What’s your elevator pitch? Students compete on ride up 27-story TKE tower

In times of career uncertainty, it may be more important than ever to have a strong elevator pitch.

A group of Kennesaw State University students in the professional sales program got plenty of practice while competing in an elevator pitch contest held inside a lift within the tallest tower in Cobb County on Wednesday.

The main cars within the North American headquarters of TK Elevator’s 420-foot test tower are made of glass, offering a scenic view of northwest metro Atlanta during the ascent. Unlike most buildings, the tower showcases the elevators themselves.

The TKE test tower has elevators designed to travel up to 1,600 feet per minute. But for this annual contest, the elevator speed was slowed down to allow enough time during the ride up for a roughly minute-long pitch from each student.

The tight time limit is a key part of the challenge — in the contest and in the frenetic pace of professional life.

“Back in the day … maybe you worked in an office building, and you were interested in a job, and you saw an executive in the elevator — you gave your pitch,” said Brent McCulloch, director of the KSU Center for Professional Selling. “It’s really evolved into just a short conversation about who and what you are” for networking and business events.

As the students waited their turn to enter the elevator and give their pitch to two judges awaiting them inside, many paced nervously and rehearsed their speeches in the lobby.

“When you get into the elevator‚ there’s a camera person, and there’s two judges in a very tight box,” said Adam Luckey, vice president of the Southeast U.S. for TKE. “We want to prepare them for these pressure-packed situations.”

Jessica Paden, a marketing student at KSU who also works full time as an assistant manager at an Aldi store, noted during her pitch that her schedule has “taught me more than anything that time is of the essence.”

She also highlighted the job experience she’s already gained at the age of 24.

“I’ve learned how to lead large teams, how to manage inventories,” Paden said in her pitch. “I’ve realized as a manager, it takes more than just a great pitch to earn a customer’s trust.”

After taking first place in the contest, Paden observed that “learning how to sell yourself, knowing what you are best at, and how to get that across — I think that’s good for anything, not just the competition.”

Partnering with local universities that have sales programs is part of TKE’s recruiting, Luckey said, and the company hired the winner of the first KSU elevator pitch contest.

Avani Shah, who won in 2022 and now works at TKE in sales, said this type of contest “helps with the soft skills of small talk, and then also for those tougher conversations that naturally occur.”

“Sales is a really authentic process,” Shah said. “A lot of people can be all showmanship and everything, but at the end of the day, what matters is who you are at your core and your character.”

TK Elevator, formerly ThyssenKrupp Elevator before it was sold and became independent from German industrial firm ThyssenKrupp, is now set to merge with Finnish elevator giant Kone, which has its Americas headquarters in Illinois.