This past Monday and this morning, I was at the 2011 Canada-Wide Science Fair encouraging this year’s participants to try out the brand new SMARTS website. (When I started SMARTS in 2004, it was a plain website with information on a couple of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) opportunities myself and a few peers has been to. Over the next several years, we became a part of Youth Science Canada and grew into a network of over 200 schools and student volunteers. This week, we launched SMARTS 2.0 – an online community to connect and support young Canadians interested in science)
We had a display booth in the science fair exhibit hall, and our goal was to provide demos to the science fair participants walking around and encourage them to join. While I didn’t start with a particular spiel, I had a well-refined elevator pitch about SMARTS by the end. For those of you unfamiliar, an elevator pitch is basically a very brief summary that you present to people to capture interest when you don’t have much time.
At some point or another, all of us need to be able to deliver an elevator pitch, or at the very least, be able to describe something in as few words as possible, but still be highly valuable in content. Maybe you are marketing a product to a potential customer. Perhaps you run into a legendary researcher in your field and you only have a few seconds to share your idea. Or maybe you are trying to convince people to donate to a cause you are fighting so hard for.
Based on my experiences, I’d like to share with you 5 thing I’ve learned about making a successful elevator pitch.