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Designing & Crafting An Elevator Pitch
This past weekend I was at an ATRA Technical Seminar for transmission professionals. I saw a lot of people I hadn’t seen in a while and many casually asked what I was up to. It wasn’t until that moment I realized I could not articulate my new business model for a transmission shop succinctly; even to other transmission people & suppliers. I hesitated, stammered and stuttered and couldn’t help but go into a long-winded explanation. Longer than others wanted to listen. It felt very awkward.
I was shocked by how little thought I had exerted into crafting an Elevator Pitch for my new business model. I’ve spent 100’s of hours on other aspects of the business but zero on an Elevator Pitch. It’s much harder than it seems. I started researching online and reading about how to design & craft one until I was blue in the face. I wrote, I rewrote, repeat… over and over again and nothing was quite right.
No matter how hard I tried, I always found something wrong with it. By sheer chance, I stumbled upon a LinkedIn video on Elevator Pitches. It’s a 3 video series that run a total of 13 minutes and it helped me finally craft an Elevator Pitch I can be happy about. https://www.linkedin.com/learning/giving-your-elevator-pitch/making-an-initial-connection
Here’s my Elevator Pitch & stats:
We’ve created a place for transmission repair on late model vehicles other than the dealer. As a lifelong transmission specialist, I can tell you we are the only online transmission repair shop catering to the unmet needs of 10-year old & newer vehicles. Never before, could late model vehicle owners shop online for the full price of transmission repair; before their vehicle goes into a shop.
1 paragraph
3 sentences
65 words
329 characters w/o spaces
396 characters total w/spaces
22 seconds
Comments & suggestions welcomed.
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2 Replies
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I’ve been taking comments and suggestions on my Elevator Pitch and I’m grateful for such great input. Based on what I’ve been hearing, I edited my pitch slightly to make it more conversational and to answer the question, “What do you do for society?” or something similar.
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We’re an online transmission repair shop catering to the unmet needs of 10-year old & newer vehicles. People need a choice for transmission repair on late model vehicles other than the dealer. We help late model vehicle owners by being their online guide for a firm price on a transmission replacement before their vehicle comes into our shop.
Stats:
Paragraphs ……………………1Sentences…………………….3
Words………………………….57
Characters…………………….344
Characters excl. spaces……..285
I’m sure the future holds more tweaks. Can you describe what you do for society in 30 seconds? It’s much harder than you think.
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Here’s a 14-minute Vimeo presentation by Don Miller, author of StoryBrand, that will help you clarify your Elevator Pitch. In this video, he narrows it down to a 1-liner.
https://player.vimeo.com/video/211521127
Here’s my notes from the video:
A one-liner is a summary of your story.Be specific.Make sure it’s a pain point.Get it down to a sound bite.Make it feel like a new idea.Make it understandableMake it brief.Make it a happy ending to your story.Make it the “controlling idea” of your business.Make it something they actually want.
Identify your customer’s problem.Explain your plan to help them.Describe a successful ending to the story.
You memorize it by saying it hundreds of times.
Memorize it and be able to repeat it over and over.
Teach it to your entire team.
Open you keynote with this statement.
Use it in as much marketing collateral as possible.
For the first 3 chapters of Don Miller’s book, StoryBrand, for free, text the word “Storybrand” (one word, no spaces) to 33444 Put it on a notecard and put it in your top shirt pocket and pull it out and read it often to remember it.
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