Your elevator pitch, only better
File under: Is your elevator pitch stuck between floors?
You're taught to follow a script. And yet ....
How to exploit those precious few seconds of someone's new attention span
It comes down to one psychological imperative: Connection
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[The following commentary originated with a brainstorming session that joyously involved the stellar staff at high-performance United Way of Pickens County (SC) in August 2022. Shared with permission....]
Hamlet's mom: "We need an elevator speech."
Hamlet (turning poor Yorick's skull over): "Are you sure, mom?"
In the fundraising world, your elevator speech/pitch is a brief case for support. It attempts to quickly and convincingly answer one particular, pressing, obvious question, which is:
"Why would you (some stranger I've just met) give our cause your hard-earned money?"
It's a stump speech you can recite at the drop of a hat, right? Kind of like a mission statement, yes?
Ummm, no.
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The "elevator speech" cure-all fantasy
It goes something like this....
You're carrying a tote bag with your logo. You get on an elevator. There's one other person on-board.
And that other person is curious. They see your logo, new to them ... and ask a question, pointing at the bag: "So, what do you folks do?"
I'm thinking maybe it's irrepressible Kelly Ripa who's asking. She's co-host with irrepressible Ryan Seacrest, on LIVE, Disney's morning show.
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"How many floors do we have? One or 102?"
You're competent. The stakes are clear.
You're in an elevator with Emmy-award-winning Kelly Ripa. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to pitch. And she's just asked you a direct question, an invitation to spill. You know her popular show could introduce your cause to millions of devoted viewers.
Feel free to panic (I would).
Feel free to settle down (dubious for me).
You answer Kelly.
What happens next?
That depends completely on Kelly Ripa ... and you. It depends completely on the next words out of your mouth in that tight elevator, answering Kelly Ripa's lightly curious question: "So, what do you folks do?"
You blurt: "We do this, that and the other thing...." rattling through a litany of programs. A fog of statistics rolls in. There's a quick reference to pilot projects, federally funded.
Kelly leaves that suffocating elevator box as soon as she can. Escaping maybe?
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Conversation is a magic wand
If, though, you engage Kelly in a conversation (instead of blasting her with your sawed-off shotgun of facts), the ride might last 102 floors (the count at the Empire State Building) ... and who knows how far beyond?
Kelly's deep mission in life is NOT to be a television celebrity; that's how she makes her living. Kelly's deepest mission is to do good, to have mattered to others, to have made a difference ... and your cause is a means to that end.
So she asks: "Who are you? What do you do?"
Please understand: Kelly's most profound questions are not about your nonprofit at this point. Her questions are really about, "How does your cause connect with me? Why will I care emotionally?"
So you answer her ... not with your facts, but with a personal question: "Well, Kelly, what disturbs you most about what you see every day on the streets of our fine city? Do wish you could help the homeless, many of whom are veterans?"
And off you go.
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