Your Elevator Pitch

Warm-up: Say What You Do in One Minute

3 warm-up questions

• When someone asks 'So, what do you do?', what do you say?
• Tell me about a product or service you really like. Why is it good?
• Do you think people decide quickly whether they trust someone? Why?

Reading: Sixty Seconds to Be Understood

Read a 229-word text about Sixty Seconds to Be Understood

Sixty Seconds to Be Understood An elevator pitch is a short introduction to what you sell. The name comes from an old idea: you meet an important buyer in a lift, and you have only the length of the ride to explain your business. Today the "lift" is usually the first minute of a video call, a message on a professional network, or a quick chat at a conference. The rule is the same: be short, be clear, and talk about the customer. What a good pitch does It says who you help, not just what you sell. It names a problem the listener recognises. It explains the result, not the technical details. It ends with a small, easy question. What a weak pitch does Weak pitches list features: "Our platform has twelve modules, an API and a mobile app." The listener hears words but does not hear a reason to care. Strong pitches lead with the benefit: "We help small clinics cut their no-show rate by half." Now the listener can imagine the result. "We work with independent tutors who lose hours every week on admin. Our software books the lessons and chases the payments, so they teach instead of typing. Does that sound like something your team deals with?" Notice the last line. A pitch is not a speech — it is the opening of a conversation.

Vocabulary: Pitch Vocabulary

8 items

Framework: The Who-Problem-Result Pitch

Who – Problem – Result – Question, 4 steps

Who – Problem – Result – Question: A simple four-step structure for a pitch that lasts under one minute.

Practice: Complete the Pitch

Gap-fill exercise, 6 items

• We ____ with small online shops across Europe.
• Their biggest pain ____ is slow delivery.
• ____ you handle returns at the moment?
• The main ____ is that our customers save eight hours a month.
• Our clear pricing helps us stand ____ from bigger firms.
• We have been selling to that ____ market for three years.

Practice: Build the Pitch Sentences

Word-ordering exercise, 6 items

• help · save · small · teams · time · We
• customers · every · hours · lose · Most · of · our · week
• a · Does · for · like · problem · sound · that · you
• book · is · lessons · more · result · that · The · they
• at · do · How · invoices · manage · moment · the · you · your
• 2021 · been · clinics · have · since · We · with · working

Dialogue: Meeting a Prospect at a Conference

Role-play: A short conversation at a conference coffee break (8 lines)

• Prospect: Hi, I saw your badge. What does your company do?
• Salesperson: We work with small clinics that lose money when patients don't turn up.
• Prospect: Interesting. That happens to us all the time. How does it work?
• Salesperson: Our system sends smart reminders, so most clinics cut no-shows by half.
• Prospect: Half? That would be a big change for us.
• Salesperson: How do you remind your patients at the moment?
• Prospect: Honestly, one of the receptionists phones everybody. It takes ages.
• Salesperson: That sounds expensive. Could we set up a short video call next week?

Discussion: Let's Discuss

4 discussion questions

• Give me your own 60-second pitch. Who do you help, and with what problem?
• Which is more convincing for you as a buyer: a number or a story? Why?
• How has the way companies sell changed since everything moved to video calls?
• What would you do if a prospect said 'I only have thirty seconds'?