Try This: Harvard Business School's Elevator Pitch Builder

I came across this quite accidentally while searching for more publishers to pitch the book I'm working on to, and since you can never learn too much about pitching I thought I'd pass it along to you guys. I present to you, dear reader, Harvard Business School's Elevator Pitch Builder. It's incredibly user-friendly and also explains in a slickly designed template what the different aspects of a pitch are and what its purpose is. 

Even better, it doesn't allow you to look at any other phase of the pitch other than the one you're working on. After you're done, it analyzes your pitch to show you how many words it is, how long it will take to deliver (150 words takes about 36 seconds) and it also color codes each aspect of your pitch (who, what, why and your goal) so you can hop back and tweak accordingly.

Anyway, I won't belabor the point: It's pretty cool and if you wanna brush up and refine your pitching technique, give it a shot.

David Wolinsky is a freelance writer and a lifelong Chicagoan. In addition to currently serving as an interviewer-writer for Adult Swim, he's also a comedy-writing instructor for Second City. He was the Chicago city editor for The Onion A.V. Club where he provided in-depth daily coverage of this city's bustling arts/entertainment scene for half a decade. His first career aspirations were to be a game-show host.

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