The elevator pitch is a 3,000-year-old technique that has been used to sell products and services. It’s a short, compelling statement of what your company does in a few words or less.
The political elevator pitch examples are a technique that was developed 3,000 years ago. It is used by politicians to help them get their point across in an elevator ride.
You’re in an elevator with just one other person, and he seems familiar in some way. He grins at you and says something along the lines of, “Hey, did you drop this?” He gives you your driver’s license, which you’d just given to security, and you know right away that this guy is one of the world’s most powerful angel investors.
You strike up a discussion with him, and he inquires as to what you do, and you happen to be looking for financing for your company. You realize you’ve already reached the 14th level and do a mental estimate. You have only three minutes (it’s a very tall building) to inform this angel about your great idea before the elevator takes him to the top level, where he must undoubtedly perch as an angel.
So, that’s not going to happen. But how many elevator pitches are really delivered in elevators? Nonetheless, these mini-orations occur often, and some of them yield fruit. You’ve almost definitely heard an aviation equivalent of an elevator pitch if you’ve been upgraded on a trip. People pitch in parties, conference center corridors, public swimming pools, and even at the top of a mountain, where I once gave an elevator pitch to a stranger.
Even if you aren’t launching a business but have an idea you want to present to the C-suite, knowing how to make a flawless pitch is beneficial. The same strategies may help you gain respect in meetings and even enhance your wedding speech.
Years of studying rhetoric, the 3,000-year-old art of persuasion, gave me these skills. The book on rhetoric was actually written by Aristotle. He taught the skill to Alexander the Major, who went on to establish one of the first great western empires.
Julius Caesar was a brilliant orator. Queen Elizabeth I, Shakespeare, Churchill, and Martin Luther King were all among them. They’d all studied rhetoric. Rhetorical concepts have recently been supported by contemporary neuroscience. I’ve seen the tools in action in the corporate sector as someone who trains individuals to make presentations and has assisted fundraisers and salesmen in honing their skills. So let’s get this party started.
The enthymeme of Aristotle
It may seem odd to use an ancient Greek art form to an elevator pitch. The ancient Athenian orators, on the other hand, gave addresses that lasted just a few minutes, with numerous interruptions from the common people (the masses). A Greek speech resembled something from “Shark Tank” rather than a graduation address. The orator needed to make his point quickly.
Aristotle devised the enthymeme, a logical one-two punch that helps speakers focus on their subject. (It was presumably simple for the Greeks to pronounce.) There are just two elements to it: the evidence and the conclusion.
A fact or a narrative may be used as evidence. Let’s assume you want your business to create a new line of lingerie for cats, for example. Your evidence should be the greatest feasible explanation for cat lingerie, either a fact or story.
- Fact: There are millions of cats in costumes on YouTube, thousands of people in lingerie, and an alarming shortage of cats in lingerie.
- What are two of the most widely discussed topics on the internet? Cats and lingerie are a match made in heaven.
- Anecdote: It hit me like a ton of bricks. My kids were playing with our cat, and they managed to get access to my wife’s unmentionables drawer, where they were using everything they pulled out as cat toys. Eureka!
The first fact demonstrates an unmet need: cats dressed up, people dressed up in lingerie—Venn diagram! The second fact provides more direct evidence. The combination of a popular meme with a wildly popular marketing white space results in a wildly successful marketing white space. The tale also has a backstory. The conclusion is part two of your enthymeme.
The germ of your pitch is the enthymeme. Naturally, you’ll have a variety of motivations for launching your feline lingerie business. Audiences, on the other hand, aren’t particularly adept at processing more than one truth at a time. If you just have one or two minutes, concentrate on one evidence.
Consider a logical brand statement as a starting point for your evidence. Make a list of your conclusions:
We need to create a stylish cat lingerie line.
Now is the time to compose your evidence. Begin with the phrase “Because…” and work your way up from there. (I, for one, would accept any plan that included the evidence “Because cats.” And there’s lingerie.”)
Now take a deep breath.
Your logical seed, the proof-conclusion enthymeme, was created by you. The temptation is to start noodling up the remainder of your pitch right away. Please bear with me. First and foremost, you must focus on your period.
We conceive of a menstruation as something that happens once a month. As a punctuation mark, for example. The ancients considered the time period to be considerably more pleasant. They hypothesized that the brain’s patterns are in sync with the rest of the body’s cycles. A single statement usually lasts the same amount of time as the speaker’s breath.
