Fifteen seconds to win fifteen minutes: Pain, Premise and Proof
On the front of our book The Beermat Entrepreneur is what we often refer to ‘The Original Beermat’, the first one you should write, ideally with one or two friends.
Of course, ‘Beermat’ is a metaphor; if you are not a beer drinker or pub-goer, the methodology works equally well if you are in a restaurant writing on a napkin. The key issue is that you can’t write very much on a Beermat or napkin, certainly not a business plan!
The first item on this Beermat is ‘Elevator Pitch’. This is a well understood concept. You are in an elevator, and someone gets in who you want to impress, maybe a famous business figure or senior executive from one of your target companies. You have only about fifteen seconds to make an impression before they exit the lift.
I have heard thousands of elevator pitches over the years. Most assume the elevator somehow got stuck for several hours.
Pitching is always difficult and pitching with only a few words is even more difficult. You’re nervous and unprepared, so the words come jumbling out, usually with far too much detail. The outcome can be that your target may be even less likely to agree to a future meeting than they were when they entered the elevator. You might even have come across as a hyperactive stalker.
There is a science to a good elevator pitch, and you can work on this, with a friend or two in a pub or restaurant with your friends. Brevity is the key. Too much technical detail is counter-productive at this stage. You need to take a step back and work out what is the Pain that you solve with your business. You ask the listener if they agree that there is potentially a problem to be solved.
For example, if your idea is around a particular skills gap, then you say: “I’m sure you’re worrying about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will disrupt your market”.
Alternatively, you can put a most optimistic slant on the problem, with “wouldn’t it be great if you could harness the power of AI for your industry?”. Either way, you are hoping for close attention and positive body language from the recipient.
If they look negative, or even hostile, then of course you should immediately back off. In my experience most senior decision makers are polite people and willing to listen politely, especially as they know that they only have ten more seconds in the lift.
The next part of the elevator pitch is your Premise. This is typically where the Elevator Pitch gets prematurely overloaded with detail. You should only make a simple statement, such as to say: “we solve that problem.”
The listener is then likely to be sceptical. They acknowledge the Pain, but have no idea who you are, and suspect they are about to receive an aggressive sales pitch. Scepticism is always endemic in every stage of the sales process, and should always be countered with Proof, just one sentence to engage their interest.
The best proof is a successful case study featuring a happy customer. You might say that you have just successfully delivered a consultancy project for a company just like theirs. You should not mention the company name at this point for reasons of confidentiality.
Alternatively, you may have someone notable who is acting as one of your mentors or advisors. This could be a family friend or previous work colleague who is happy to give you an unofficial but genuine endorsement, affirming that this eager entrepreneur is worth another fifteen minutes consideration at a future meeting.
And ‘there’s the rub’, as Hamlet once said. Your objective is to secure a little more time to tell them some more. As with all polite enquiries, there’s no harm in asking for something, so long as you take a polite refusal in equally good spirit.
You ask if they, or someone in their organisation can spare fifteen minutes to learn more. This is likely to be a Zoom or Teams call nowadays, but I will give some tips on this is a future column.
Occasionally, you might meet someone who takes immediate umbrage at an unsolicited approach. Maybe they are just having a bad day or are otherwise preoccupied. But if it’s just rudeness to show their superiority, they are unlikely to ever be a happy customer. They will always find fault with you and demand price reductions.
Choosing your early customers requires both zeal and assiduity. You need to ask the right simple questions and look out for positive signals. I will cover how to do this in a future article.
Mike Southon is Editor in Chief of the World Communications Forum Association Davos (WCFA) https://www.wcfaglobal.com More details: www.mikesouthon.com
