Bob Molluro ⋅ Wilmington, DE Benchmark Consulting Services ltd. ⋅ 30 years experience

Most people make a common mistake when attending a Networking function. They try to answer the question "How can I come off as an "Interesting" person? The real question is how can you come off as an "INTERESTED" person?
Begin when meeting a person for the first time with the mindset that says "how can I get to know this person better?" Answer is ask lots of questions. Where do they work? How long? What do they like most about what they do? Questions about family members/children are appropriate. The rule of thumb is you should be doing less than 20% of the talking. People love to talk about themselves and their accomplishments-let them. The conversation will eventually shift to you. The conversation will naturally lead to the next step which is to find common ground where you can help each other. This is probably where your elevator pitch may fit in. Without a successful completion of the first step in the process your pitch will probably fall on deaf ears.

Jerome Wong ⋅ Scarsdale, NY BNP Paribas ⋅ 16 years experience

Andrew, thank you for your service. Are you attending the event as an entrepreneur pitching an idea or looking for a job in the industry? If it's the latter, your goal should be to "show, not tell" what drives your interest in the industry. You had asked about an elevator pitch so it has to be succinct and designed to leave a single impression. With all due respect, you do not have time to find out about the other person's background to establish report in 30 seconds, there is another time for that.

What specifically is happening in the sector/target company which excites you about the industry? Think about what you want the person to walk away with and remember about you after meeting you - ideally it should be, "Andrew showed a real passion about XYZ and he did his homework on the industry." This requires some real introspection about what really drives your interest.

This is a great video to help you formulate your thoughts, 25+ million hits!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA&t=22s

Best of luck and let me know if you would like to discuss in greater detail.

Rgds

JW

Tom Cal, CFA ⋅ San Francisco, CA Army Veteran, Investment Manager ⋅ 25 years experience

Do you know what sorts of jobs you want, and what career field you aspire to?

Within tech and Silicon Valley, there are hundreds of different roles. Do you know which roles interest you?

Do you have a LinkedIn profile?

What does your headline say?

What does the first 2 lines of your summary say?

Feel free to connect with me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomasical/ .

Monty Crandon ⋅ Tucson, AZ Inpro ⋅ 25 years experience

I totally agree with Jennifer in her advice. Make it mentally visible to whom ever you are talking to and keep it brief. 30 seconds is about the right time to grab their attention, get your message across and not bore them with rhetoric.

Best of luck!!

Rob Bedell ⋅ Santa Monica, CA RSI ⋅ 20 years experience

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for your service. One thing no one has mentioned is you are going to a networking event. Don't worry about your "pitch", but think about building out a network. At networking event, you want to have an elevator pitch, but don't get too detailed. It's suppose to be a hook to start a conversation and I always say not to have that conversation at the networking event because you won't have their full attention.

Focus on building out a network of people. Keep in mind that the person you are talking with, may not be the person you end up doing business with, but they may know a person or you know a person for them. One of the best things that I at networking events is go with another person/friend/colleague. Don't talk about what you do, but talk about the person your with. "Oh, if you need someone to help with Cybercoding, you have to talk with Doug over there" And the person you're with, talks about you and how great you are.

Everyone talks about them self, but when you talk about someone else and how great they are, and they do the same for you, it sets you up much better. So, hand out and collect as many business cards/contact info and set up times to talk later, when you can have one on one conversations.

Best of luck with it.

Rob Bedell

Steven Mathews ⋅ Spring, TX The Boeing Company ⋅ 40 years experience

I have five articles on developing Elevator Pitches written by professional HR people. Glad to share.
slmathews99@gmail.com

Venkat Narayanan ⋅ San Jose, CA Cisco Systems Inc ⋅ 30 years experience

Hi Andrew, I notice your question is dated 8July2018. When is the networking event? I live in Silicon Valley and work in the tech space. Happy to be a sounding board for practice, if you still need it.

Carl Wideberg ⋅ Naples, FL Dun & Bradstreet ⋅ 35 years experience

Dress and act professionally.
Bring your resume and hand it out.
Thank people for taking the time to speak with you.
Just be yourself , smile and enjoy the experience.
Bring breath mints.

Stephen Grey ⋅ Arlington, MA iland ⋅ 12 years experience

Hi Andrew - Thank you for your service. Feel free to connect and provide your elevator pitch:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-grey-9693b650/

At the end of the day, the elevator pitch should be more no more than 30-60 seconds and focus on your strengths (personal or company depending on the pitch). The audience of the pitch should come away with a clear understanding of your company (or who you are) and what you can provide. Feel free to send a transcript if you would like. Good luck my friend.

