You Can't Do Everything For Everybody

One of the crucial rules of marketing is that you're almost certain to fail if your strategy is to take a small slice of a large cake.  The idea sounds so plausible, doesn't it!  We must be able to take 1% and make a decent living for ourselves, mustn't we!  The trouble is it just doesn't work like that.

You might still fail, but you'll have a greater likelihood of success if you change your plans and aim to take a dominant slice of a different cake.

Imagine you've decided to take 1% of the illegal drugs supply into London.  Do you think you'll survive - and I mean that quite literally - your first day?  Will you even still be alive to enjoy your first coffee break?

You need a different strategy.  Either you and 10,000 heavily armed friends can go for 99% of London, or you aim to be the exclusive supplier to one addict.  Either way you have to plan to dominate.

You have to focus on a specific, under-served market niche if you want to be really successful.  Find a niche and carve out a reputation for yourself as the expert in that field.  A common mistake is to develop the niche product before establishing whether the niche market exists, and whether it's buying.

In their book "The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing", Al Ries and Jack Trout list as their first two laws:

1. It's better to be first than it is to be better
2. If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in

To find your own niche ideas, start by getting into the habit of writing down your ideas as you have them.  Don't try to filter anything out at this stage.  So, where to look for ideas?

1. Solve an existing problem
2. Use freely available, public domain information
3. Ask your current customers and website visitors
4. Combine products into new packages
5. Sell 'own label' products
6. Improve an existing product
7. Adapt an existing product for a different market
8. Exploit today's "must have"
9. Look at your own hobbies and interests
10. Combine ideas and improve on them

Expanding on this last point, if you can marry two diverse ideas, 2 plus 2 can often equal 5!  For example:

• Gutenberg combined a coin stamp with a wine press and invented printing with moveable type
• Long ago, someone combined two soft metals, iron and tin, and produced a strong alloy, bronze
• A French chemist launched a hair colouring product but soon branched out into cleansing and beauty products.  The modern name of his company is L'Oréal.

You can take an existing product and try to think of ridiculous ways to make it work.  Trevor Bayliss combined the electronics of a radio receiver with the mechanism from a wind-up clock to create the clockwork radio.

You can make unlikely pairings of businesses or people and create the most superb results; an idea particularly used in music:- Stéphane Grapelli and Yehudi Menuhin, Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé, Luciano Pavarotti and U2.  Or in business, the car maker Mercedes Benz and watchmaker Swatch combined to create the Smartcar

You can take two everyday products and create a third which has a whole new market:- A trolley and a dustbin make a wheelie bin; a copier and a telephone make a fax machine.

It isn't always easy to create a new category.  In the field of human endeavour, we're all different, so you'd think that would be simple, but after a while it starts to get ridiculous.  I can't imagine the Guiness Book of Records having a category for the first left-handed pilot with red hair to fly solo across the Atlantic!

The irony is that when someone else finds a new niche, we all say, "Why didn't I think of that?"


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Destroying Your Reputation And Your Relationships

There are many ways to build a better reputation and great relationships.  It's probably true that it takes less time to destroy them than it took to build them, and it may well take even longer to re-build them.  We tend to notice these 'many ways' most readily when they go wrong in a big way, but often we are doing ourselves and our chances no good at all in small ways yet we don't realise we're doing it!

Communication
In our conversations and written communications we might be guilty of being patronising by asking lightweight, rhetorical questions at which the other person takes offence.  Even something as simple as, "Would you like to save time and money?" could be seen as patronising.

Then, our more heavyweight questions might be seen as too aggressive.  For example, "Are you sure you're getting it right every time?"

Many people dislike undue familiarity too soon in a relationship.  Using people's Christian names without even unspoken permission can set them against you, and they almost certainly won't tell you directly why they've now gone cold towards you.

Another gaffe to avoid is the use of highly dated clichés.  It just shows you've only learned what you know from a textbook, and you couldn't be bothered to buy an up to date one either!  This applies both to 'Sales speak' and to 'Adviser- or Sales Manager speak'.  Who wants to read, let alone hear, "And that's not all.  Just wait and see what else our product can do for you" or "Remember, people buy from people".  The thoughts may be correct but please, craft your own version of the message.

It is easily possible to get somebody's back up by being assumptively critical, so don't.  "You too can have an apartment in Monte Carlo like mine," isn't the best thing to say.  And putting people into categories when it's obvious you've had no prior contact doesn't do you any good at all, even if it's based on public domain information.  "As someone with two outstanding County Court Judgements against you ..."

