Resource

The elevator pitch, worked through

You have fifteen seconds at the front desk. Sometimes five. This is what goes in them, assembled one piece at a time.

Supports Stage II, Step 1: Getting Prepared of Frameworks. Read the book →

You walk in wearing business attire and carrying a leather folder, so the person at the desk has already decided you are a rep of some kind. He looks up and says “Can I help you?” rather than “Hi.” From that moment you have until a phone rings, another staff member walks up, a patient needs something, or he simply decides to look busy until you go away.

The pitch that fits in that window is not a shortened version of your website. It is an ice breaker. Its job is to open a dialogue, which is why it ends in a question rather than a period.

The four pieces

A complete pitch is a greeting, a core, and a qualifying question. The core is the part you will say several thousand times, so it is the part worth writing down and rehearsing. Whatever wording you land on, the whole thing has to do four jobs:

Give your name, and your business name if it is different
Say what you do
Say why they should care
Describe a patient profile

The patient profile is the description of the kind of patient who benefits from what you do. It is the piece therapists most often leave out, and it is the piece that lets a receptionist decide in one breath whether you are relevant to this office.

1. The greeting

Do not open with the pitch. Read the person first — the sixty-year-old with the reading glasses on a chain, the thirty-year-old in scrubs with visible tattoos, the teenager who is probably the doctor’s niece. Have a formal greeting, a casual greeting, and a playful greeting ready and pick one. The casual one is short and, like the rest of the pitch, ends in a question:

“Hi! How are you?”

Then wait for the answer. That exchange, brief as it is, converts you from an interruption into a person. Only after he answers do you move into the core.

2. The core

The core is two sentences. Here is the one from the book, used on nearly every first office call:

“I run a medical massage clinic called MyoScrip. We specialize in prescription referrals for patients with muscular conditions.”

Notice what it does not do. It does not list modalities. It does not mention years of experience, certifications, or a philosophy of care. It names the business, states the work in the vocabulary of a medical office (prescription referrals, not therapeutic bodywork), and describes the patient in one phrase.

If your own core will not compress, write a sixty-second version first. Put everything in it. Then delete every line that is not one of the four bullet points above. What survives is usually close to the right length.

3. The close-ended qualifying question

A qualifying question gathers information. On a first visit it should be close-ended — answerable with a yes or a no — because you are asking a stranger who is mid-task, and because what you need first is a simple verdict on whether this office is worth returning to.

“Does the doctor see work comp or motor vehicle patients?”

Prepare two or three of these before you start your route, and pick the one that matches the specialty in front of you. A bank of them, sorted by what you are trying to find out, is on the qualifying question page.

The whole thing, assembled

Fifteen to twenty seconds, start to finish. Read it out loud with a clock running; on paper it always looks shorter than it sounds.

Front desk“Can I help you?”

You“Hi! How are you?”

Front desk“Good — busy morning. What can I do for you?”

You“I’m Dana Ruiz — I run a medical massage clinic called MyoScrip, over on Fourth. We specialize in prescription referrals for patients with muscular conditions. Does the doctor see work comp or motor vehicle patients?”

Then stop talking. Whatever he says next is the beginning of the information-gathering part of the call, and it is worth more than anything else you could have said in those fifteen seconds. If the answer is no, you have qualified the office out in under a minute and saved yourself a year of monthly visits. If it is yes, ask your next question and start working toward the goals you wrote in your pre-call.

Your version

Fill this in, then cut it down until it fits the elevator. Keep the finished text somewhere you will actually see it — the notes field on your phone, or the top of your prospect list in your CRM.

Elevator pitch worksheet

GREETING (pick one per office; each ends in a question)
  Formal:  ______________________________________________
  Casual:  ______________________________________________
  Playful: ______________________________________________

CORE (two sentences, said the same way every time)
  Name / business: I'm ____________, I run ____________.
  What you do:     We ____________________________________
  Patient profile: ...for patients with _________________

CLOSE-ENDED QUALIFYING QUESTIONS (prepare 2-3; use one)
  1) _____________________________________________________
  2) _____________________________________________________
  3) _____________________________________________________

TIMING CHECK
  Read greeting + core + question aloud: ______ seconds
  Target: 15-20. Over 20, cut from the core, not the question.

The pitch is an ice breaker, not a verbal brochure. If you find yourself talking for thirty seconds without the other person saying anything, the pitch has stopped working and you are giving a presentation to someone who did not ask for one. Once the pitch has done its job, the rest of the call runs on questions and gets recorded in your post-call note.