Years ago, I was the Pitch Coach for Springboard Enterprises (which has helped entrepreneurs generate $37 billion in funding/valuation.)

One of their members, Kathleen Callendar of Pharma Jet, told me, “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.”

“What’s the good news?”

“I have a chance to pitch to a room full of investors at the Paley Center in NYC.”

“That is good news. What’s the bad news?

“I’m going at 2:30 in the afternoon and I only have ten minutes.”

I told her, “Actually, you don’t have ten minutes. They will have heard sixteen other presentations. You have 60 seconds to prove you’re worth listening to.”

So, this is the opening I helped Kathleen craft that won millions in funding and helped her be selected as one of Business Week’s “Most Promising Social Entrepreneurs” for that year.

“Did you know there are 1.8 billion inoculations given every year?

Did you know up to a third of those are given with re-used needles?

Did you know we are spreading & perpetuating the very diseases we’re trying to prevent?

Imagine if there was a painless, one-use needle for a fraction of the current cost.

You don’t have to imagine it; we’ve created it.”

Are your eyebrows up?

That means Kathleen just got her business in your mental door.

Kathleen used to start with a standard elevator speech by explaining that Pharma Jet was a “medical delivery device for sub-cutaneous inoculations.” A what?!

That explanation would have lost people at hello because it’s confusing. And confused people don’t say yes.

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