Reliability
As well as in conversation and communication, another sure way to damage your reputation is by being seen to fail to deliver on promises you have made.  I have already explained elsewhere that the making and keeping of promises is an essential part of building people's trust in you.  If you behave like that before they're paying you, how much better will you be once they start?  And conversely, if you keep breaking promises before they start paying you, how likely is it you'll change your behaviour once they start?

The problem is that the apparent breaking of a promise can often be the result of the two parties having a different interpretation of what the promise actually was!

At its crudest, there are three elements to a promise.  For the sort of small promises I advocate you make and keep - actually I recommend you 'trade' them - continually, much of this doesn't require to be written, but it's still a good idea to make sure it is understood in the same way by both of you.

A promise generally consists of three elements, and it's essential to agree on these at the outset.

• Deliverables
• Payment
• Timescale

I believe deliverables are easy, but then my degree is in Engineering!  In that world there are some simple rules:

• If you want it, ask for it
• If it isn't in the design specification, don't be surprised if it isn't delivered
• The specification should be a list of 'questions' not 'answers' - You're paying for the 'answers'!
• If the form of the 'answer' is that important to you, it should form part of the 'question'

Going back to Henry Ford's quotation, don't ask for a faster horse if what you want is to be able to get 300 miles from Chicago to Detroit in just one day!
However, if you want to win the Derby, then ask for a faster horse!

Another thing that needs to be agreed up-front is how both parties will agree that the deliverables have been delivered - the Acceptance Criteria.  As I said, with very simple promises it's so easy it doesn't need writing down.  "I'll call you tomorrow at 10:30," contains the design specification, the acceptance criteria, the payment and the timescale.  But with more complex promises, failing to agree on the acceptance criteria at the outset leaves you open to a game of, "Oh yes I did - Oh no you didn't."

Agreeing the payment seems to be fairly simple once the deliverables and acceptance criteria have been agreed.  But, if you get into a negotiation, take a little care.  You may have to adjust the 'package' in order to reach a mutually acceptable 'price', so don't forget to feed back these adjustments into the specification and acceptance criteria.

So far, so good, but when we get to agreeing timescales, especially short timescales on more complex promises, things can get heated and emotional, if allowed to.  Only one person can control your use of your time, and that's YOU!  And it follows that you cannot control other people's use of their time.
They must do it for themselves.

On a complex promise, you need to get 'buy-in' from the rest of the team when it comes to timescales, and this must be done in an atmosphere where everybody feels free to say, "I just can't do all that you are asking within the time you are suggesting."

Have a great reputation and satisfying relationships.

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Whatever Happened To Joined Up Thinking - Part 2

The title implies that joined up thinking used to be widespread but recently we've lost the skill.  Not necessarily true; maybe we never had it!  But even ancient Greek generals debated the unpredictably far reaching effects of ripples on a lake when you lobbed in a stone.

People who can foresee the unintended ought to get a more than fair hearing, but often the opposite is the case.  They get labelled as negative, or resistant to change, or not being team players.

Even the most reasoned arguments don't guarantee that the foresight will be listened to, let alone accepted.  By 2001 scientists at the University of New Orleans were already publishing papers on the risks of having built a city near the sea, protected by levees that cause the ground behind them to sink below sea-level, as it was no longer being topped up by soil deposits from the tidal waters.

In the 1930s, sociologist Robert K Merton listed five causes of 'unanticipated consequences'.  The first two were Ignorance and Error, but the fifth is the one I find most fascinating.  The fifth cause is the Self-Defeating Prophecy, in other words the fear of a foreseen consequence drives people to find solutions before the problems happen.  The prediction then becomes false because it itself changes history.  Think of warnings of the future depth of horse manure on the streets of London, made in the 19th century!

Incidentally, it was only sometime later that Merton turned his original phrase on its head and coined the more well-known expression, the Self-Fulfilling Prophesy.

Whilst unintended consequences can hinder progress for the common good, I believe the real criticism should be levelled at the scale of the 'unintentionality', which is sometimes vast.

Popularly known today as a 'lack of joined up thinking', the possession of Critical Strategic Foresight is far from universal.  As noted in an earlier post, it seems extremely thinly spread amongst politicians of all persuasions!  Maybe President Obama can break the mould.

