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What a good elevator pitch can do for you

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My name is Joseph Hatch. I make skinny people.

Interested? Who wouldn’t be? Right now, 104 million Americans are actively trying to lose weight. This country is literally in the midst of an obesity epidemic. So when I tell people that I make skinny people, they listen. And when they listen, they aren’t just hearing me brag about the four patent-pending, clinically-proven ways to lose weight I am offering them, or a network marketing opportunity, they are listening to my elevator pitch.

That pitch has been the key to my Network Marketing success.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with an elevator pitch it’s that 15-second explanation of what you do – basically, what you would say to a stranger on an elevator. In those 15 seconds, you want to offer them the sort of information that makes them want to learn more. In my case, the next step is showing them before and after pictures of the people I’ve made skinny, including myself.

After that, my product almost sells itself.

I have been in Network Marketing for only two years and two months. Yet there are three things that I know for sure.

The first is that you shouldn’t get involved with a company until you properly check it out. Make sure the company and its offerings are legitimate. If you are going to put your name on something or stake your reputation on it, then you want to know exactly what you are getting involved with, inside and out. After all, you want to be able to cash those checks for all the hard work you do and you want to get paid.

Second, you must treat a job in Network Marketing like any other job, and work at it. That means that you have to put in the time and the effort to find any kind of success in this industry. I make dozens of contacts a week, and more than a thousand in a year, and believe me, meeting all those people is work. But hey, this is my job!

The third thing I know for sure is that you should have a killer elevator pitch—so whether you are on an elevator, a bus or in line at the bank, you can expand your contacts and your opportunities. With a pitch that draws people in, you will be that much closer to getting them involved in your product and opportunity. No time is wasted.

I came to Network Marketing after 34 years in the real estate business, selling everything from residential to commercial properties. I’m part of the Billion Dollar Club with RE/MAX International and the Board of Realtors Billion Dollar Club, so I know a thing or two about sales—and success.

I dabbled in the Network Marketing industry a little bit in 2002, but at the time the real estate market here in Mesa, Arizona, was booming and I got sidetracked. I just didn’t have the time to devote to anything else.

Then the market and the economy tanked, and took my income and investments along with it. Though right now it’s just me and my wife Christie—our five children are gone, raised and doing their own thing—I wanted to make sure I could provide for my family and our retirement. I was looking for something that could offer me a six-figure income, so I went back to network marketing.

I was familiar with network marketing because I had a good friend who had been doing it successfully for about 25 years. But two years and two months ago, I stumbled across an opportunity that inspired me to get involved again.

I had just built a new mountain home, and it needed some new furniture. So I went to a store and spent $5,000 on mattresses. I got to be friends with the store’s owner, and he introduced me to the company Free Life International. So, I met the owners and a couple of distributors that he was involved with and I fell in love with the whole concept almost immediately.

That, however, was only the first step. Success was a bit harder to come by. First, I found people who were like me, who were in the real estate business and wanted to get their life back. So, I faced my fears and called people I knew to tell them about this opportunity.

When I first got involved I was calling three or four people a day, so about 1,200 people in the first year. In the second year, I started to increase my reach, so I sought out 1,400. Now, as I go into my third year, my goal is to reach out to 2,000 with my elevator pitch.

Whether it’s at a rock show, at the grocery store or on the bus, I’m looking for people to talk to. I go out of my way to attend community events to meet new people. I want to meet new people all the time—so they can hear my pitch.

After the pitch, I show them those before and after pictures. The best picture, of course, is my own. People look and me and say, “You’ve got to be kidding, you used to look like that?” And my response is always, “That’s me.”

From there, my task is simple: to inform them about what I am offering. Some want to try it, some want to get involved in selling it, and others walk away, probably thinking it’s too good to be true. Without my elevator pitch, I wouldn’t be able to do any of it. So if you want to find success in Network Marketing, then you need to be sure that the next time you are stuck in an elevator with someone, you are ready to share your best pitch.

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