Elevator Pitch? Try The Revolving Door Pitch Instead

You’re probably familiar with the traditional Elevator Pitch.

This is the short sales pitch (i.e. 30 seconds ish) that you can use to articulate your company’s value proposition to a prospective client.

The idea is that you’re able to fully recite this pitch in an elevator in the time it takes for the doors to open again, and before your prospect can escape (hypothetically speaking).

The Challenge

While the elevator pitch is an essential weapon to have in your arsenal, it’s often too long-winded to use at the beginning of a sales call.

Most people don’t really like the idea of being sold to. And once they suspect that’s what is happening, they want out.

What happens more often than them just leaving the call (or the elevator), however; is that they stop listening. They switch off, which means you’re just talking at them.

And that’s the last thing you want.

The Revolving Door Pitch

Therefore, you should dissect your Elevator Pitch into bite-size chunks, and use these nuggets to form informative questions.

I call this technique the Revolving Door Pitch.

Exactly the same principle as the Elevator Pitch, but in much less time.

The Revolving Door Pitch allows you to trickle out key parts of your value proposition while keeping it conversational and involving your prospect in the process.

Inform them first, then invite them to talk about their situation.

Here’s an example:

We help company founders to reduce time spent on finding new opportunities, so they can focus on running their business and meeting project deadlines. How do you currently generate new leads for your business?

Not only is this much shorter, but it circles - or revolves - the conversation back around to you.

And you can use your response to form the beginning of your next question.

Generate Curiosity

By using good questions - and by keeping your prospect talking about their business - they will naturally want to hear more from you eventually.

You've built suspense. You’ve generated their interest and curiosity. They’ve shared their goals and challenges with you. Now they’re ready to listen.

They’ve opted in.

And that’s exactly what you want.