Merton's third cause was 'imperious immediacy of interest', that is to say a vested interest coupled to a short-term action.  Here longer-term consequences are often deliberately ignored - totally different to the genuine ignorance of the first cause.  As an example, consider the enforced adoption of spreadsheets, where the user has to enter the formulae themselves.

If you are ignorant of the appropriate algorithms and their purpose, the spreadsheet will just help you to arrive at the wrong answer more rapidly.  The time spent performing manual additions and long multiplications might well have allowed greater insight into the problem, and so resulted in you arriving at the correct answer.

Many corporations lack the infrastructure to help gather Critical Strategic Foresight, or fail to use their infrastructure correctly.  Similarly individuals need the mental 'infrastructure' to consider these, "OK.  What if ...?" questions before getting their sleeves rolled up and starting the task.

Critical Strategic Foresight is unlikely to arrive conveniently, just when you're looking for it.  Murphy's law says it will be after strategies and tactical plans have been formulated and signed off!  Because the pressure is now off, and the understanding is a lot more complete, the mind can wander laterally and those, "Oh my goodness!" moments start to happen.

One answer is to create a list of testing questions by which individuals and organisations can challenge and judge new ideas and the resulting Critical Strategic Foresight.  These question may well be of the "If, then how?" variety, or with 'how' replaced by any of the other five ways of starting an open question.  Without such an infrastructure, someone who is Critical Strategic Foresight savvy will more likely be seen as a Luddite than as an innovator.

This was noted by Merton as the fourth cause of 'unanticipated consequences', the Basic Values; in other words the very culture within which change is being sought risks stifling that change, or else its implementation will destroy the culture.

So how can Critical Strategic Foresight be cultivated?  Both individuals and organisations can adopt creative thinking methods like negative brainstorming and devil's advocacy, based on seeking out counter arguments and not shying away from, "What could go wrong if ...?" questions.  Such a culture implies that inconvenient and challenging questions will be welcomed at any time, and will be given fair consideration; an important thought when, as was noted earlier, Critical Strategic Foresight doesn't always arrive just when you ask for it.  The understanding needed for Critical Strategic Foresight to flourish can take time and experience.

New strategies and technologies can usually be explained in broad terms when required, but unintended consequences often arise from the detail.  Therefore strategies should be defined in detail, prior to their implementation, and the detail not left to be created as the project goes along.  Views of consequential outcomes should be sought from those with an in-depth understanding and years of experience - the sort of 'nit-picking Luddites' who actually welcome progress, but not change for change's sake.

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Boer, Bore, Boar, Boor, Bored, Board, Bawd, Baud

Of all the sins a writer or speaker can commit, which is the worst?  Is it resolutely steering well clear of the subject indicated by the title or headline?  Is it being patronising, insulting, embarrassing, obscene, racist, or in some other way not politically correct? Is it communicating entirely in jargon, which might just as well be an obscure central Gondwanaland dialect for all you can understand?

Whilst I dislike to a greater or lesser degree being on the receiving end of any of these, I believe the biggest sin is that of being downright BORING!

Some research in the UK a few years ago showed that Engineering students had a higher boredom threshold than Psychology students.  Of course that wasn't the published conclusion, seeing that the research was carried out in the Psychology department of a leading British University!  What was claimed was that Psychology students "had a more highly developed social awareness"!  A highly measurable quantity, undoubtedly!

The actual 'yardstick' used in this research was to secretly observe the students and count how many times each one yawned!  People have earned PhDs for this sort of stuff, you know!

Maybe there's room to create a new international unit, the 'Winch', as a measure of boredom, equivalent to one unprovoked yawn per minute.  I say unprovoked because we all know yawning is highly contagious.

Do let me know your thoughts.

So, given that you might well end up writing for or speaking to, people who are more psychologist than engineer, how can you avoid being BORING?

Maybe you can adopt the principles I used when writing this piece.

• Know/consider your audience/readers.  The top tip is to make sure it comes across that you, the writer/speaker, care about the subject.  Think about what the subject really means to you.  If the answer is nothing, you may want to question whether or not to write the article or give the speech.



• The second tip is to ensure that you are writing or speaking this in the certain knowledge that the audience cares about the subject.  This is a simple extension of knowing your audience but knowing extends much further than simply knowing in which section of Yellow Pages they can be found!



