Crafting Your Elevator Pitch

NORMAN BRUST,
NTB Associates

M aking a pitch: it's your foot in the door for obtaining clients, customers, financing sources and other valuable resources in pursuit of your vision. The WPI Venture Forum's March 14 meeting will be special interactive workshop to assist you in developing your pitch, whether you call it your elevator speech, cocktail commercial, personal commercial or networking spiel.

The elevator pitch is your way of engaging another person to become interested in you and your pursuit. After giving your well-crafted, well-practiced pitch, you should get a feeling of whether the other person has an interest in you and your business. Each attendee will have the opportunity to develop, hone and practice their pitch in front of participants that may have valuable input to your venture.

Our presenter for the evening is Norman Brust, a recognized authority on consultative, business-to- business sales and marketing, with more than thirty years of successful management, marketing, engineering and manufacturing experience with such technology-based companies as General Dynamics, RCA, EG&G, Racal-Dana, Datel- Intersil and Amistar.

In 1988, Brust founded NTB Associates, a sales and marketing management consulting firm, to help manufacturing and technology-based businesses increase profitable sales. He accomplishes this goal through one-on-one client consulting, writing on sales and marketing, and conducting workshops and seminars.

A familiar face at the WPI Venture Forum, Brust is a current Director and Past Chair of the Executive Board. He is a Rhode Island Small Business Development Center Certified Consultant and is a past member of the Board of Directors of a software development company specializing in inspection management software.

In addition to his consulting practice, Brust has taught Management Science courses at Wentworth Institute of Technology as an Adjunct Instructor. He has conducted workshops and seminars for the Rhode Island Manufacturing Extension Partnership, the Rhode Island Small Business Development Center, the Massachusetts Small Business Development Center, the Association of Small Business Development Centers, the Southeastern Massachusetts Manufacturing Partnership, Roger Williams University and the Massachusetts Center for Applied Technology. He has also presented technical papers at NEPCON, SMT/Con and Assembly Tech Expo.

He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering from Brown University and a Master of Science degree in Electronic Engineering from Northeastern University.

There will be no case presentation for this meeting. Instead, the program leaves time for the audience to practice their elevator pitches.