If you want to set yourself up for a successful professional conversation, you need to introduce yourself in a compelling way.
Whether you’re in an interview, at a networking event, or you just had a spontaneous encounter with someone in your line of work, a simple elevator pitch is an effective way to deliver a quick, personal summary of yourself to others.
What Is An Elevator Pitch?
An elevator pitch is a short but memorable summary of yourself presented in the form of a persuasive speech that you can use to introduce yourself or what you have to offer.
The term was coined based on the amount of time it should take to deliver the speech, which is roughly 30-60 seconds or about 75 words.
An elevator pitch, also known as elevator speech, is useful when you want to explain concepts quickly and clearly. It helps you spark interest in the person you’re addressing about who you are and what you do.
The pitch or speech also helps you give a quick answer to the “What do you do?” question. This is why it should be so compelling that once you’re done talking, the other person likes you enough to give you money for your product or hire you for the job.
Ideally, elevator pitches should be short and sweet, but it should also spark a meaningful conversation without the forced sales pitch.
You can use an elevator pitch in several situations. For instance, you can use it as a good framework when planning to answer questions at a job interview, or as a cover letter and summary statement that tells people who you are.
Elevator pitches also come in handy at networking events, during spontaneous encounters like cocktail parties or at the supermarket. You can also use it in speaking engagements or in your online profiles.
Whether it’s your first time or you’re a seasoned professional, we’ll share 15 best elevator pitch examples to help you nail any situation you may find yourself in.
Best Elevator Pitch Examples
If you want to create a pitch that’s informative and engaging, here are some great examples you can take inspiration from and find one that best fits your value proposition and personality.
1. The formal pitch
If you want to get people interested, you need to present a formal elevator pitch that captures your unique selling proposition.
This type of pitch is ideal for when you’ve landed a meeting and you need to sell yourself or your product as professionally as possible. Make sure you dress formally when going to make your presentation.
Example of a formal elevator pitch
My name is John Doe, CEO of XYZ Inc. Our company deals in outsourcing software for small business owners who need help with mundane and repetitive office support tasks.
Unlike competing software, our outsourcing tool identifies your pain points and delivers a report with valuable recommendations to help you know the exact tasks to outsource.
Would you like a free trial to learn how it works?
2. The business pitch
When you’re pitching to entrepreneurs or business owners, the elevator pitch won’t be the same as other encounters. It’s even harder to sell to this lot because they often hesitate when someone wants to sell them something new.
Using business examples when explaining the problem and how you’ll solve it will help you with this kind of pitch. Ideally, you should explain what you do in a simple way, not overly technical.
Identify your unique business proposition, use numbers to back up your value, ask engaging questions, and have your business cards ready. You may not succeed the first time but keep trying several times until you’re successful.
Example of an elevator pitch to business owners and entrepreneurs
My company provides valuable content for business and corporate blogs (what your business does).
That means three things: added value to your target audience, two: increased traffic and three: higher engagement, all of which dramatically boost sales, revenue and business growth (unique business proposition).
We helped our last client increase their revenue by 150% year-on-year (hard figures behind your results).
Does your company have any experience with content marketing (engaging question)?
3. Attention-grabbing stats
This elevator pitch starts you off with a hook, which includes dropping savvy statistics that will get the attention of the listener.
You need to have hard data to back up your stats and ensure they’re accurate before making the pitch. At the end of the pitch, come full circle by connecting how you can help solve the statistic for the listener.
Example of an elevator pitch with statistics
Did you know that despite the presence of cheaper smartphones, only 48 percent of the world’s population own a smartphone?
That’s 3.8 billion out of 7.7 billion, which is the total global population. In addition, only 4.8 billion own a smart and feature phone, which makes up 62 percent of the world’s population.
No wonder brands need help with product research and design. Implementing ideas from the consumer can decrease time spent on R&D and help increase products that will reach the target audience.
4. Short and sweet elevator pitch
Elevator pitches are designed to be short and sweet so you can pass your point across without seeming too salesy or wordy.
As one of the most common elevator pitch types, it doesn’t mean it’s the best, but it’s a great example of an easy and quick pitch for any scenario. When working on a short and sweet elevator pitch, make sure it’s short, transparent and precise while sticking to the 30-second rule.