• Ask the audience/readers a question, read them a quote, or tell them a story - whichever it is, be pertinent.  Engaging your audience in some way helps them to feel involved, which is a good way of minimising their boredom.  If you are giving a speech, it is a good relaxation technique for you.  After all, once you have handled the random answers they may give to your question, you can steer the talk back to where you want to be, confident that you now have a 'downhill ride' to the end.  And if it's not really the occasion for audience participation, even a rhetorical question can get them thinking, and so being less bored.



• Be creative - combine different media, or mix and match long paragraphs, short paragraphs, prose, speech, and bullet points - but don't get 'typeface diarrhoea'!  Change for change's sake is distracting and thus boring, but monotony is also boring!  Literally the word means single-tone, but common usage has invested it with far more of the 'boring' than its origin would suggest.



• Use 'white space' - pause, literally or metaphorically to let your words sink in.  You need to breathe as you speak, but people also need to 'breathe' as they read and listen.  Give them time for the mental 'action replay', so they can understand and follow you more readily.



• Think of the 'big picture' - You will be aiming to get the audience or readership to 'do' something, so make sure you lead up to it.  A 'lead in' without a 'call to action' is just as bad as the unexpected surprise of a call to action without a lead in.  In neither case will any action get taken!



• Use humour if it (the situation) is appropriate and if it (the humour) is appropriate.  Humour can be a valuable aid in making a strong point but don't 'recycle' the humour.  Tell your own stories from your own experience - They're harder to steal for a start! - Write and speak from the heart, and if the real you is humorous, this will come through.  No stand-up comic would ever say, "I've got this really great joke", so why should you.



• If you're actually giving a speech, be confident - Most young children are confident public speakers but then later something goes wrong!  One way back for adults is to practise.  Confidence comes from practise, not further study.



• Above all, be yourself!

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Recognising Buying Signals

In our society we're not very good at saying either, "Great!  I'd really like to buy this from you, NOW, PLEEEEEASE!" or, "It's probably OK but not for me!  I don't want it, I don't need it, I doubt if I ever will, and if I did I wouldn't buy it from you, certainly not on those terms!"

Unless of course, you're an Auctioneer, when people will either scratch their nose, pull their ear, wink, nod, wave their hand or a piece of paper, shout, even wave a numbered ping-pong bat at you.  Or else they'll keep still and quiet and do and say nothing.

You have to be 'tuned in', alert and looking out for the 'Buying Signals' that people use instead.  It is hugely important to spot and react appropriately to buying signals.  In fact it can be positively harmful to your business if you don't.

You should respond to a Buying Signal by making suggestions!  If the signal took the form of a question, answer it briefly, but move straight away into making suggestions.

These signals can be misinterpreted so you have to be careful.  The prospect may just be seeking clarification, but at least they are still 'playing ball' with you.  And you have to be aware of what it is they're signalling they're ready to buy!

You need to react immediately to Buying Signals.  These signals can and do go away as quickly as they appear.  If you don't change tack and respond to buying signals by making suggestions, and instead keep 'presenting', it's very likely that you'll talk yourself out of an order that was there for the taking.  Any information you give to a prospect after they've decided to buy from you begins to give them reasons to change their minds.

Then there are the 'Not-Buying Signals'.  You need to be even more alert for these as you don't want to waste your time chasing 'browsers'; you want to be chasing 'buyers' instead!  As you seek appointments or follow up enquiries, you need to sort out the buyers from the browsers, and then lavish your attention on the buyers.  You need easy wins, not hard fought victories (rare piece of military analogy!).

Let the very way in which you prospect help you weed out the non-buyers.  People look in trade directories because they need a tradesman, not to while away a rainy afternoon!  People who buy from suppliers of complementary services to your own need you to add value to their original purchase.  If you have a website and use pay-per-click advertising, choose keywords that are buying queries, not browsing queries!

Types of Buying Signal
Buying Signals can be verbal or non-verbal; they can be questions or they can be statements.  They might even be playing, "If .... then ...." with you.  The verbal signals fall into several categories.  In many cases they can be worded either way.  The most commonly met are the first two, but they are all important signals to be looked out for.

• Repeating a question that has already been fully answered, and generally acknowledging that it has been - "How much did you say it costs?" - Be aware that if it's said in shocked surprise and incredulity, it's a cue for more probing!


• Picturing themselves working with you - "I could see you on a Thursday" - "How often would we need to meet face to face?" - "We'll need to involve Janet"


• Asking for a sample that's not necessarily free - "Can I try it for a month and see if it works?" - "I'll need to see it in action"


• Making positive noises - "That sound really good" - "Who could say no to that?"


