It has been said that "you only have one chance to make a favorable first impression." Never is that truer than when you want to promote yourself or your business to a stranger you’ve just met. In most situations, you have a minimal amount of time-about 30 to 60 seconds to capture the person’s attention, engage them, and spark interest, with the goal of eliciting a positive response.

That’s about how long it might take to ride in an elevator with someone who might ask you, "what do you do?" Hence the name "elevator speech." With such a short amount of time, your elevator speech, or pitch, needs to be well-crafted, concise, and compelling, or it could turn out to be a forgettable conversation and a lost opportunity. You will likely lose the person’s attention if it lasts more than 60 seconds. Any shorter than 30 seconds, and you will probably leave out some essential information.

More crucially, when properly created, practiced, and delivered, it can quickly establish you as a professional and effective communicator-two attributes most people find appealing. If it sounds canned or unnatural, your audience may start looking for an exit.

So, how do you craft a highly effective elevator speech? You can do it by following the following six steps:

Write a Brief Introduction

Write a brief sentence introducing yourself and your company. Keep it short and simple. Your audience may want to learn more about who you are and what you do after you have intrigued them with your value proposition.

Create a Powerful Value Proposition

For any self-promotion to be effective, you must have a unique and compelling value proposition that clearly and concisely communicates what value a person could expect from your business that they couldn’t get from another business.

• Is your product or service technologically superior?
• Is it exclusive to your business?
• Does your business have an unparalleled reputation or track record?
• Is it known as an innovator in the industry?
• Can your products or services solve a problem no one else can?

The goal is to draw your audience in by communicating in one to two sentences how you or your business is on a different level than your competitors and how they can benefit from your products or services.

Add an Engaging Question

People can get turned off if you monopolize the conversation. So, after communicating your value proposition, ask open-ended questions that require more than a "yes" or "no" answer to draw them into the conversation. For example:

"What does your organization do to increase the productivity of your remote workers?"

If the person engages, you have permission to continue to interact with them.

Create a Call to Action

You need to decide what action you would like your audience to take at the end of your pitch. The purpose of an elevator pitch is to inspire your audience to act. That could be as easy as exchanging business cards with an offer to follow up the conversation over the phone or coffee or a visit to your business.

Pull it All Together

"Hi, I’m Bob Price with Pace Productivity Systems. What’s your name? Hi, Stan. My company develops mobile applications that businesses use to increase productivity among their remote workers. With our application, businesses have seen an average increase in productivity of 35%, which translates immediately to their bottom line. Unlike our competitors, we visit our clients on-site so we can customize a solution for their needs.

What does your company do to increase the productivity of your remote workers?

I know this isn’t the time or place for this conversation. We can continue it over a phone call or coffee if you’d like. How does that sound?"

Practice, Practice, and Practice Some More

No doubt you’ve heard someone say that a great actor can read the phone book and still command the audience’s attention. For an effective elevator pitch, the delivery is just as important, if not more so, as what it says. Your pitch must sound natural, not salesy. Your pace can’t be any faster than a normal conversation, which is what you are shooting for. You want to communicate your passion without sounding aggressive while being conscious of your body language.

Being able to accomplish that while getting your message across in under one minute requires extensive practice-in front of a mirror, your spouse, or your colleagues. Feedback is essential to iron out any kinks.

Successful professionals are masters at self-promotion, using any opportunity to get their message out. They’re passionate about what they do and confident in their abilities, so they’re not afraid or the least bit apologetic in letting people know what they do. They also understand that the worst that can happen is someone politely saying they do not need their products or services. Even if that happens four out of five times a day, one prospective client could emerge.