Example of a short and sweet elevator pitch
The problem is that handling office support issues is difficult, regardless of the industry you’re in or how efficient you are as a manager.
But a good outsourcing structure can help you improve productivity, communication and give you time to focus on your core business.
I haven’t had to juggle too many support services in years. If you’re interested in how outsourcing can help your management team, give me a call and I can take you through some ideas.
5. The one-liner elevator pitch
One-liners are easy to remember, short and precise. However, you need to be able to pull it off with your listener so you can make a grand exit that will leave them impressed.
Unlike the usual one-liners that are predictable and bore the listener, you need to create authentic one-liner elevator pitches that match your personality and what you do. This way, you’ll leave the listener with a thought that will linger long after your meeting.
You can share a question or surprising statistic that resonates with them or their business.
Example of a one-liner elevator pitch
One in four workers in America are expected to work remotely through 2021. That’s a little over 26 percent of the American workforce expected to work from home because of the effects of the global pandemic.
With the right remote working tools, that number could be much higher for businesses that need to scale down or restructure.
The question is, can your business afford not to use remote working software?
6. Storytelling elevator pitch
You can also tell a personal story or use customer testimonials to paint a picture for your listener or target audience.
This is especially useful if what you’re trying to explain is complex and needs more than 30 seconds to do. A story also adds a relatable twist to your elevator pitch.
Example of a storytelling elevator pitch
We have a client that transitioned from a legacy system to a fully automated system this year and needed help making sure the systems merged and worked well.
With our help, they were able to successfully save 30 percent in costs and get more time to focus on their core business.
7. The Relatable elevator pitch
Using a relatable personal anecdote is a great way to grab your listener’s attention and reel them in.
Not only does it help them relate to what you’re saying, but it also helps drive your solution home. This method also adds more weight and helps you make a personal connection with the listener instead of trying to get a quick sale.
Example of a relatable elevator pitch
I’m glad to have finally met you. How is work coming along?
I heard you were struggling with office support issues. My team and I struggled with that too for a while, until we outsourced that arm of our business.
We started seeing improvements in our work and overall productivity. I hope you find a solution that will work for your organization.
8. Use Questions
If you want to make your pitch easy to comprehend for your listener, you can use questions. Not only does it spark interest in them, but it also forces them to join in on the conversation instead of you presenting a 30 seconds speech to them.
You can start and/or end with a question that will make the listener think about your pitch even after you have left the room.
Example of an elevator pitch with questions
Do you ever feel like you spend too much time on office support work and it’s taking a toll on your core business?
I’ve had a chat with several people who share similar frustrations. I used to work long hours every day managing the front office, clerical duties and errands just trying to balance everything together.
But do you know what? Ever since we started outsourcing our work, we’ve been able to get so much more of our main work done.
Have you tried to outsource your office support roles in the past?
9. The pitch with a comical twist
Not all pitches are created around serious issues. You can still add a comical twist to your elevator pitch to engage your listener, especially when giving a presentation.
This also acts as an ice breaker especially if you’re meeting the group for the first time and need to create rapport.
You can add an entertaining video or GIF in between your slides to lighten things up and put everyone at ease. However, make sure the pitch fits the tone of your company and the occasion.
Example of an elevator pitch with a comical twist
Did you know that the human brain can only handle two tasks at a time?
That explains why I can’t eat and type at the same time. Maybe that’s why my keyboard keys get stuck all the time.
But seriously, I think that’s why so many business owners struggle to get everything done and juggle with different roles just to get client work done.
By outsourcing your work, you can focus on your core business and leave the mundane and repetitive tasks to the experts.
10. The written elevator pitch
Many speeches begin with a general outline that guides you on what to talk about and what to include as you prepare your speech.
You can write your entire elevator pitch from the start to the end. This way, you can create a poetic flow and thought-provoking speech, from which you can present your pitch.
However, you need to practice a lot to memorize the pitch and have it at your fingertips.
Example of written elevator pitch
Hi, my name is Sam! It’s so great to finally meet you. You work for XYZ Inc. right?
I’ve heard a lot about them. I actually heard that you need outsourcing experts for your office support work. In my experience, any company – whether procurement or sales – needs help to coordinate their work and their teams.
