Making a Great Elevator Pitch
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Prepare Message Map
Then 1 or 2-minute pitch
Introduce yourself and your team
Remember to smile from time to time
Tell us what you are pitching (short title)
Tell us what problem you are trying to solve
Start by laying out your value proposition
Value Proposition
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How exactly does your product or service benefit a
single client or customer?
Show how by buying your product or service, a
client can make money from it or lower their costs or
do both
Introduce some ‘pixie dust’ or differentiated value
Create a sustainable enterprise with a long term
competitive advantage
Delivery
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Please name your group/sign up for our pitch
event/L3, Lecture 3
Practice! Record your pitch on YouTube
Group gets up to give elevator pitch
Max 2 mins/1 or more may speak
Can use props or message map but not slides
Feedback from class and prof
Re-record and submit for Lecture 4
Elevator Pitches
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How to make an EP, Sean Wise
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tq0tan49rmc
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Elevator pitch twist
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98WlZJqscVk
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“We put your brand in their hand”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6O98o2FRHw
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6 Elevator Pitches for the 21st Century
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvxtC60V6kc
What is a Message Map?
 Precedes
2-minute Elevator Pitch
 Summarizes your value proposition
 Forbes Contributor Carmine Gallo’s
recommends creating visual display of your story
on one page
 But start with twitter-friendly (140 characters or
less) message summarizing (one) over-arching
purpose underpinning your mission,
organization, enterprise, value proposition
What is a Message Map?
 Next
add three or four supporting points
 Adding depth and understanding for your
audience
 What it is you do and can do for customers,
suppliers, channel partners, employees and
community—your stakeholder ecosystem
 Expanding on each of your three or four main
points by adding a few bullet sub-points
 Sub-points need to be specific—data, examples,
statistics, stories
Skuzzles
creates limited
edition cultclassic posters
B
O
D
Y
Unique
1. World-renowned
artists
2. Limited # posters
3. Limited sale time
HighQuality
1. Silk-screen printing
2. Kraft-tube shipping
3. Major motion
picture licensing
Customer
Connectio
n
1. Deep understanding of
customer and culture
2. Continuous feedback loop
http://youtu.be/yB4eTf_WfEw
Haider Ali & Dave White
Website: www.skuzzles.com
(also own .org and .ca)
Facebook: /skuzzles
Twitter: @Skuzzles
Supplier 2nd
Marketing (next slide)
Supplier 1st
• Software Suppliers (ex.
Adobe Photoshop)
• Art Supplies
Artists
• Print Equipment
• Supplies (paper and
paint)
D&L Screen
Printers
• Intellectual property
(movie and all aspects
associated with movie)
Movie
Production
Studios
• Human Capital (website
development)
• Movie production
companies
Skuzz
les
Shopify
Customer 1st
Customer 2nd
1) Fans of the Film
2) Fans of the
Artist
3) Fans of Skuzzles
4) Fans of the
Artwork
5) Flippers
(buy/sell prints
to reap profit)
Secondary
market
shoppers
(i.e. eBay,
in-person
trading)
MayFair Theatre
Value Proposition
- unique, one of a kind prints
- limited edition collectible items
(typically high resale value)
Competitive Advantage
-
major movie production studio licensing
established relationship with suppliers and
established community
existing product line
diverse staff skill-set
customer connection (know what they
want by listening to their needs)
• Blogs
• ExpressoBeans.com
• consistently reach #1 spot on this website by utilizing our
community network
•
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Prizes/Giveaways
Include extras in shipping tubes
Social media / networking (Facebook, Twitter, Reddit)
Host events at theatres and attend film festivals
Give prints to people with popular Youtube
channels
• Get artists to promote the print through their
website and social networking platforms
Scalability
Goals
• Increase followership
• Increase the number of number of prints offered
In an attempt to:
• Turn the supply side (movie production) into a profit
center through promoting upcoming movies
• Compensate artists with prints and exposure
IRR (current)
IRR with goal attainment
87%
183% (minimum)
What is a Message Map?
