As an entrepreneur and business owner you are likely to meet a variety of people in different circumstances at various meeting, events and conferences. You may also need to introduce your business via email to complete strange

In such situations, you have seconds to inform someone on what you do and the best way to do that is via a compelling Elevator Pitch.

It is thus surprising that a large number of business owners have not spent the time to develop their elevator pitch and as a result often find it difficult to articulate their business offering.

An elevator pitch provides a succinct overview of your business and you should ideally develop two pitches. A brief ‘one sentence introduction pitch’, and a longer more informative ‘one minute pitch’ for when it is more appropriate to provide more information

This one-sentence statement explains what you do, who you serve and why it matters in a clear ad easy to understand manner.

Use the template below to create a pitch for your business

• My company – Name of your company
• Is developing – A defined offering
• To help – A defined audience
• Solve a problem – With
• Your solution – To do!

Example

My company, Super Duper Enterprises, has developed a new and innovative training and mentoring programme to support entrepreneurs launching a new startup create meaningful and sustainable companies through shared equity that encourages peer support.

Some information on how the sentence is developed

1. The defined offering
   Must be short, simple and capable of being understood by everyone, like “a SaaS platform”, “a mobile application”, “Brexit transition consultancy”.
2. The defined audience
   This is the group of people you are marketing your offering to. In the case of B2C it will be a specific demographic, such as “women age 25 to 35 years old.” In the case of B2B, it is more likely to be a job function at a type of corporation, such as “HR manager at technology startups”.
3. Solve a problem
   Now that you have stated your offering helping a particular audience you need to state the problem you are solving.

   The problem needs to be specific and something that everyone can understands, such as “reduce the time in collecting invoices” or “creating an immersive entertainment experience.”

4. Your solution
   The final component – your own unique approach to solving the problem, such as “send automated sequence of alerts at pre-set intervals” or “creating virtual worlds in relation to the players profile and ability”.

Another example:

My company BOGOF, has developed an ecommerce website to help female consumers aged between 18-25 shop for the latest handbags and shoes at wholesale prices, with automated updates when prices are lowered, and special offers are announced.

Please use the editable’ forms in the following page and refer to the London Business Hub example as a guide

Once you have developed your elevator pitch you can now move to developing a longer one-minute pitch which can be used on occasions where you need to provide more than a simple introduction.

This one-minute pitch will contain the following additional information.

• The size and value of the market your business is in
• Your competition and how you differentiate your offering
• The current state and level of traction you have achieved
• Your CTA (Call to Action) – what do you require from the person you are pitching to