Work can get chaotic, especially with the current global crisis, which is why outsourced help is important. That’s why we’ve created a software tool that helps you and your team organize your office support roles in one place.
Have you ever thought about outsourcing your administrative tasks?
11. The emotionally driven elevator pitch
The emotionally driven elevator pitch is a little harder to create compared to the ones we’ve looked at so far.
You have a better chance of winning over your listeners if you can create and deliver an emotionally driven pitch. This is because they would be more willing to share your experience with others in their line of work or industry.
Make sure you share emotions that are lighter to lighten the mood in the room, and keep the conversation from steering to heavy emotions that border on the darker side of things.
Example of an emotionally driven elevator pitch
It may look like any other software, but if you take a closer look, it really is helping business owners save time and costs they’d otherwise have spent doing the work themselves.
Not only that, but outsourcing software helps business owners cultivate better relationships with their clients and actually enjoy doing their work because they no longer have to focus on support roles.
That’s something that’s hard to come by, but something every business owner looks for.
12. The credibility boosting elevator pitch
This kind of elevator pitch demonstrates your authority before your listener or audience. It also reinforces how strongly you dislike a particular issue and uses a common metaphor to highlight the ease that you or your offering brings.
Example of a credibility boosting elevator pitch
As a business development professional at XYZ Inc., I talk to hundreds of business owners every month. And 98 percent of them hate having to deal with office support issues. It’s not only tedious, but time-consuming and is usually not their highest priority.
That’s where our outsourcing tool comes in. The tool pulls from your data to identify the mundane and repetitive tasks that take up your time and delivers a report with recommendations on what to outsource and what to keep.
13. The surprise ending elevator pitch
The surprise ending elevator pitch is effective because it illustrates the value of your product or your service in a creative way. You also have to compare your listener’s current situation to a better situation that they aspire to.
Example of an elevator pitch with a surprise ending
You want to know how much time you spend on office support duties vis-à-vis acquiring new clients and getting client work done.
But, you realize you spend so much time on calls, errands, clerical duties and administration that you barely have time to complete client work or get new leads and customers. How long would it take you to complete everything in a day?
If you had XYZ Inc’s outsourcing software, you’d already know. It identifies the issues in your office and the mundane or repetitive tasks from your data and creates a report with recommendations.
14. The reality check elevator pitch
The reality check elevator pitch is designed to spark frustration in your listener based on their pain points. Plus, it helps them realize the true benefits of your offering, and how your product or service works with a simple example.
Example of a reality check elevator pitch
Every day, the average small business owner spends almost half of their day trying to juggle office support and business client work.
Most of the time, client work is barely glanced at, or worse, it could be ignored at the expense of other repetitive and mundane tasks.
XYZ Inc. is a gamechanger as it stores all your business data and delivers a report with recommendations. For example, you’ll get pie charts of the tasks you do every day, month or week along with the time taken in hours. This helps you see what you can outsource so you can focus on your core business.
15. The mutual connection elevator pitch
This type of pitch helps you build trust with your listener or audience and uses references that allow you to share results that your listener can verify.
Example of a mutual connection elevator pitch
To my understanding, we have a mutual – John Doe. He’s actually one of our customers. His SME was able to reduce costs and save on time by leveraging our outsourcing solution.
Since you’re industry partners of similar scale, you’d likely see similar results in your own SME.
Would you like to hear more about what we did for John’s business and what we could do for you?
How to Write an Effective Elevator Pitch
Here are a few tips on writing and delivering an effective elevator pitch:
- Develop the pitch with a focus on your background and immediate goals
- Practise the pitch and refine it.
- Avoid speaking too fast
- Refer to the person’s position or company when speaking
- Speak naturally and in a strong voice so you don’t sound too rehearsed or make the pitch feel forced
- Use plain language that any listener can understand and save the jargon for technical interviews
Wrapping Up
Whether you’re pitching for yourself or on behalf of your business, an elevator pitch is a great way to organize your thoughts and prepare for the real deal.
Any of these 15 elevator pitches on our list are a great way to start a conversation and spark interest in your audience. For best results, tailor them to the situation at hand and to your target audience.
Images from Pixabay, Pexels, Unsplash
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