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Think Like Your Audience When Networking With a Successful Elevator Pitch

Guest post by: Kalen Smith

Article Overview: A successful elevator pitch is essential to making networking connections. In order to get it to work for you, it is crucial to take the time to understand your audience and what they are looking for. The ability to tailor your pitch to your audience will make or break your message and determine how successful your networking efforts are going to be.

Think Like Your Audience When Networking With a Successful Elevator Pitch

Making successful networking connections depends on having a great elevator pitch. This can be tricky, but anyone who puts some time into it can create an elevator pitch that will get prospects' attention.

Selling an idea to a new prospect can be difficult when they have to hear a hundred every day. The trick to being successful in this process is to think from the perspective of the target. You must always remember that networking is about diplomacy and negotiation, not sales tactics.

When you are pitching your idea to a client, they obviously need to know why they are going to benefit from it. If it is a product that you are trying to get them to buy, how will it simplify their life or improve their business? If you want to add credibility by mentioning another company you have worked with, tie this business to their own the best you can (while remembering that you have a limited amount of time available to make your pitch).

Many people make the mistake of centering their pitch on their own experiences or profession. If you come from an engineering background, you can't expect an accountant to hear you the same way a colleague would.

You must remember an elevator pitch is never supposed to exceed 60 seconds. At best, you have 200 words to make your point successfully. In a networking situation, you must balance descriptiveness and succinctness.

Networking is always about looking for a quid pro quo. However, in the early stages it should focus on the benefits that the target audience can receive. This philosophy needs to be the backbone of an elevator pitch.

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Article Tags: business strategies, elevator pitch, networking, partnerships, professions



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