An Elevator Pitch to hook Donald Trump's attention to our proposal!

An Elevator Pitch to hook Donald Trump's attention to our proposal!

            The technical module was continued with the training with Dr Roland Xavier which was held on 6^th and 7^th January 2011. It was about the “Five Disciplines of Innovation” and a method to obtain a successful business plan. The five disciplines are;

Discipline #1.  Important Customer and Market Needs

Discipline #2.  Value Creation

Ø  Guiding Principles

v  Value Propositions — NABCs

v  Elevator Pitches

Discipline #3:  Innovation Champions

Discipline #4:  Innovation Teams

Discipline #5:  Organizational Alignment

            The first two disciplines were the focus of the training. We were emphasized to always alert about what our customers need rather than what we (the company) intended to do. An innovation or invention that is customer oriented will be easy to penetrate into the market and get a high quantity of sales. Besides, we were taught to always sieved the idea that we have into two categories which are either it is interesting or important. A preferable one and has high potential to be successful in the market is the important idea. An important idea is often related to the needs of people like staple food, health and well-being.

            We were also exposed to another important method which is an “Elevator Pitch”. According to Wikipedia, an elevator pitch is “an overview of a product, service, person, group or organization, or project and is often a part of a fundraising, marketing communications, brand, or public relations program”. An elevator pitch from the perspective of John Brown who was once the British Petroleum CEO is that “If you can't get it on one page, you don't know what you are talking about”. We were given an analogy that if we were accidently in the same elevator as Donald Trump and we have a good business plan to propose but the time we have was only 20 seconds, how do we use that short time to attract his attention to listen to our idea and subsequently able to get an appointment to be in his office and discuss further.

            The skill is to have a “Hook” which is a question that should get the person’s attention. Then, we can start to use the NABC tool. N refers to need of the potential customers and market, A is the approach that we want to do to get to the two parties, B is the benefits per cost that a customers and the company will gain from the product while C stands for competition that the product will face in the market and we should give alternatives for the product to survive in the competition. We were given a case study about a pizza business and we applied the NABC tool to identify the sustainability of the business if it is role. All groups gave similar points and Dr. Roland gave supportive comments to all. In another assignment, we were asked to come out with our owh elevator pitch based on our product. It was a good exercise which increased our understanding about the session that we were learning. That is all about the valuable session. Have a great day, Thank you.

-Ancora Imparo-