Why an Elevator Pitch Is Important for Selling Yourself to Others

The Elevator Pitch: What it Is and Why You Need One

An elevator pitch is a short 30-to-60-second summary of yourself, your professional history, and your skills that you can use to promote yourself in professional situations. The goal for these pitches is to keep them short, snappy, and to the point to efficiently promote yourself to people. If you’re wondering why an elevator pitch matters, keep in mind how important it can be to make business connections when you are out and about. Having a brief statement prepared that discusses what you do and your experience can be a great way to market yourself when you’re short on time. It should be short enough to present during a brief elevator ride, hence the name.

Why an Elevator Pitch Is Important

The reason why an elevator pitch is important is that it’s a simple way to quickly describe yourself and your goals to somebody who may be able to help you reach those goals. For example, crafting an elevator pitch for an interview is a great way to give a potential interviewer a brief glimpse of your work history and skills and how they might fit with a company’s needs. Making the most of a quick opportunity to to talk to someone could open the door to a new opportunity and make you look more organized and ambitious than other applicants.

Another reason why an elevator pitch matters is because it can help you build a network of professional contacts or potential clients. Networking is key to career success! At the very least, being able to deliver a solid elevator pitch can be a great way to gain confidence when introducing yourself in a professional environment.

Key Elements of an Elevator Pitch

Brevity is a crucial part of any elevator pitch. It’s important to prepare and practice your pitch so you can deliver it comfortably and naturally, without sounding like you’re reading from a script and without rambling. The best elevator speech examples will include:

• An introduction with your first and last name and your general role at your company. If you don’t have a job yet, you can mention what you got your degree in or a quick line about your past work history.
• A problem that the other party may have. If you’re introducing yourself to a potential interviewer at another company, work their job opening into this part.
• A solution: you! Explain briefly how your current job or skills could help to fix the problem of the person you’re having a conversation with.
• A call to action. Offer them a business card or your résumé and offer to talk with them again at a later time.

With that in mind, here is an elevator pitch example you can use as a jumping-off point:

“Hi, my name is __. I work at __ as a ___. I heard your company was looking for ___. I have experience in the skills you are looking for, such as ___, ___, and ___. In the past, I’ve learned that those skills could be useful to a company like yours because ___. Here, let me give you my business card/résumé. I’d love to talk more about this some other time.”