Back sometime in the 1990s, I heard and learned about this idea of the 'elevator pitch'. I had been selling things for some time, and this idea popped up somewhere, so I bought some books and found out as much about it as I could.

The basic idea was that if you found yourself in an elevator with Richard Branson, or your best possible potential client, and were only going up to the third floor so had around 60 seconds with them, that you needed a potted 'pitch' to explain your business to them succinctly, so that they would buy from you, or invest in you.

In the early 1990s this seemed like a good idea to me, but over time I've seen people use their 'elevator pitch' so many times at networking events and when they first meet someone, and they end up turning that person, or their networking audience, away for ever.

Yet I suspect many business owners reading this will still be using their ‘old’ pitch or will hear such elevator pitches on weekly basis within their own circles. Many will have switched off from those messages long ago.

Today I have two basic problems with the elevator pitch:

Problem #1 is that I'm English, I live in the middle of England, and it's called a lift. And lift pitch doesn't work as well!

Problem #2 is that if you're really honest with yourself, if someone got into a lift with you and immediately started pitching their business to you, without warning, you'd take the first opportunity to get out of the lift and use the stairs, or put your Airpods in, or just ask them to shut up. You just would.

So why do we think that if we turn up to a networking event, that the right thing to do is throw an elevator pitch at everyone (when we're not even in an elevator!).

People go to networking events for the sake of their own business, not your’s (generally, yes I know someone will chip in here and say they go to find suppliers etc etc, but generally). So to stand up and talk just about your business makes no sense. I learned this through making mistakes myself and paying attention to what actually goes on around me – it’s called ‘reading the room’.

Recently I had a meeting with one of my clients, specifically to talk to them about me doing more work for them. The meeting was attended by the three directors of that business and me.

The three directors knew why they were there, because I wanted to sell them the idea of me doing more work and therefore invoicing them some more. That was the entire point of the meeting so they came prepared for that conversation, as did I.

A networking event is different to that, the other people in the room didn’t show up to buy from you, so to try to sell to them immediately in the 40 or 60 seconds makes little sense, in my opinion.

So what I attempt to do, successfully, and what I help my clients to do, is to create a 40 or 60 seconds that, rather than trying to sell to a room full of people who don’t want to be sold to, instead creates interest with the right people. Rather than my clients telling people about what they do, instead we create an introduction which leaves a few people in the room pricking up their ears and wanting to know more.

Now, before someone points it out, this was meant to be the point of the elevator pitch when I first read about it sometime in the 90s, but along the way we’ve got it all twisted up.

Most people that I meet, for the first time at least, think of their 40 or 60 seconds as their opportunity to tell everyone in the room everything they can possibly stuff into the allotted time about their business. People even say to me “my business is complex, I need more than 60 seconds to explain it to people!”. Pitches like this are, to say the least, boring.

DO NOT try to explain your business in 60 seconds. Instead, use that 60 seconds to intrigue the right people. What you think you are selling is really different to what the people in the room might be buying.

To think about it another way, at the end of your 40 or 60 seconds you have a choice. The choice is whether you want to leave people feeling that they know about your business and don’t need to talk to you, or are intrigued about your business and keen to find out more.

Every big opportunity starts with a little conversation, and this 40 or 60 second slot is your opportunity to start that little conversation, rather than try to fit the whole of the conversation into your introduction.

It is time to ditch the elevator pitch.

The mid 2020s give us so many opportunities to keep the conversation going once we've started it, and we should take them.

Stefan Thomas is author of Business Networking for Dummies & Win The Room.

Stefan runs his own invitation-only networking group Connect, is hosting his first national networking conference Connect Live! in May 2024 and is a professional speaker himself. For more information visit https://www.stefanthomas.biz