{"id":3295,"date":"2015-09-11T12:35:04","date_gmt":"2015-09-11T19:35:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nnlm.gov\/evaluation\/blog\/?p=3295"},"modified":"2019-09-24T10:13:29","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T17:13:29","slug":"give-your-elevator-pitch-a-lift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/2015\/09\/11\/give-your-elevator-pitch-a-lift\/","title":{"rendered":"Give Your Elevator Pitch a Lift"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left\"><a href=\"\/neo\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/stockfresh_454291_elevator-button-of-up-sign_sizeS-2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-3297 size-medium\" src=\"\/neo\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2015\/09\/stockfresh_454291_elevator-button-of-up-sign_sizeS-2-300x196.jpg\" alt=\"Illuminated elevator up button\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" align=\"left\" hspace=\"10\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Forget about elevator speeches.\u00a0 Think elevator <em>conversations<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Elevator pitches are one of a number of strategies you can use to stealthily promote your organization\u2019s successful programs and services. We cover elevator pitches in an OERC workshop about how to use evaluation to better advocate for your organization. I always thought of elevator pitches as little promotional speeches of elevator-ride length (i.e. 20-seconds) that you can slip into small talk when you run in to \u201csomeone influential.\u201d \u00a0You add nuggets of evaluation findings to these mini-speeches to demonstrate program value.<\/p>\n<p>I now see that I was missing a key element in the elevator pitch exchange: the other person.<\/p>\n<p>I can thank this insight to Tim David and his article <em><a href=\"https:\/\/hbr.org\/2014\/12\/your-elevator-pitch-needs-an-elevator-pitch\">Your Elevator Pitch Needs an Elevator Pitc<\/a>h<\/em>, which appeared in the Harvard Business Review (10 Dec 2014). \u00a0David emphasizes the importance of engaging your fellow elevator traveler, rather than talking \u201cat\u201d him or her.<\/p>\n<p>As such, you have to prepare a conversation, not a speech.<\/p>\n<p>What I appreciate in particular is how he seamlessly slips in evidence to support his low-key pitch. See, for instance, how he surreptitiously inserts a statistic that he must have obtained from a follow-up evaluation with one of his client organizations.\u00a0 Specifically, the organization reported that productivity and morale increased 38% after his training. David seamlessly folds that little fact into the conversation and it underscores the value his service provided to the organization.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s how to tie evaluation to advocacy, folks!<\/p>\n<p>Here are the other tips I took away from the article:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Answer polite but perfunctory questions (such as \u201cwhat does your office do?\u201d) with a surprising answer. This is harder than it looks, so I\u2019m going to have to practice this tip. (\u201cHi Mom, did you know\u2026.?\u201d)<\/li>\n<li>Use questions to draw your elevator companion into the conversation. David suggests that you talk no more than 20% of the time. Yield the remainder of the time to the other traveler, but use questions to keep the conversation rolling.<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t worry too much about that 20-second time frame traditionally recommended for elevator pitches. If you successfully engage your fellow rider, he or she will hold the elevator door open to continue the chat.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>We have posted a number of articles about weaving evaluation results into stories (see <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IMCN-K7\">June 29<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IMCN-Kz\"> July 2<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4IMCN-NV\">August 21<\/a> of this year.\u00a0The elevator pitch format is a good addition to your story-telling tool kit. But it <em>is<\/em> the extra-credit challenge. It will take some practice to be able to present an elevator pitch casually and conversationally. If you\u2019re up for that challenge, then check out Tim David\u2019s article for some excellent guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forget about elevator speeches.\u00a0 Think elevator conversations. Elevator pitches are one of a number of strategies you can use to stealthily promote your organization\u2019s successful programs and services. We cover elevator pitches in an OERC workshop about how to use evaluation to better advocate for your organization. I always thought of elevator pitches as little&#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/2015\/09\/11\/give-your-elevator-pitch-a-lift\/\">Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2959,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ICUo-R9","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2959"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6476,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3295\/revisions\/6476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.nnlm.gov\/nec\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}