• Asking 'chicken' questions - "What will happen if it doesn't produce results?"


• Any statement or question about money - We don't need examples here.  Even if they say it's overpriced, to have got to the top of their priority stack, these comments or questions say they want to buy.


• Asking questions about details - "Which of my people will be directly involved?" - "What exactly will you be doing?"


• Any statement or question about timing - "When can we start?" - "It'll have to be next week" - "Can't we do it in four weeks instead of five?" - "I'm tied up until Thursday" - If this type of signal arrives as a question, you can legitimately avoid answering it by asking back, "When would be best for you?"


• Asking for your professional guidance or opinion - "What do you think would be best?" - "What would you do if you were me?"


• Asking a colleague who's in the room - "What do you think?" - They've decided but they just want confirmation that they're not being daft.


• Mentioning a negative experience with a previous supplier - "Everyone I've tried has been useless!" - These types of comment are actually cues for more probing


• Asking for references or for a personal contact with a satisfied client - Again no examples needed.  It's effectively a no-brainer!  Again they just want confirmation that they're not being daft.


• This leads us on to no-brainers of the 'sledgehammer' variety! - "What happens first/next?" - "Where do I sign?" - "We've looked at other suppliers and we like you best" - "Here's our Purchase Order" - Or they may start to negotiate - "Would you accept £4,000?"

Then there are the non-verbal signals

• Spending time concentrating on just one of your products


• Asking/looking for help


• Touching their wallet or its contents, or their chequebook - Literally or metaphorically


• Changes of body state - Relaxing, moving stance, gestures, skin tone, style of speech


• Getting out their pen - Literally or metaphorically

Types of Not-Buying Signal - Maybe it's time to move on

• Unwillingness to trade commitments - At least unwilling to make their own in return for yours


• Your calls, messages and e-mails go unanswered


• "I really like your suggestion but I need to ........ before we can go ahead"


• Avoiding eye contact when you meet


• "We'd really like you to help us but we just need a bit more time/have some other priorities to deal with first"


• 'Playing' with your product, or looking at many without ever concentrating on one


• Physically moving around a lot, quickly

So what should you do here?  There could be legitimate reasons outside your control, but largely there won't be.  We Brits are just hesitant about coming out with the truth!

You should confirm your interpretation - Ask further probing questions.  You can even ask, "Did we do something wrong?"  This can even be your voicemail, SMS or e-mail when earlier messages have gone unanswered.

Then either leave well alone or make some more enlightened suggestions.

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Why All Medallists Have Coaches

Like competing at sport, setting up and running your own business can be a great, but rewarding challenge.  But, when it comes to your business results, will you be glad just to have been selected to represent your country, or glad to have made it to the Olympic final, or is a medal the least you will be satisfied with?

If you were an athlete and not a business owner, how would you try to ensure that you at least won a medal?

It doesn't take much research to discover that all the great athletes were helped to achieve what they did by their coaches.  In fact Sir Steve, Sir Matthew, Dame Kelly, Dame Tanni, Sir Chris and the others simply couldn't have done it without their coaches.

Could the same be possible in business?  You bet it could!

Even the non-athletes among us know, I am sure, that sportsmen and women need to train for their event.  They need to incorporate a mixture of strength, fitness and stamina work, as well as skill, into their training regime.  How would they get on if they did this all themselves; unaided, unobserved and with no feedback?

I suspect that actually, at the highest level, they would make a pretty good fist of it for a few days, even weeks.  I am certain that self-motivation is no problem whatsoever for these elite stars.  Along the way they will have learned what mixture of exercises make up a top-class training programme, so they can plan their forthcoming schedule without assistance.  They will know what 'doing it right' feels like and be able to sense when they are starting to fall short of their best.  They will undoubtedly have the ability to 'shout at themselves' and not need the coach's voice in their ears.  But would they ever dream of dispensing with all coaching?  Would they ever!

Is the same true in business?  Do the Bannatynes, the Bransons, the Roddicks and the Sugars know how to plan and run a business, and make it hugely successful, without any outside help.  Of course they do, or did in the case of the late Dame Anita.  Does this mean business and sport are different?

In spite of this evidence, I actually believe they aren't that different.  I have talked about top class athletes and top flight entrepreneurs, but how did they get to the top in the first place?

If your school days were anything like mine, whatever your sporting achievements, until you were maybe ten years old you were unlikely to have had much input from a teacher, except to explain the rules of the game.  You probably didn't train either; you just 'played'.

