Why I Hate Elevator Pitches - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Why I Hate Elevator Pitches - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Fellow PBB writer, Scott Bradley, nearly had me rolling my eyes when he wrote about why your personal brand needs an elevator pitch. But he saved me from serious eye strain when he avoided making the cardinal sin most elevator pitch writers make. The sin of being too clever. Scotts strategy is a good one. A good elevator pitch is an effective value proposition. It tells people what you do. And it has to be simple and memorable. That is, it needs to take much less than the 30 seconds were usually told it should take â€" your elevator pitch should be no more than 2 sentences â€" and it needs to be something people will remember. But memorable is not clever. Memorable is short, punchy, and to the point. The Goal is to Get People to Talk to You The whole point of an elevator pitch is to get people to talk to you about what you do. To want to learn more. To ask questions. And their first question should not be a puppyish tilting of the head followed by a quizzical Huh? Several years ago, one friends elevator pitch was We make your company more memorable. She changed it after Kyle Lacy, my Branding Yourself co-author, and I made fun of her. That could be anything, we said. Sky writers, a guy wearing a sandwich board, or someone who will punch people in the mouth while shouting your company name. The problem was, she had been told to use her elevator pitch because it would get peoples interest and get them to talk to her. Its not a bad strategy if youre stuck on a transcontinental flight with someone and you both forgot your headphones. But in every other elevator pitch situation, you dont have that long to gain someones attention, so you dont want to waste the first 10 seconds of that interaction â€" not to mention that chance to make a good first impression â€" by saying something that makes you have to explain what it is you do anyway. Just tell me what you do, and we can skip the unnecessary stuff. If I like what you have to say, and I need it at that particular moment, Ill ask for more. If I dont, well make polite conversation until I can figure out a way to leave without appearing rude. Its About Timing In a recent blog post on Linda Formichellis Renegade Writer, Melissa Breau talked about how its important to have perfect timing when youre pitching. Case in point: Melissa landed a copywriting client because she started Twitter-following a well-known entrepreneur and she mentioned that she was a writer in her bio. It wasnt overly clever â€" we put your dreams down on paper â€" and it wasnt overly boring either â€" #Writer. #GrammarNerd. These opinions are my own. Instead, it explained that she was a copywriter, which is what her client needed at exactly that moment. (By the way, let me break away for a minute and talk about how much I loathe: 1) #Hashtags in Twitter bios. They make you seem desperate; and, 2) Statements that tell me your tweets are your own. If your company lawyers make you say that, fine. If they dont, dont. I already figured that the personal account with your own name and photo was a dead giveaway that these were your opinions.) Melissas bio, her Twitter elevator pitch â€" her Twitch? â€" describes what she does: Copywriter and book editor. And what did her new client need? A copywriter. It is, as Scott Bradley said, simple and memorable. It was, as Melissa Breau said, perfect timing. She wrote the right pitch, and it reached her new client at the right time. KISS â€" Keep It Short and Simple The point is this: it doesnt matter what you say, how clever your pitch is, or whether its 5 seconds or 8 seconds long. What matters is the person youre talking to needs exactly what you offer at that very time. If they dont, no amount of clever patter, no matter how much effort you put into it, no usage of the latest corporate jargony bullshit will save you. Make your elevator pitch simple, clear, and direct. Im a copywriter. Im a forensic accountant who investigates corporate embezzlement cases. Im a personal injury attorney specializing in bicycle versus construction equipment accidents. Dont fluff it up, dont be clever, and dont try to come up with something that will make them ask questions. Either the other person is interested in what you do because they need it, or theyre not. And no amount of verbal trickery is going to make them interested. So be simple, be direct, be as self-explanatory as you can. Remember, you only have 15 seconds to impress someone. Dont spend that time explaining your elevator pitch. Just say what you should have said all along. Author: Erik Deckers is a writer. Thats it. Just a writer. Nothing more. Oh, and hes a business owner. Hes the co-owner of Professional Blog Service. Hes also the co-author of Branding Yourself: How to Use Social Media to Invent or Reinvent Yourself. His new book, No Bullshit Social Media: The All-Business, No-Hype Guide to Social Media Marketing. Also, his opinions are his own, but they should be embraced by the general populace.