In Silicon Valley, almost everyone knows how to make a version of what is known as the elevator pitch.

It can be considered a very specific art form and there are consultants who can help you sharpen what could be the most important presentation you make before funders.

In some cases it is thirty seconds and in others it stretches to two minutes, a quick pitch that is supposed to engage your audience on many levels. I recently heard a very good presentation that outlines how to make a Silicon Valley pitch from Theresa Lina Stevens.  She runs the Lina Group Inc. which does consulting in this area for young startup leaders. I thought her insights would be worth sharing in twitter like brevity since if you are going to pitch a new digital project inside a company…or to a venture capitalist, the challenges can be very similar.

Overall Pitching Guidelines:

Tailor to the audience and situation.

WIFM Tell the audience “What’s In It For Me”.

Try to figure out how to touch your audience emotionally.

Be as specific as you can be.

Use examples or stories.

Your Only Goal? Get them to want more.

How to Structure Your Message?

Why/What/How Framework:

1. Why there is a problem

2. What they must do about it

3. How you’ve uniquely solved the problem

You should be able to boil this down to one sentence.

Your goal is get the next meeting.

When you get that meeting the person who can green light you, you’ll want to do Why, What, How, and one more…

How You Will Make Money.

If you have any elevator pitch concepts, we welcome them.

New addition: This website has three questions to answer for media related elevator pitches.