Echelon is going to involve a lot of pitching, so here are three pieces of advice to make sure it goes well

Picture this, you’ve just booked a Grabhitch to the office when the passenger door swings open, the other passenger is none other than Amazon big boss Jeff Bezos.

Suddenly, your stomach feels like a nest of butterflies and you’re overcome with nerves and excitement to meet someone so influential is real. You start to post a blow-by-blow narration of the ride on Instagram Stories. Then it hits you, you should probably be pitching your startup.

But time passes, and now there is less than 3 minutes before Bezos arrives at his destination. You start to sweat buckets because this is a once in a lifetime opportunity and it is slipping away.

Sounds too good to be true? Well the Jeff Bezos bit is probably far fetched, but many entrepreneurs have found success because they got lucky and managed to attract the attention of a future business partner.

But how did they manage to get that attention?

In this article, we look at how to hold your own in an elevator pitch.

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Capture Attention

Mention something that would hook the interest of anyone — it might be something you have in common with the person, a crazy fact about the industry or even talking about the hot topic in the city.

Most people make the mistake of just introducing themselves, what they do and how they do it.

Go for something different. Lead with a hook line then bring in the introduction.

For example, “Hey, you are from Indonesia? What should we here in Singapore expect when they launch here?” or, “Let me tell you the funny story about the time I kissed a frog and it kissed me back”.

Team first, product later

If they only had a short amount of time, most investors want to know about the team. All startups go through pivots so for an investor, they are trying to gauge if the team is built to withstand the highs-and-lows of entrepreneurship.

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No one wants to invest in a company that is made up of strangers that barely know one another. It’s important to always talk about, experience, going-through adversity, team dynamics and how the team handles success.

Then you can tackle the product or service.

Remember, it’s about getting that next meeting!

A lot of young entrepreneurs do not realise that an elevator pitch is not going to lead to any partnership. The real goal is just getting a foot through the door. Then, once there is a follow-up the next step is to find the key to open the door behind that first door.

People who expect the world from an elevator pitch usually oversell which can do more harm than good. It’s the entrepreneurs that can manage their expectations for a given meeting that end up finding gold at the end of the rainbow.

Always remember that the goal of an elevator pitch is to garner interest before anything else. No business has ever made money just through an elevator pitch but it will help get one step closer to closing a deal.

Looking forward to testing your pitch at Echelon Asia Summit 2018? Register here!

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Echelon Asia Summit 2018 will be happening on the 28th and 29th of June. It is a full day event with many influential speakers in the ecosystem and tons of opportunities to showcase your startup or find that next unicorn.

The post Here are some useful tips to perfect the elevator pitch ahead of Echelon Asia Summit 2018 appeared first on e27.