Instead of giving a pitch, tell a story. You have heard how important it is to have an elevator pitch. A short, concise description of your company. Short enough to give it on an elevator ride. We solve the problem of blah, blah. The goal is in that one bright shining moment, your vision and your enthusiasm will cause a potential investor or customer or partner to stop and think, “wow, that’s the greatest thing I have ever heard, tell me more.” It never happens. No one can truly grasp the value of what you are doing in 30 seconds (the typical Atlanta elevator ride). Investors especially are pitched all the time. The pitches all sound the same after a while. The key is to get them to REMEMBER you.

People love stories. And keep it personal if you can. Don’t say you solve the problem of medical claims tracking. Describe how difficult it is for your Mom to keep up with her medical bills and how you wrote a program in your garage to solve it for her and how she showed it to a neighbor who works for Aetna and now ….

Creating a great story is not easy. It is much harder than an elevator pitch. There is a great new book called Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. Go get it and start working on your story.