevator up a few floors—approximately 30 seconds to two minutes.

The idea originated with entrepreneurs who needed to pitch their business proposals quickly to potential investors in order to secure funding. This enabled those same investors to quickly eliminate ideas that were ill-conceived or simply didn’t fit their investment profile.

In this short video, I explain why you need an elevator pitch (even if you are not looking for investors) and how you can create one. Specifically, I share: