Mastering Your Elevator Pitch Online & In-Person

I once signed a client while on a layover in airport. It's one of my favorite stories to tell because it shows how important it is to be able to communicate your brand. If you are clear on your message and can communicate it in a succinct and interesting way, then you can sign clients absolutely anywhere, from one tweet to one conversation in an airport.

But how the heck do you master your elevator pitch or one-liner? How can you possibly condense everything you do into a few simple sentences that will interest people to learn more?

It's much easier than you think! I've got a simple way of creating your go to elevator pitch.

Let's get the key parts of your pitch then we'll play with how it works.

Key Ingredients

1. Your Audience

I'm going to let you in on a secret. Most people do not care about you. They care about what you can do for them. So your elevator pitch isn't exactly about you. It's about your audience. So who the heck do you help? Small business owners? Stressed out parents? Unfulfilled professionals? A good tip is the more specific you are, the better off you'll be!

2. What do you do for them?

As in, what's the result? What problem do you solve? Your life will get a lot easier if you can think in terms of problems and solutions.

Problem: My clients struggle with figuring out what works in their marketing. They're wasting valuable time, energy and money on marketing solutions don't work.

Solution: I use my skills and expertise to cut down the guesswork and offer marketing solutions that are custom made for your business.

Results: My clients get their time back, are able to use their energy in their zone of genius and discover the marketing techniques that will attract more leads for their business.

3. How do you solve their problems?

What's your secret sauce? What's your niche, your expertise, your specialty? My speciality is that I bring clarity to my clients on what they are missing in their marketing and design creative effective strategy.  Yours might be gorgeous and memorable graphic design. Perhaps you have a knack for explaining complicated concepts, such as finances or technological solutions or  in a way so that everyone understands. Maybe your copywriting is like magic. How do you do what you do and what makes it unique to you? If you do not know your how or what makes your how different, then ask your clients! Survey your clients and ask them:

• Why did you hire me specifically for this project? 
• If you worked with others in my industry, did I do anything differently?
• What about working with me did you specifically enjoy?
• Was there anything I did that surprised you?

Do not be afraid to ask your clients for feedback. If you did a good job, as I'm sure you did, they will want to help you out so you can keep doing what you are best at.

Putting the pitch together.

We now have the three essentials to your elevator pitch which you can use online or in-person. Just to recap, the three essentials are: Your audience, the result or solutions you provide and your secret sauce. Now we play with it to see how it can come together.

Once you are clear on your three essentials, you really can arrange and rearrange them as many times as you want. For example

I help AUDIENCE achieve RESULTS through SECRET SAUCE. *my personal favorite!

I provide/offer/specialize in SECRET SAUCE for AUDIENCE so they can can experience RESULTS.

Sometimes you might need to identify the problem because your clients might not be aware of what the solutions to their problems could be but they certainly are aware of the problem. In this case, you would want to add in the problem you identified in Step 2, then you could say something like: 

I help AUDIENCE overcome/tackle/solve PROBLEM with SECRET SAUCE so that they can experience RESULTS. 

The idea is to always think in terms of problems and solutions because for the most part, all of your clients care is finding a solution to their problems. While they might care about your background, your history or your goals, they won't right at first. If you want to grab someone's attention, then you need to focus your elevator pitch onto them and their problems.

Once you've mastered your pitch or one liner, you can use it in person when networking as well as online in your profiles, on your website and in your marketing. A good elevator pitch will translate online and off!

Does this give you ideas on your elevator pitch? Put your email into box below to grab the free Elevator Pitch worksheet to start crafting yours! When you are finished, share your pitch in the comments! 

Download Your Free Elevator Pitch Worksheet!

Need help figuring out what makes you special or who your audience is? I can help you figure out what's missing from your elevator pitch in a free Mini Marketing Planning Session! During these free 30 minute sessions, you and I discuss your marketing strategy and I'll help you identify exactly what's missing so we can cover the gaps.  Schedule yours here!