<p>Whether you are talking to VCs or just a potential customer you better know what you are trying to sell?&nbsp; Is it a service? What makes it ineteresting?&nbsp; What's different than your competitors?&nbsp; What is the value of you to your audience?</p> <p>I talk to hundreds of business owners and want to be entrepreneurs, and I ask them simply what they do.&nbsp; For those that it takes multiple paragraphs with tangents that have even included stories about their dogs, I pull them back to reality and say, okay let's work on your pitch.&nbsp; Others might tell me they are in marketing or a marketing consultant.&nbsp; Hmmppph, I think you are a dime a dozen.&nbsp; A marketing consultant tells me nothing about what they do.&nbsp; And so to that person, I again say, let's work on your pitch.<br /><br />A pitch is not just something that startups might do in front of a Venture Capitalist.&nbsp; A pitch also known as an elevator pitch is a two to three word statement about your service or product that can be stated in the time it takes to ride an elevator, 60 second or less.&nbsp; As added to by Wikipedia: " It is intended to make use of a limited time opportunity to brief a senior manager, customer or potential investor.<br /><br />The elevator statement would be rehearsed and honed to give maximum impact. Someone wishing to lobby an idea or case might prepare an elevator statement to present it in the best possible light in the shortest possible time whenever an opportunity arose."<br /><br />Whether a freelance writer, consultant, or product marketer, you better be able to define what you do in the same amount of time as an imaginary elevator ride. <br /><br />So what's your pitch and how do you define it?&nbsp; What do you specifically do?&nbsp; Let's go back to the marketing consultant example.&nbsp; Instead of saying, I am a marketing consultant, s/he might say "I build revenue for small business by maximizing their presence online."&nbsp; OR "I generate business and revenue by building consistent branding for businesses across all media." <br /><br />Ultimately, your customer, investor, and even employee is wondering what your deliverable is.&nbsp; Do you make purses?&nbsp; What kind of purses? For whom? When?&nbsp; Include as much of this in a pitch without making it complicated.&nbsp; "I create style by recycling vintage materials into usuable art such as handbags."<br /><br />About these tips:&nbsp; I am not a marketing consultant nor am I a business coach, and yet I encounter entrepreneurs every day and am finding myself an often adviser.&nbsp; I wonder some times at the things they have been told and what there goals and so I have set out to put together a hundred entrepreneur gems that you should know no matter how large or small your business dreams.&nbsp; And yes, I agree to disagree with all you coaches and consultants who think I have no business sharing what I know, because frankly, I have been an entrepreneur and lived it.&nbsp; Have you?</p> 2009-10-20T19:49:44Z 2009-10-22T01:00:56Z -1.3025 195 7029 true 18 44213 entrepreneur-tip-1-your-pitch 0 2009-10-21T17:59:35Z 2009-10-22T01:00:56Z

What do you do? Have you figured out your pitch? A marketing consultant tells me nothing about what they do. And so to that person, I again say, let's work on your pitch.

1 2009-10-22T01:00:56Z