When I started working on my elevator pitch, I knew that I wanted it to be brief and to the point. When we started watching some of the examples of elevator pitches, it seemed that they often got bogged down by statistics. This is not to say that I think statistics are bad or that they are pointless. On the contrary, they help support the pitch and give it legitimacy. What I didn’t want to happen with my pitch is for it to lose its focus; I didn’t want to cite statistics for the sake of citing them – they actually had to support what I wanted to say.
When it came down to it, I didn’t really end up using any statistics. I felt like I could communicate what I wanted to say to the audience if I helped them understand the need for the product and how our product is unique compared to others that are similar. Because of this, I really worked on making sure the explanation of the product was clear.
I was actually happy that I got to work on a presentation like this because I feel like this is one of my strong suits. Between participating in speech and being in theater productions, I have had experience speaking in front of audiences for most of my life. This is why I was somewhat surprised to find myself as nervous as I was; there are a few things that contributed to this.
The first is that the presentation had to be memorized. Now, I knew this was something that I could do (because I’ve done it so many times before), but I have been out of practice: I haven’t had to memorize something for a presentation (or a play) in a long time. I think because so much of the presentations I have had to give in college are more impromptu or casual, I felt more pressure to be precise with how I presented this pitch.
The second main thing that contributed to my nervousness is the fact that I had to give this pitch to my peers. Throughout my life as a speaker and performer, I’ve always found that presenting for people you know is much harder than presenter for strangers. I guess that I just forgot how it felt to get in front of your peers and recite a memorized presentation.
The final thing that contributed to my nerves was the nervous energy surrounding this presentation. We talked a little about this in class, but I feel like I wasn’t as nervous about it until we started talking about how nervous people got during their presentations. I think it was hyped up so much that it really started to make me nervous about it.
One thing that I really liked about this assignment was being able to see my classmates present. There is no question that everyone was at least a little nervous for this pitch. And even though some of us may not have wanted to give this pitch, it was really cool to see people step out of their comfort zones. Along with this, I love seeing how supportive everyone is of a student that is struggling through his or her presentation. This sort of thing just goes to show that there’s nothing really to worry about. Although our friends and peers might make us the most nervous, they’re also the most supportive.
Danny Carraher 