FunnyIndian.com: Indian Comedian / Desi Comedian Rajiv Satyal

Going Up?

May 4th, 2009

You often hear about (or perhaps see in the movies) an elevator pitch. In a variation of the new Domino’s tag line… you’ve got 30 seconds.

This article in the Harvard Business Review tells us we only have 15. It’s kind of like how in any meeting in Corporate America, you really only had 15 minutes to make your play.

If the start time was 2 pm, you could count on people flowing in until 2:05 and then intros lasting till 2:10 (which, btw, is all part of the sales job - I knew as a buyer at P&G within about 2 minutes of meeting someone if I wanted to do business with him/her).

So, you get from 2:10 till 2:25 to do the meat of your selling. After about 20 minutes, the adult mind disengages and wanders anyway. And in the afternoon, that attention span is likely a few minutes shorter.

Besides, there’s something psychological about seeing that minute hand tick upwards (which, btw, is why weddings commence on the half-hour - so life together begins on the upswing). We know we’re closer to the end than the beginning.

Also, you want to encourage interaction via Q&A. I don’t know if it’s a rule but my experience was that there was a 1:1 ratio b/w info in and then what you wanted to discuss. So, a 15-min presentation yields 15 min of questions (and hopefully answers). That takes you to 2:40.

The whole point is to close so it’s best to leave 5 minutes for next steps. It’s now 2:45 pm.

People gotta bounce around 2:50 to get ready and head to the next meeting, anyway, so if you let ‘em go 5 minutes early, you’re already showing efficiency.

So, get all of your pitches and presentations down to 15 minutes.

I often use my brother as the perfect example of the elevator pitch. One of his idols growing up was Tori Amos. Well, one day he found himself in an elevator w/ Arthur Spivak, her manager. And of course only my super-fan brother would know this. He made his pitch about Tori doing a book and a year-and-a-half later, it was on the NY Times’ best seller list.

I like articles such as the one linked here from the HBR, but now (as a next step) what I’d like to see is examples.

Got any?

Entry Filed under: Uncategorized