As suggested by a friend, who knew I had started my company, I met with a fellow Hamptonian since he has already started a company or two and has been successful. It was a great meeting but I left feeling like I had a lot of work to do if I was going to increase my revenue aka get more customers. The reason for this is he had a lot of questions for me about my business that I answered but took me by surprise.

One of the questions, “What Do I Think Every Business Needs In Its Marketing Arsenal” I will address on another post. For today’s post, I am sharing my thoughts on answers that should be automatic and prepared to share every time you meet a potential customer. And remember, everyone is either a potential customer or knows a potential customer for you!

• Your elevator pitch – You have heard experts say it before but ask yourself, “what you would say if you only have 12-30 seconds in an elevator with someone?” Write and memorize exactly what you want to share about you and your business. (Click on the link from Harvard Business School to start building your own pitch today. If you still need help, call me!)
• Your value or in marketing terms, value proposition–  Your elevator pitch should tell your clients exactly why they should do business with you. Tell them the benefit they receive from using your service, product or solution over your competitors? If you can articulate this information using numbers and facts the better.

If you can get those two important sentences out in a brief time then I guarantee the conversation will last longer and you will be on the next step of your sales cycle.

Here’s my pitch! ” Hi, I’m Maisha Hoye and I am a marketing and small business consultant. I increase the revenue of my clients by aligning marketing to their business process and by building marketing programs that engage and push customers through their sales cycle. I like to focus on lead generation and use my expertise to generate over $6M in opportunities for a small IT company.  I would love to talk to you again about how I can help you increase your revenues.”

Send me your comments and let’s fine tune my pitch together!