6 New Pitches to Replace Your Elevator Pitch

I just finished teaching a class to another group of students on how to look for a job. One of the exercises is to create your elevator pitch. As I explain to them, as a job seeker you are in sales. What you are selling is you, no matter what your degree is and what job you are going for.
Students of mine! If you are reading this, does any of it sound familiar? Thanks Peter for writing down this great advice.
Ev


6 New Pitches to Replace Your Elevator Pitch
6-new-pitches-to-replace-your-elevator-pitch
by Peter Rathmann   

The following is a summary from"To Sell is Human" by author Daniel Pink.

We are all in "Non-Sales Selling"

You don't have to be a sales person to be in sales today. According to Daniel Pink, everyone in an organization spend 24 minutes of every hour trying to persuade, influence, and convince others to move. He calls it non-sales selling because it does not require anyone to purchase anything but in our world, that is still considered selling. You are simply trying to get others to move in a direction that you want them to go. But how do you get them to move? How do you sell them on moving?

Start with the end in mind

In today's world which is full of distractions, we get a very limited time to be in front of people to talk therefore your message has to be concise and to the point in a way that people can hear and understand simply. Ask these three questions when you are formulating your message:
1.What do you want them to know?
2.What do you want them to feel?
3.What do you want them to do?
Using these tree questions will help provide clarity to your message. Now, how do you deliver it?

Use one of these 6 different pitches for different opportunities

How may of us have been told to develop and "Elevator Pitch" at sales classes for networking events and any time we had the opportunity to tell someone what we do? Today, we have many other opportunities to get our message out there and with all of the distractions that our audience has, we need to be concise and deliver our pitch in a way that is relative to the people we are trying to move in our direction.

1.The One-Word Pitch is mostly used in things like political campaigns and social movements. What is the one word that people will associate with how you are trying to move them. Words such as "forward", "solidarity", "joy", and "believe" all have meaning depending on who you are.
2.The Question Pitch should be used when your argument is strong and making a statement might not be the best approach. Ronald Reagan asked "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" to move people away from Jimmy Carter. "What is the cost of not doing this?" is a personal favorite of mine since people move when they can understand how much money they could lose if they do not make necessary changes.
3.The Rhyming Pitch is typically used to simplify how we process the information we hear. One of the most famous rhyming pitches was used by Johnie Cochran during the OJ Simpson trial when OJ could not get the famous black glove on his hand. "If it doesn't fit, you must acquit" became his battle cry for the closing arguments. "Woes unites foes" works better than "woes unites enemies" and "caution and measure will bring you treasure" work better than "caution and measure brings you riches"
4.The Subject Line Pitch can be very effective when you have to use email to try and move people. Did you know that people and much more likely to open an email when they think they have something to lose or something to gain or the subject matter directly affects their work? Who would not open an email with the subject line:"Delivery options for dropping off your suitcase full of cash?"
5.The Twitter Pitch is quick, painless, to the point, cuts through all the PR babble, and forces people to summarize what they want you to hear in 140 characters or less. Be sure to make it 120 characters or less if you want it to be retweeted.
6.The Pixar Pitch involves six sequential sentences that Pixar executives have used to move the film industry to produce such academy award winning movies such as Finding Nemo, WALL-E, The Incredibles, and Toy Story 3. Try pitching your message in this format: Once upon a time_____________________. Every day, _________________. One day ________________________. Because of that, __________________. Until finally ______________.
The elevator pitch is not dead, it has just evolved to meet the need for us to communicate efficiently and effectively to the people we are trying to move. Feel free to contact us if you need help developing and integrating these new pitches.