Ted Mittelstaedt ⋅ Portland, OR Portlandia IT LLC ⋅ 20 years experience

If you are attending to pitch an idea or sell something remember the old adage "money talks bull$$$$ walks"

I've never heard a pichman who said "I have this product that I've sold a few of" who wasn't successful but the tech business is littered with failures who had "great ideas" If you cannot sell it to a customer you don't have a snowball's chance of selling it to an investor.

Frankly I've been pitched to myself enough to really appreciate when a pitchman leads off with who's buying the stuff instead of how I'm gonna make a ton of money if I just spend my own money. Do they think I was born yesterday?

Brook Seaton ⋅ Oakland, CA U.S. Marine Corps, Sergeant ⋅ 4 years served

I worked at a startup that was purchased. If I had joined earlier, I would have had a larger payout. :(
Understand that investors want an exit in a few years, with a multiple times their investment. There are trends that are happening in technology, where the technology shifts, and larger companies need to buy smaller companies to keep up with the technology shifts.
Much of the success in tech is being in the right place, at the right time, with the right set of skills.
I'm not a talkative person, so if you're attending a random tech conference, it's largely smaller companies in small booths, hoping to sell their services to a larger companies in large booths.
I guess you can just drop into all of the VCs in the valley. I don't know.

Tech Crunch is doing something official: https://beta.techcrunch.com/include/office-hours/

Also, there are some events specifically designed for pitching, like Tech Crunch and The Big Indie Pitch.
There are also incubators, like Y Combinator.

Craig Newmark from Craigslist said he's willing to work with Veterans, and will supposedly respond to emails directly.

There's also some interesting things starting to happen with the America Invests Act, with sites like: https://newchip.com/

Andy Bergin ⋅ Greenwich, CT Speaking Virtually ⋅ 36 years experience

Andrew,

I've helped 3500+ people on Wall Street (CEO level down) package their messages for quick delivery. Contact me at andy@speakingvirtually.com and I'll send you some of my tips and we can connect to work on your messaging.

Andy

Sam Hoffman ⋅ Roslyn Heights, NY NYC Dept of Education ⋅ 10 years experience

A lot of these so-called "pitch" events are money grabs manned by people who have no intention of investing in your product. That being said, you are paying good money to attend this, and the people there will spend time to talk with you before and after the presentation and they can't really snub you.

Use this time to find out about them and who they know, and get them to broker a sit-down with a friend or colleague who is prospective client or investor.

I would suggest you need a company to run a beta test for your product. A beta puts less pressure on the people you are dealing with who will likely want to help a veteran but just not maybe yet with their money ;-) A beta with a solid company with a good client base will provide you with solid data and and a basis for future sales.

I did a lot of this type of thing, feel free to private message me, I'm happy to help you out!

Barry Sosnick ⋅ Greenlawn, NY Great Whites Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics ⋅ 5 years experience

Manage your time. Keeping a pitch short helps attract interest as well as recognize early who isn't interested.

Recover quickly from rejection. You will get turned down in a broad range of ways: some will look uninterested, others will try to get away from you and move on to someone else, and there will be the rude person who tells you that you are an idiot. Often in business and life, you will be faced with nine or more people telling you "no" before you reach success. You just need to recover and keep on pushing.

Finally in the seconds you have remember to focus on the need you are fulfilling. People initially understand problems faster than an innovative solution presented without context.

Best of luck!

Barry Sosnick ⋅ Greenlawn, NY Great Whites Pediatric Dentistry & Orthodontics ⋅ 5 years experience

Manage your time. Keeping a pitch short helps attract interest as well as recognize early who isn't interested.

Recover quickly from rejection. You will get turned down in a broad range of ways: some will look uninterested, others will try to get away from you and move on to someone else, and there will be the rude person who tells you that you are an idiot. Often in business and life, you will be faced with nine or more people telling you "no" before you reach success. You just need to recover and keep on pushing.

Finally in the seconds you have remember to focus on the need you are fulfilling. People initially understand problems faster than an innovative solution presented without context.

Best of luck!

Jennifer Polhemus ⋅ Santa Monica, CA Precision Research (self-employed) ⋅ 25 years experience

I'm not in tech, and I hope the tech folks will provide knowledgeable ears for your pitch.

But here's one tip that works for many industries: think of your pitch as a story, not a resume. Set a beginning, middle, and end, something that will NOT please everyone (too bland), but will you make memorable, interesting, unique.

"I have a certificate in network management, did a summer internship at XXX, am transitioning from the military and want to work for your company" is an example of what NOT to do.

Better: "When I was a kid, I loved to change lightbulbs. I was actually happy when a lamp would go out, because I knew I could fix the problem and make a difference. Now I like bigger problems, and I especially like preventing them by working with users, so network management is a good fit for me...."

Best wishes!