 Message
maps, according to Gallo, work each
and every time with complex concepts, products,
services
 More complex it is, more you need message
map
What is a Message Map?
 Allows
clear, concise communication not only by
leaders but also frontline, customer-facing
employees, developers, product managers,
sales people, marketing agencies as well as
enterprises upstream and downstream in
business ecosystem
 Explains what you do in 15 seconds!
Gallo on YouTube: http://youtu.be/phyU2BThK4Q
Example– GradeATechs.com
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"You know people can either disassemble their PC,
put it in their car, take it to a local repair shop, be
told it'll take two weeks and will cost $150 only to
find out that it will really take three weeks and cost
250 bucks and that their hard drive got accidentally
wiped. Alternatively, they can log on to or call
GradeATechs.com, make an appointment and have a
highly trained, certified Grade A Tech come to their
home or business and fix the problem in a couple of
hours for $120, guaranteed."
How Big is the Opportunity?
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Never say that if you could just get (say) 1% of this
(really huge) market, you would be set for life.
Will the enterprise outlive the founder?
Example: “The computer repair industry is huge and
growing fast and the repair industry is full of 'mom
and pop' shops—it’s an industry that the established
players aren’t particularly interested in. At any one
time, about 30% of the PCs and laptops in the US
and Canada aren’t working up to their potential—
that’s around 180,000,000 computers that need our
help!"
Work in Some Other Stuff
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Talk about your business model
Talk about your team
Talk about your technology
Talk about why you think you are going to be
successful—what you actually bring to this
Talk about how you are going to generate
cash
Example—GradeATechs.com
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"What's neat about GradeATechs.com is that we have a
backend system called GASnet, which basically matches our
Techs with our clients—clients give us a couple of windows
when we can do a site visit and then our Techs can log on to
GASnet and take the jobs they want; maybe, for example, the
ones closest to where they live. Plus we have an endless
supply of workers too—there are engineering and CS or IT
students at colleges and universities in practically every
major city who want to make 25 bucks an hour!"
Example—GradeATechs.com
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“Our cash conversion cycle is actually
negative at GradeATechs.com. As soon as we
complete a job, our techies use GASnet to bill
the client’s credit card. We have practically no
receivables and we get paid, on average, one
week before we have to pay our major supply
cost– the techies!”
Marketing
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How do you intend to drive sales
Opportunities are useless if you have to spend
$2m on a Super Bowl commercial before you
get your first client
How will you cost-effectively market your
products or services (i.e., sign up clients or
customers without heroic efforts)
Example—GradeATechs.com
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Started with signs on telephone poles and
street lights
Used lawn signs
Plus hand bills and flyers
High page rank from Google
Every Great Elevator Pitch must
Meet Four Key Tests
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Must be succinct: you’ve only got one or two minutes.
Must be easy to understand. Both your grandma and your
grand kids have to get it. Your product or service should
appeal to more than one generation.
Must be greed inducing. Investors want to make money.
Clients want to know that buying your product or service is a
negative cost—the benefits generated are greater than its cost.
Must be irrefutable. If your Elevator Pitch leaves the investor
or customer with more questions than answers, you’d better
go back to the drawing board.
GradeATechs.com: A Success Story
GradeATechs.com: A Success Story
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OTTAWA, ONTARIO
BELLEVILLE, ONTARIO
BROCKVILLE, ONTARIO
GATINEAU, QUEBEC
KINGSTON, ONTARIO
MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO
MONTREAL, QUEBEC
NEW TECUMSETH, ONTARIO
OAKVILLE, ONTARIO
TAMPA, FLORIDA
Getting Organized
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Split into teams
2 to 4 persons per team
Decide who is going to make the pitch (max
of 2)
Prepare the pitch
Practice and critique your pitch/record for
YouTube
The Pitch
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Assemble the whole team at the front of the
class with your pitch person in front
Don’t go overtime
Have fun!
The Pitch
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Re-record YouTube pitch and submit URL for
L4
Don’t forget to read:
http://profbruce.tumblr.com/post/6578920798
7/how-to-make-a-great-elevator-pitch-for-any
and http://www.dramatispersonae.org/?p=87