Sales 101

Sales 101 – THE ELEVATOR PITCH
What do you do? Where do you work?
Do you get that a lot?
Yeah, me too!
But before I learned about the Elevator pitch honestly I really didn’t know what to say. I mean I did know what but the wording was just bad and off-track so to speak.
But first, what is this elevator pitch?
It is a pitch that you would say/explain to somebody of what is it that you do or where do you work in a short period of time.
Since elevator rides are usually up to 30 sec long the name Elevator pitch fits perfectly!
Do you know how to explain what you do in less than 30 sec?
Turns out there is a scientific approach to it.
Can you believe it? 😀
Like I don’t know how to present myself.
Well… I didn’t know. Actually I did but not in a good way, maybe it’s better to say not in a professional way.
It’s a 30-second memorable description of what you do and/or what you sell. The goal is to earn a second conversation, not to convince the person you’re talking to they should hire you or buy your solution. Its your profesional introduction.
Your pitch is the most important aspect of starting any kind of sales or sales conversation. It’s a selling pitch done in a professional way.
How many times did you ask somebody What do you do? and the answer started with Ummmm, hmmmmm, weeeeel…That is not good. I was the ummmm man as well.
You want/need to have great, clean, right out of the gate sales pitch ready IN YOUR SLEEP 😀
The same sales pitch needs to be used in all of your social media as well in ABOUT ME category.
You want to sound natural and spontaneous (comes with practice) while also covering the points you want to communicate to make the best possible impression.
Here is a three-step formula that I find it useful to perfect my sales pitch:
- Who are you
Don’t tell the whole history of you since you can remember, it will take way longer than 30 sec or even 30 min. Start by saying your biggest advantage or what is it that you do currently. For example, I am a marketing and multimedia expert with over 10 years of experience in marketing and sales…
Tell them how you want them to see you
- Your qualification or Why are you qualified
Add something that a person who you speak to want to hear. If you are speaking to someone who is in the tourism field for example you might want to say something that you did in that field. For example:
I am a marketing and multimedia expert with over 10 years of experience in marketing and sales in various industries with tourism being one of my favorite fields..
- What’s in it for them
You did tell them what they want to hear but you have to sell yourself some more. So following the example above you might add something special about yourself such as:
I am a marketing and multimedia expert with over 10 years of experience in marketing and sales in various industries with tourism being one of my favorite fields. I save people time and money by implementing new marketing strategies and technologies that give companies a competitive edge.
To get the conversation going after these 3 steps, you can always add a question in the end, something like:
So what marketing strategies and technologies your company uses and how are you happy with them?
You want to ask OPEN-ENDED questions!
Once you have your sales pitch ready, keep working on it!
Try it out on your friends or family and let them know what they think about it and listen to their suggestions if they have any.
Bonus tip
Aways have your business card ready