As a result, they reasoned, an audience may absorb an idea equivalent to an orator’s one lengthy breath. This time period was known as periodos, or period. Try it out for yourself. Take a deep breath and speak steadily for approximately 12 seconds if you don’t smoke and are in good condition. That’s the end of the sentence. The ancients made the time the emotional culmination of a speech, as well as the longest applauding line.
So, how does this relate to an elevator pitch? Quite a bit. Please be patient with me.
To check whether the era can still be detected in contemporary orations, I went online and discovered recordings of some of the most renowned political speeches, as well as speeches from Hollywood films, ranging from “Braveheart” to pretty about every sports film ever produced. True, political speeches’ most memorable phrases lasted 11 to 13 seconds. For movie speeches, I started the timer as soon as the music started to rise, then stopped when the actor finished. Almost every time, twelve seconds on the dot. Despite the fact that few contemporary speechwriters and screenwriters have studied classical rhetoric, they use it because of instinct and experience.
Create your own period, the peak of your mini-speech, even before you compose the structure of your pitch. This conclusion is the rainbow, the finish line, the promised land that your pitch leads to for your audience. You don’t have to sound like a crazy basketball coach or a blue-faced Mel Gibson. Your time, on the other hand, should exude complete faith and devotion while presenting a lovely picture of the future. In 40 characters. About 40 words are equivalent to 12 seconds of speaking.
We can see beautiful tiny cat costumes flying out of shop departments, receiving millions of hits on Amazon and eBay, and almost dominating Instagram for all time in our own climactic passage, all to make the world a better place in these difficult times.
The following is the outline: Set the tone.
You’ve got your proof and conclusion logic package. You drew up your (perhaps a little scary) vision. It’s time to start working on your outline.
Almost every great speech, short or long, may be traced back to the great Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero, who was, according to Cicero, the greatest speaker of all time. Before Caesar became dictator, he not only led the Roman republic. Cicero also authored rhetoric textbooks that are being used by students today.
The Ciceronian outline, which serves as a foundation for organizing your pitch, stems from the man’s profound knowledge of human nature. He understood that trust is the most effective persuasive weapon. If the audience believes in the speaker, they will follow him wherever he goes.
You must blend in with your audience in order to gain their trust. Because you just have a few minutes, you’ll have to depend on the tried-and-true techniques of eye contact, a firm handshake, excellent posture, and the look of confidence.
You want to improve your ethos, which is your image or projected personality. If you have the time, you may demonstrate your knowledge of the topic, draw on your experience (you have a veterinarian degree and formerly managed the design department of a lingerie shop), and enlist the help of common acquaintances.
Then there’s the logic. In only a few sentences, reveal your enthymeme.
Finally, there’s the peroration, or your persuasion finish. Your peroration is most likely your image of a delightfully gorgeous furry future in this instance.
For the record (and in case you’re ever required to deliver a graduation speech), Ciceronian outline is as follows:
- Introduction. Get the audience to like and trust you by establishing your persona.
- Narration. Tell your narrative while delivering the facts.
- Defend: Raise objections before the audience does, then refute them.
- Peroration. This is your menstrual cycle.
You may shorten the outline to only faith, enthymeme, and period for elevator reasons. Character, logic, and vision, if you like. Write up your proposal using this framework as a guide. It should be rewritten at least a dozen times. It’s a good idea to practice it in front of friends and coworkers. Then give it to the most difficult audience: teenagers. Take note if they seem bored, fidget, or switch to their phones; this may indicate a tedious section.
You’re all set now. You have the same arsenal as the most eloquent Greek or Roman orator. Deliver it, and you’ll be able to expand your empire.
Meanwhile, if you start selling cat lingerie on Kickstarter, please let me know. I’ll give you my whole support.
The personal brand elevator pitch examples is a technique that was created 3,000 years ago. It has been used by many companies to help their employees give the best elevator pitch ever.
Frequently Asked Questions
What makes the best elevator pitch?
The best elevator pitch is a short, concise statement that tells the audience who you are and what you do.
What are the 5 steps to making an elevator pitch?
There are 5 steps to making an elevator pitch. The first step is to identify your audience, the second is to come up with a catchy title, the third is to create a visual that captures the essence of what youre offering, the fourth is to craft a compelling story that will make people want to know more about your product, and finally, its important to end with a call-to-action.
What three things can you do to give a quality elevator pitch?
Here are some things you can do to give a quality elevator pitch: -Create a clear and concise elevator pitch -Focus on the benefits of your product or service -Be brief, but not too brief
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