Perfecting Your Pitch – 7 Questions in 60 Seconds
Posted on 06. Jul, 2010 by Matthew Toren in Business, Entrepreneurship
“What do you do?” It’s a simple enough question, and for many, the answer is simple and easy. If you work at a job, for example, it’s easy enough to say, “I’m an HR manager for Sears,” or “I’m a cashier at the Piggly Wiggly.” Even for some entrepreneurs the answer can be short and sweet. But if you’re interested in truly communicating what your company does in order to gain interest from a potential customer – or more importantly, a potential investor – some thought needs to go into your answer. In fact, whether you encounter a potential investor in an elevator and need to give your “elevator pitch” or you’re planning on attending a networking event, having your pitch prepared and memorized is a must.
When formulating your pitch, it’s important that it be clear and concise and that you’re able to communicate it in a likeable, passionate, compelling, credible manner. Oh, and you need to do it all in a minute or less. A tall order? Maybe, but it can be done – no matter how complicated your business is. Remember, you’re not presenting your whole business plan. You’re simply answering some basic questions. If you generate enough interest with your 60-second pitch, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to go into more detail later. To help formulate the perfect pitch, here are the seven questions your pitch must answer:
1. What is your business idea?
In the most basic terms possible, simply state your business concept.
2. What’s the status of the idea or business?
Tell how long you’ve been in business – five years, startup, etc.
3. What market does the business target?
State who your customers are, and how your concept serves them.
4. What advantage do you have in the marketplace?
How are you different from whatever else is available? Tell why people will pick your company over others.
5. What’s the competition in the marketplace?
Demonstrate that you know who the competition is and where you stand in the market. Do this without being too negative about the competition.
6. What revenue model will you follow?
Explain whether your business is strictly e-commerce, retail, wholesale, etc.
7. Who have you assembled as the team that’s going to make the business succeed?
hether you’re a one-man-show or a team, briefly describe the experience of your management team.
Note: If you are looking for financing, you’ll add information about what you need the money for, how much you’re looking for, and the projected return on investment.
You can change the order of these points to suit your strengths and make your presentation flow properly. While it looks like a ton of information, two or three questions can sometimes be answered in a well crafted sentence, so it’s not that hard to get it into a one-minute pitch if you work on it.
Once you’ve formed your pitch, it’s time to practice, practice, practice. The trick is to memorize it so well that when you say it the words come out naturally – not like they’re memorized. You’ll only get one chance to present this mini-speech to any one person, so it pays to polish it and have it down pat. In fact, your confidence in delivering the pitch is at least as important as the words you’re saying.
How will you know if your pitch is working? People will start asking you for more. When you hear, “How can I get more information,” you’ll know for sure your time has been well spent!
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17 Responses to “Perfecting Your Pitch – 7 Questions in 60 Seconds”
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Escort Service London
06. Jul, 2010
Those are highly risky question for me. I can’t answer them right away even in 1 minute. Time pressured enough.
Steve S.
06. Jul, 2010
These are well-crafted questions and they get to the heart of any conversation concerning one’s business – how do you really engage your listener?
We are mostly turned off by sales pitches, so the elevator speech must strike a delicate balance between passion, business logic and likability. Hard to do, but most successful entrepreneurs can do it.
JohnAtBlogtrepreneur
06. Jul, 2010
@Escort: Sure you can! :) Business owners from every industry you can imagine have followed a similar method to communicate their pitch effectively. It takes some time to put it together and weed out until you just have the good stuff, but it’s worth the time.
@Steve: Agreed! If you sound too salesy in your pitch, it will turn people off. A great technique that works for me is to pretend a friend I haven’t seen in years has just asked me, “So what have you been up to?” That way it’s not like I’m trying to sell something!
Jason
06. Jul, 2010
You mention practice, and I think that’s key. It’s one thing to be able to answer these questions when you have a minute to think it through; it’s another to be able to answer them when the heat is on. Stuttering through your answer immediately damages the credibility of your idea, and practice can prevent that.
I agree with Steven and John. If you give a full-on sales pitch, people will just tune you out. If you keep it more casual and natural, it will have a better chance of working out.
lingerie
06. Jul, 2010
IMO, three key questions are, who you are, what you do, who do you sell to? Who you are especially is very important as your personal foundation must be strictly related to what you do. If investors see this connection, they are more likely to trust your idea.
Kelvin Forex Indicator
06. Jul, 2010
It does take sometime to really formulate it out and memorize it. It will be cool if I am able to do a whole introduction of what I am doing within 60 sec.
student
07. Jul, 2010
Hard questions, but you’re right, we need to know our own answers.
used tires
07. Jul, 2010
I personally definitely got a wake up call about pitching yourself first when I attended a seminar and met Joel Bauer, hes definitely one great talker and pitcher himself, definitely recommend anyone at least searching for some videos of him on youtube.
Till then,
Jean
Marriage Information
07. Jul, 2010
Problem is, most people don’t even know the answers to these questions themselves!
Bidet
08. Jul, 2010
Those are great questions to be prepared for when pitching your idea or company. Some of them are real hard to answer though in one minute. Its gonna take a lot of preparation to make the answers clear and concise.
viral marketing
08. Jul, 2010
It might be a good idea to watch a few episodes of Dragon’s den and see what investors are looking for and what they don’t like about people pitching.
Escort Service London
08. Jul, 2010
@viral – what show is that? I never heard of that before.
Payday Loan Lenders
11. Jul, 2010
I liked it and I could answer all the questions in 60 seconds probably because of the simplicity of my venture.
Visiam
18. Jul, 2010
Solid message. To put the 7 concepts into other words.
Your message must be simple to understand.
What is the market pain that you are the resolving.
What is your innovative difference?
What is your talent pool of expertise and experience.
Offer proof!
Promotional Codes
19. Jul, 2010
Having extremely sales pitches really costs a business. People dislike listening to sales pitches and hate to engage with those who talk like machines. So In my opinion, just be yourself and natural as much as you can.
Car Rental
22. Jul, 2010
@Marriage Information, I agree with you. And my thinking is that people can never judge things properly in advance. Once you are in business, you would get the better idea.
stepan
12. Sep, 2011
I have been surfing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all web owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the internet will be much more useful than ever before.