THE DEATH OF THE ELEVATOR PITCH, May it rest in peace!
The elevator pitch is dead, may it rest in peace! Fact is, it’s been dead for quite a while now, but few know it. It just amazes me in this day and age that people who call themselves professional sales trainers are still teaching the elevator pitch as a viable tool. Flash to you, it’s dead, it’s archaic and it simply isn’t wanted or needed by consumers/prospects in today’s technology heavy, instant information gratification based world.
Let’s break it down. By definition alone the Elevator Pitch was designed to answer the question of, “What would you tell your perfect prospect if you’re locked into an elevator with them for 1 minute?” The inherent issue with that concept today is the world TELL!
No one who buys anything (goods or services) wants to or for that matter needs to be told anything. In the past prospects and customers alike welcomed, the TELL pitch. It was sometimes called the grocery list pitch because when a marketer would get in front of a prospect they would just go through a list TELLING the prospect about everything they offered and hoped that the prospect heard something that they didn’t know about and liked. But today is a very different story. Today, learning about your product and service is as easy as asking your mobile device for the answer that will come in seconds. Telling is becoming disrespectful. People don’t want to be told anything without first someone asking them what it is exactly that they want and need. How can we ever tell anyone what they need without asking them first? We can’t, but generations of sales people have been trained to do just that and sadly enough still are.
What consumers and prospects today really want, is to understand two things about you before they will ever agree to tell you their needs. This requires the creation of your POWERFUL MARKETING MESSAGE (PMM). The first element of your PMM deals with the first thing that a prospect wants to know and that is your emotional reason for doing what you do. Do you know WHY you do what you do? What is your purpose of doing what it is that you do and what does the consumer get out of it? You should be able to express this in under: 10 seconds.
The second element of our PMM deals with the second thing a prospect needs to know. This asks the question of HOW you do what you do. How do you go about achieving your WHY? Do you have a process that this is unique? Do you have a system that always gets the job done? What can you tell them in under a minute that they can’t find in an internet search about why they should buy something from you?
A well done PMM can be presented all in under one minute. No rambling. No bumbling or fumbling around looking for words. Your WHY and your HOW statements are and must be succinct, crisp and sure. Spend the time to get your PMM right and an amazing thing happens. You now have EARNED the RIGHT to sit down with your prospect and ASK the questions necessary to see if it makes sense, or not, for the two of you to work together. The client now can become the BUYER versus the TARGET!
The Powerful Marketing Message works, you should try it sometime. I guarantee that you’ll win more deals than you are right now….a whole lot more!
If you’re struggling with ridding yourself of the Elevator Pitch and building your PMM let me know. As a Master Business Coach, this is what I do and I’m open for business
As always, be GREAT!
Danny Creed
Real World, Transformational Business Coaching