But from then on, it is highly likely that someone was advising you on how you might do better.  And maybe around this time your world polarised into those who enjoyed and were good at sport, and those who'd rather do any anything else but games and PE.  The good got better and progressed through club and county level to become the international representatives we discussed earlier.

I think this model is exactly duplicated in business, in the early stages of this part of a business owner's career.  To start with some people just play at it, copying what the others do and discovering whether it really is as enjoyable as they thought it might be.  But then what?

Can the ones who find excitement and enjoyment in running their own business get better and bigger on their own?  My own research amongst Business Advisers is that the ones who make the biggest strides forward are the ones who have taken the decision to employ the services of a professional business coach.

Returning finally to the elite sporting personalities we looked at earlier, I said they could not have achieved what they did without the help of their coaches.  What I am equally sure is that the coaches could not have gone out there and won Olympic medals themselves, at least not at the time they were coaching their protégés to do so, even if they had been top performers themselves in the past.

So don't necessarily expect your business coach to be a better entrepreneur than you are trying to be.  It may just be that their skill is in helping others to succeed.  This skill might just be knowing all of the questions, and not necessarily knowing all of the answers.  Just like the sports coach, all they can really do is help their clients help themselves, and at this they are supremely skilful.

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The Most Important Thing To Get Right

I am sometimes asked what is the one most important thing to get right in Sales and Marketing.  Is it my logo, my website, my brochure?  Is it my database, my networking, my web presence?  Is it my negotiation skills, my contact management system, my objection handling?

In my experience, the one thing that stands out above all others - and this view is being continually reinforced - the one thing upon which all the others are built, is this:

You absolutely must be able to articulate clearly and succinctly what you do, who you do it for, and the good they get from it.

This is sometimes called an Elevator Pitch, and is often done poorly.  But really it is easy to do it well.

Other people must be able to recognise one of your ideal customers, either someone they know or maybe even themselves.  If you can't or don't provide them with a definition against which to make this judgement, how can you ever expect them to find anyone for you?  And you must be as specific as you can.  How can we pick just one or two if you say you do anything for anybody and you're diversifying?

You need to define your ideal customer in terms that require little or no initial interaction.  What I mean is, if you say your ideal customers are 'worried about their cash flow', I doubt anyone would discover this without talking to them.  Whilst this knowledge is important, and I will return to the thought in a moment, you need to communicate 'search criteria' that rely on information in the public domain.  So, working with 'accountancy practices of up to thirty partners', would fit the bill nicely.

Not all of your ideal customers will need your products or services every day of every year so, having identified examples of your ideal customer, these 'prospect seekers' need to be able to then recognise which have the sort of problem that you are an expert at fixing.  However, as in medicine, we often only see the symptoms and have to explore to identify the underlying disease.

You need to provide your prospectors with examples of the sorts of symptoms which, amongst your ideal customers, often point to problems you can fix.  At this stage they can start to suggest that they know someone who could relieve these symptoms by fixing the problem that's causing them.

Because you have given them examples, the prospectors are able to suggest that no longer suffering the pain that the problem is causing would be of considerable value.

Then, when they say to a contact of theirs, "You really need to talk to my friend John or Jenny about this; I'll get them to call you," you know you will be getting a high quality referral.

Knowing your ideal customers, the problems they are likely to be having, the pains they will suffering because of these problems, the comfort and value that will result from no longer having to endure these pains, and why yours is the best method (in the circumstances) for addressing the problem, you can start to construct your Elevator Pitch.

I should add here that this information is not only vital for preparing your response to "What do you do?"  It is the basis of all of your branding messages, however they are communicated.

I believe you actually need several elevator pitches: 60 seconds, 30 seconds, 1 breath, 1 word or phrase - all have their place.  And for the longer ones you may well need different versions depending on whether you are training your surrogate sales team - networking - or actually talking to a prospect - selling - yourself.

Practically you'll have to start long, then distil and refine.  You just won't get it right starting short and trying to expand.  You'll need to test and measure to see if your messages are coming across, and being received and understood.

One possible template for a longer elevator pitch is:

I work with (ideal customers) who (widely held problem) which means that (widely suffered pain).  I help them (pain relief) so that they (life without pain).

An alternative opening might be:

You know how (ideal customers) are always (widely held problem) which means that ......

Both are much better than:

I'm a (what it says on your business card)

Good luck!


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