An elevator pitch can be a key piece of networking and growing your business. It’s part of an effective communication strategy. Writing a good elevator pitch forces you to reflect on yourself and what it is you are actually doing. You are streaming lining the overall purpose of your business or skillset and learning how to efficiently communicate it.

Here are the steps to writing a good elevator pitch.

1. Identify your goal.
You should have a goal in mind that you are trying to achieve with your elevator pitch. Are you trying to sell your product? Are you trying to land the job? Or are you trying to get a new client?

Once you have determined what it is you are trying to do, you can then focus on the most effective way to say it. 

2. Find the Problem
No matter what the goal of your elevator pitch is you are solving some kind of problem. In order to write a captivating and effective elevator pitch you have to know exactly what problem you are solving. If your business makes a product, what problem does that product solve? If you are offering some kind of service what problem does that service solve? Even if you are looking for a job, that job is solving a problem that your employer has.  If you can start your Elevator pitch by identifying a problem that your audience can relate to, they are going to be much more interested in what you have to say next.

 
3. Your Solution
Now that you have identified a problem, what solution do you have for that problem? Is that solution different from the solution that your competitors offer? This is a good place in your Elevator pitch to include a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). If you don’t have one, get one. It’s one of the most important pieces of your Marketing and Branding efforts.

4. Show results
What results can be expected after you solve the problem you have identified. The more specific you can be with results, the better. Bring up case study examples, insights past customers have had, or examples of positive reviews. Any type of measurable test would be a great example to include in this section of your Elevator Pitch. 

5. Revise
The idea behind an elevator pitch is to be effective and to the point. It gets its’ name from about how long it takes to ride in an elevator with someone. Think, 30 seconds. After you have written down everything you can think of about the Problem, the Solution and the Results, you should revise all that information into something that takes about 30 seconds to say. Take out everything that’s not necessary. Try not to repeat yourselves and speak in a way that flows well. 

6. Be ready for questions
A good elevator pitch should be one that invokes a conversation. Ideally, whoever you just spoke with should have questions. If they have questions, they are genuinely interested in what you do. Be ready to stick around and talk a bit more about what it is that you are up to. If you don’t have time for a real conversation be ready with a business card. If you elevator pitch doesn’t get you a genuine conversation it’s probably not going to get you to you goal of landing a job, selling a product or getting a new client. 

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