How To Build An Elevator Pitch
Remember elevators? You know, those things we rode multiple times a day to get to and from an office or hotel room? The fleeting elevator ride spawned the idea that we need a way to describe ourselves or our company in 30 seconds or less – what we call an elevator pitch. This 30-second or less exercise is very useful since in our very attention-deficit world, our world where so many of us do the same thing and can sound very much alike (“hi, we are a creative advertising agency”, yada…). You get the idea.
Let’s Get Elevator Pitch Personal
One of my ad agency clients asked me to help her quickly and succinctly describe herself for her appearance on an upcoming online seminar. By coincidence, I received an invite to a SharpSpring event and noted how a bunch of advertising agency and marketing thinker and influencer types described themselves. I noted their self-descriptions as food for thought. Food for elevator pitch thought. Just for the hell of it, here are ways that very successful marketing thinkers describe themselves.
Hype-free digital marketing and customer service strategist.
Recognized as a top 100 entrepreneur under the age of 30 by President Obama.
Leading authority on positioning and reinventing in the creative and digital space.
Internationally recognized speaker & contributor to Ad Age’s Small Agency Diary.
Ranked one of LinkedIn’s Top Ten Voices in Marketing for four years in a row.
Works with 250+ agencies every year. Latest bestseller – Sell With Authority.
NYT bestselling author of nine books and counting.
Named among the 30 best young tech entrepreneurs under 30 by Business Week.
Host of the smart agency master class podcast. The number one digital marketing agency owner podcast.
Content marketing guru featured in NYT, Mashable and search engine land.
Agency business expert keynote speaker author and virtual event trainer.
Author of 19 international bestsellers, and one of the most popular bloggers in the world.
Digital marketing pioneer, Wall Street Journal bestselling author and tiny house owner.
Bestselling author and host of award-winning YouTube series.
I am not putting names to these descriptors. However, here are a few common traits.
- Bestselling author.
- Third-party recognition. Example = New York Times, Wall Street Journal, LinkedIn.
- Speaker. As in the keynote.
- YouTube + Blog + Podcast + LinkedIn activity.
- The ‘under 30’ thing.
By the way, my favorite is “Author of 19 international bestsellers and one of the most popular bloggers in the world”. 19! Yes, this is Seth Godin.
Your Elevator Pitch
It isn’t easy distilling your background, attributes, and competitive positioning into a brief yet compelling sentence. I do think, however, that it is good practice to try and see how you can make that happen – in an elevator, on your website and on your LinkedIn profile, etc. Like, how can you describe your company and its benefits in one sentence?
My Story
I’ve been in business a long time. It is difficult for me to distill all of my experience down into bite-size pieces. Here is how I did it on this website in what I call My Story. People love it. Steal the idea.
My Elevator Pitch?
Here’s me on LinkedIn… “Astounding USA & Global Business Development Accelerator – I Make Businesses Unignorable.”
Here I am on Twitter… “Happy American in Mexico running a global biz dev consultancy and doing global photography. I Ran BD at Saatchi, CEOd 2 startups, owned my own agency.”
And, finally, here I am on Facebook… “I invented online news, podcasting, bots, and photographic ethnography. Now write for PetaPixel.”
LOL. I did invent online news in 1995, I did invent bots in 2000 and I do ethnography.
I could also say that I have gotten press from the NYT, WSJ, Wired, Inc., Ad Age, Adweek, Campaign, Hubspot, and more but that would take too many floors to tell.
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