Tips: The Tools - Ten Tips for Perfecting Your Pitch

1.	*Be Concise:* An elevator pitch is a clear, concise and well-practiced description of your company. It must be delivered in the time it would take to ride up an elevator – in other words, no longer than 60 seconds. That’s time for about 150-225 words.
2.	*Solve a Problem:* Avoid sounding like a solution in search of a problem. Explain how your unique solution fills a “must have” need. If you aren't solving a problem or filling a need, you're in for a tough sell.
3.	*Tell Them What They Want to Hear:* Describe your product or service and its benefits succinctly. Depending on your audience, you may also have to: define and size the market explain how you’re going to make money tell who is behind the company and frame the competitive landscape and your advantage in it.
4.	*Speak in Plain English:* Talk in tangibles, not abstractions, throughout your pitch. Bring it down to the man on the street. Even if your product is complex, you’ll lose your audience if you use MBA-speak or technobabble.
5.	*Grab the Listener's Attention:* You might try developing a tagline to pique interest, something enticing that captures the imagination like "It's not TV. It's HBO". Or, make an analogy between you and a well-known company. "We're the Yahoo for teens" is a good, short way to say that you're trying to create a search engine/directory/web portal for teenagers.
6.	*Ask Qualifier Questions:* To ensure that you’re targeting the right person with the right message, ask a couple of questions.
7.	*Tailor Your Pitch to Your Audience:* To investors, the pitch focuses on your team and how you plan to make money. To customers, your focus should be on the problem you can solve for them. Potential partners want to know what you're building, why it's important, and why you’re going to be a success.
8.	*Show Your Passion:* A good pitch makes your heart race. Show the fire in the belly and your passion to succeed.
9.	*Conclude With a Call to Action:* Always end your pitch with a call to action, but recognize that different audiences prompt different requests. You might ask friends and acquaintances if they know anyone who would be interested, anyone who's working on something similar, or anyone who's working in the investment world. On the other hand, ask angels and VCs if they'd consider investing. In many cases, you’ll ask if they'd be willing to set up a meeting or speak by phone. If you're really in an elevator, offer to walk straight back to the office to talk more.
10.	*Tell a Consistent Story:* Make sure that your managers and other key individuals, such as investors and board members, can also give your company's elevator pitch fluently. Nothing sounds worse than fumbling, inaccurate or contradictory company descriptions.