The Media Interview

My post about not mindlessly repeating your key message in an interview got me thinking about forumulating a key message and that got me thinking about elevator pitches. “Elevator pitch” is a term that originated with entrepreneurs trying to pitch a business idea to venture capitalists in the time it took to ride the elevator up to their office. It’s used more generally now to mean getting your point across quickly and effectively - which is why I find it so useful in doing media interview prep.

Depending on how many floors the ride is people put the elevator pitch between 15 and 30 seconds - about the length of many media sound-bites - and that’s what you should strive for in preparing your message for an interview. You may or may not actually do your elevator pitch during the interview, but it’s a great mental hook on which to base your interview responses - it keeps you coming back to the essentials of your message. It’s also very handy for those potentially awkward openings like “So, tell me about your product…”.

Here are some sites where you can hone your elevator pitch, then put it online and have others comment on it and rate it:
The 15 Second Pitch
Your Elevator Pitch