I’ve devoted several posts to important business topics over the past few years, but one topic that I don’t think I’ve covered is the “elevator pitch”. For those who don’t know, an elevator pitch is a short (usually 30-120 seconds in length) overview of some concept that gets its name from the fact that one should be able to deliver it during the course of a ride in an elevator. Because of the fast-paced nature of business, the elevator pitch plays an important role in communications and is a necessary component to one’s overall business toolkit. In fact, the ability to deliver an effective and concise elevator pitch has become more important over the past year or two as the weak economy has made networking, which is often made up of short interactions, a significant part of the job search process for many professionals.

A couple of weeks ago, my man Deepak Panigrahy posted an entry to his blog describing his own experiences in learning about elevator pitches and providing some background on them. I thought that some of you might find that background information to be useful, so I’ve posted a link to that entry below.

Deepak does a good job of explaining what an elevator pitch is and the factors that make a good one in his article, so I won’t comment on either of those areas. Instead, I decided to toss out a few ideas on times when one might need to use an elevator pitch. I admit that I used to be terrible, but I quickly realized that one needs to master the ability to deliver one to be successful in business. I offer a few thoughts on it in the video below:

The art of the elevator pitch from Marquis Parker on Vimeo.

By the way, I mentioned the idea of the Pyramid Principle in the video above. If you don’t know what that is, you can find more information on it HERE in an article written by Barbara Minto.

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Title: Eximus at IIM Bangalore – The Art of the Elevator Pitch
Author: Deepak Panigrahy
Source: Deepak Panigrahy’s blog – http://deepakpanigrahy.wordpress.com/2010/08/17/eximius-at-iim-bangalore

Excerpt from the article:

Last Sunday, I visited to participate in “The Art of Elevator Pitch” Panel Discussion at Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. The discussion was very informative. Honestly speaking, I did not know what is an Elevator Pitch before I decided to participate in the contest when I received an email from my Toastmasters International District. But I knew I am going to participate. So, I immediately replied to the email and got the preliminary round of questions. I am attaching the file with the answers here. Please do feel free to comment whatever you feel like.

What is an Elevator Pitch?

Elevator Pitch is a short speech of about 2 minutes, generally given by entrepreneurs to the VCs or angel investors. It derives its name from the fact that it takes exactly 2 minutes to go from the lobby to the top level where the VC has his office. And one gets just two minutes to leave the VC with the curiosity and quest. In my view, an elevator pitch is successful if you can get the business card out of the VC.