The Problem With Your Elevator Pitch–And How To Fix It

At a networking event, I walked up to woman who, like me, was trying to balance a plastic tumbler of wine, a plate of cheese, and a handful of business cards. We laughed at our shared predicament, put down our plates and introduced ourselves. “I’m Robin,” she said. “I’m Deborah,” I replied. “So, Robin…what do you do?”

Suddenly, she broke eye contact and stared up at the wall, as if something were written there. Without expression, Robin recited, “I help busy professionals live pain-free lives so that they can get back to work.”

My first thought was, “What does that mean?” Was she a chiropractor? A career coach? A drug dealer?

My second thought was, “Who talks like that?”

The answer to the first question turned out to be “physical therapist.” The answer to the second question was: Entrepreneurs who have been taught that they need an elevator pitch, but haven’t practiced how to actually deliver it and sound human.

Your elevator pitch is a short summary of your service, product, or company and how it adds value to customers. It’s a useful tool for communicating core information quickly that will hopefully yield you an invitation to have a longer conversation with potential clients down the road.

The problem with most elevator pitches is that they get crafted on paper but not adjusted to sound like how a real person speaks. The majority come across as synthetic as an infomercial (“We help startups maximize their social media strategies to grow their customer base…But wait! There’s more!”). It’s one-way delivery system, designed to make a powerful, positive first impression, but listeners tend to feel “pitched at” rather than engaged with. As much as I am a hearty consumer of goods and services for my personal and professional life, I don’t like to be sold.

When you are so focused on making sure you sell the benefits because anyone could be a customer, you neglect a primary reason why people want to do business–because they connect with you. Not with your pitch, but with you.

Here are five tips to drop the phony facade and elevate the delivery of your pitch so that you sound like a real person:

Don’t speak the way you write. “I help individuals, couples, and families make sound financial plans so that they don’t outlive their money” may read well on a website, but doesn’t sound the way people really talk. When speaking, you might start with, “I’m a financial planner, and I make sure my clients don’t outlive their money.” Much more compelling, genuine and even fun.

Utilize common vernacular (aka, use the simplest language possible). Your organization’s mission statement may talk about serving “the growing population of at-risk adolescents” but most people would say “kids who are at risk” in regular conversation. So say that.

Turn your pitch into a question. If you’re a professional organizer, ask “You know that pile of papers you’ve got somewhere in your house that you’ve been meaning to get through? As a professional organizer, I help people finally get through it.”

Practice saying your pitch out loud, with feedback. Rehearse it until it sounds completely unrehearsed (ironic, but important), and then get feedback on how “real” you sound rather than how “polished” you come across.

Be willing to forgo your pitch entirely. If you’re already making a warm connection with someone and they ask you what you do, don’t risk bringing a cold pitch into the conversation. Just say what you do–and more importantly, find out what the other person does and show genuine curiosity about them.

Originally posted on Fast Company

Deborah Grayson Riegel is a coach, speaker and author focused on presentation, communication and leadership skills. She is the CEO and Chief Communication Coach for Talk Support, and the Director of Learning for The Boda Group. She teaches Management Communication at Wharton and Executive Communication at the Beijing International MBA Program at Peking University, China. She is the proud author of the Udemy microlearning course, Smart Tips: Communication, which helps professionals at all levels build presentation skills, feedback skills, conflict management skills, and more. author of "Tips of the Tongue: The Nonnative English Speaker's Guide to Mastering Public Speaking" for global leaders who need to master the confidence, competence and cultural comfort of making presentations. She lives in New York with her husband, kids, and rescue dog, Nash, who loves her best.