Workshop 2, part 1 – training on how to do a video elevator pitch

The second workshop in the video presentation skills training follows on from the first workshop, Workshop 1, part 1 – filming one minute video pitches without training.

For this element of the video presentation skills training, we collaborated with Student Enterprise and Employability (SEE).

Pei-Chin Tay, Student Development Officer, gave a talk about elevator pitches. She showed some examples of video elevator pitches, and introduced SEED Fund, where you can get up to £5,000 for your business idea – the submission process includes a 1 minute video pitch.

Here are the slides from the presentation. It covered topics such as:

• What is an elevator pitch?
• When to use it
• Why is it important?
• Insights from the SEED Fund – showing a few videos and talking about the things that work and don’t work
• What sort of content should you put in there?
• How to improve
• Video with 5 tips for elevator pitches from Shell Live Wire

Pei-Chin provided this template as an example of how to create an elevator pitch:

[name of company] is a [type of company] specialising in [industry/discipline], particularly in areas of [industry/discipline].

Our primary aim is to provide [unique products/services] to [profile of customers] through [unique approaches] because

We are [professionals] with expertise in [specific skills/experience]. We are passionate about…

Here’s an example of a SEED Fund video pitch that Pei-Chin discussed.

And her five steps to a successful elevator pitch were:

1. Keep it short – 1-2 mins long, people lose focus if you overburden them, use clear succinct information
2. Make people listen to you – hook them in with relevant info
3. Your idea is important but so are, you are a sound investment too
4. Use props such as a sample of your product – let people see the idea for themselves
5. Practice – you’ll get better with practice

The next blog post, Workshop 2, part 2 – exercises to practice video presentations, describes the exercises that the participants did to put these tips into practice.

Go back to Video presentation skills workshops – an overview.