Pt 1: SUCCESS Start Small Win Big Challenge

1. Refine your elevator pitch.

Whether you are talking to a potential investor, partner, customer or employee, you should always be selling your company. But the things that will interest an investor are quite different from what would interest a job applicant, so arm yourself with different elevator pitches for different audiences. Investors want to know what you’re selling, but even more, they want to know how your company is going to make money for them. Instead of focusing completely on your product or service, focus on how your idea is going to generate earnings and gain traction. Customers want to know how they will benefit from your company. So identify a problem they’re experiencing and explain how you can solve it with your product or service. Job applicants want to know they’ll be in a challenging environment where they will be treated well and compensated fairly. So talk to them about the way you run your company as much as about what you sell. Once you have zeroed in on the message of each pitch, vary the lengths. David Rose, chairman emeritus of New York Angels, a consortium of angel investors, suggests you have a pitch prepared for every situation. Have pitches that fill 20 seconds, one minute, five minutes, 20 minutes and an hour. Then if you aren’t naturally a confident speaker (which many of us aren’t), practice them repeatedly. This is your task for Week One of the SUCCESS Challenge. I realize this may sound like a lot of work, but it could determine whether or not you pique the interest of someone who could really push your business forward. You don’t want to lose the chance to work with someone because you’re rambling on about the wrong aspects of your business.

Continue to Step 2: Keep it simple.