Introducing a brand new business, or a startup happens every day, which is why having a short pre-prepared speech which can explain what the company does in a clear and succinct way is necessary for business owners. This short introduction is also called an elevator pitch, and it’s used to get others interested in what a company does. An elevator pitch is also useful to create more interest in a product, a project, an idea, or even a person, and it’s usually only a few sentences long.
Introducing a company isn’t just useful for sales people that are looking to pitch products or services, as they can be used to get other potential clients or even customers interested in a business. These short introductions can also be used to sell new ideas to business owners themselves, or inform other people about a change or a new initiative. Creating an effective introduction takes a little bit of time, but it’s always useful to have.
Goal
The first step in creating an effective introduction is to start thinking about the goal of the pitch itself. For example, the goal can be telling potential clients about a company’s product, or informing executives of a new product idea, or even creating a short speech on what someone does for a living.
Explanation
The next step is to describe what the company does, including the problems it solves and how it helps people. This is also the place to add any relevant statistics that can show the value in what the company does. When creating the explanation it’s best to ask what the audience should remember the most about the company.
However, it’s essential during this part to make the explanation exciting, as that’s the best way to get people’s attention. While not many will remember everything that the company does, or what the pitch includes, they will likely remember that exciting feeling.
Unique Selling Point
The short introduction should also communicate the company’s unique selling point, or USP. This means defining what makes the company, or the idea, unique from any other out there. The unique selling point is introduced after the short explanation of what the company does.
Question
After communicating the unique selling point of the company, it’s time to engage with the target audience – whether that’s potential clients, consumers, other brands, stakeholders, or even executives. The best way to engage them is to prepare some open ended questions which will involve the audience in the pitch, as a conversation. Aside from preparing the questions, it’s also important to prepare potential answers to the questions that will come from the target audience itself.
Practice
The last step is to put all of the previous sections together, and say them out loud using a timer to see how long it takes to get through all of the information. The entire speech shouldn’t be longer than about 30 seconds, otherwise the audience’s interest in it will start to decrease. That means if the speech goes over that time, it’s easy to cut out anything that shouldn’t be in it. Additionally, the shorter the speech is the better. Finally, as with everything else, practice makes perfect and both how things are said, as well as what is said are important.