As entrepreneurs, we know that any time we have the opportunity to answer that question, we have an opportunity to introduce ourselves to potential new customers. What was a simple question is now a Big. Fat. Stomach. Ache.
Of course, we don’t want to come across as desperate. Or needy. Or pushy. Or uncertain. If you’ve ever been to a conference or business networking event, you’ve seen the people who work their way around the room, introducing themselves to everyone and shoving a business card in their face.
We definitely don’t want to be that girl!
So how do you do it? How do you craft a compelling answer to the question “What do you do?” in just a few sentences and without coming off like a salesy weirdo?
It used to be called an “elevator pitch” — the name coming from the idea that you only have the length of an elevator ride to tell someone important who you are and what you want. Like all pitches, being able to deliver one is a vital business skill, which is why I’ve devoted an entire module called “Ditch Your Pitch: Craft Your Juicy Intro” in my Top Producer Academy
Inside the module I discuss:
How to increase your confidence in pitching and make your offer catch your audience’s attention.
Examples of great pitches from people in different businesses.
A worksheet that you can use to quickly and easily craft your own perfect pitch for a variety of situations.
And more!
Here are some tips:
Know your purpose. Think about your perfect prospect and what they want and how you help them get it. The clearer you are on your this, the clearer your intro will be. Think about the opportunity you want to present to the listener — whether it’s to do business with you, make a referral, partner, or something else.
Don’t say what you do. Too often when we are asked “What do you do?” that’s exactly what our answer is. But what the other person really wants to know is, “What do you do for your me?” Answer that question instead.
Don’t get too cute with your title. I know lots of entrepreneurs who shy away from traditional titles — like coach, copywriter, designer, etc. — because they think it’s too limiting or doesn’t really describe what they do. That’s fine, but if you make up a title for yourself like “Chief of Imagination” or “CEO of Everything” don’t expect anyone else to know what that means.
Start with how you help.A great way to start formulating your elevator pitch is to start by saying, “I help…” and describe your ideal prospect. That way your listener knows immediately a) if they are a potential customer for you and b) if they know anyone who fits the bill.
Get specific.When describing who you help, get very specific. If you say you help “women,” that’s not going to trigger anyone’s memory. If you say you help “women in midlife who are struggling with career change,” it’s both more memorable and will instantly trigger the other person if they know someone who fits that description.
Talk about results.After you say who you help, talk about the problem you help them overcome. If you sell clothing, the result isn’t the dress, but how people feel wearing the dress. If you in to supplements, your don’t want to dwell on your clients’ problems, but how you help them overcome those problems.
Tell a story. Work on making your pitch as engaging and novel as possible with the words you choose. Don’t just say that you sell clothes that are comfortable; say you sell clothes that feel like wearing a cloud, that feel like armor protecting you from the world, or that feel like wearing nothing at all! I guarantee a story description will get people to sit up and take notice.
Include a “so that…” statement. After you’ve said who you help and the results you help them achieve, tack on the phrase, “so that…” This is the benefits statement that conveys why someone really wants to work with you or buy your product. You don’t actually have to use the words “so that” but be sure you include the sentiment.
Include a differentiator. What makes you different? Especially if you do something that is fairly common — like supplements, skincare or essential oils, etc. — you need to spell out what makes you different right up front. You can even say something like, “Unlike [my competition], I [key differentiator]…”
Keep it short.Remember, this is called an “juicy” intro for a reason — you need to be able to deliver it in a short amount of time. Don’t try to include your entire story, every product you sell, or every demographic you serve. Keep it short, sweet, punchy, and to the point.
Have a call to action.You’re making this intro for a reason, right? What is it? This is the part you will probably customize the most from opportunity to opportunity. If you’re talking to someone you already know might be a good prospect you could say, “Could we schedule a meeting to talk more about this?” If you’re talking to a stranger, you might say, “Do you know anyone who…?” Either way, know what your ask is and make it.
The only way to get better at your juicy intro is to practice. Write it down, read it out loud, and try it out on your friends and family. It will probably feel awkward at first, but you’ll get better at it as you go.
In the Top Producer Academy I offer more examples and a fill-in-the-blank template for crafting your juicy intro, but here are a few more examples:
Instead of saying, “I sell jewelry,” you could say:
I help professional women feel more confident with a jewelry wardrobe that is beautiful, unique, and appropriate for any boardroom so that they stand out without sticking out.
Instead of saying, “I sell skincare,” you might say:
I help women halt the aging process in their skin so they feel and look younger longer.
Instead of, “I make online trainings for network marketers,” I might say:
I help serious network marketers grow and automate their businesses online so they rank up, make more money, so they can spend more time with the people they love most in their lives.
A question that I get often is, “How do you get so much stuff done, yet have balance in your life?”
You see, BALANCE was what I was looking for when I get started as an entrepreneur. I had been downsized for the last time. I was DONE with working 24/7 helping others pursue their dreams. I just wanted to spend as much time as I could with the people I love most in my life, yet still get paid executive-level income.
Then I learned this little hack…
In just five minutes each day you can significantly change the course of your life. When you take this step and then follow through the next morning, you can literally drop your bad habits and transform your health, finances, and relationships. Just insert this little five minute hack into your daily thirty minute transformation plan and you're golden.
How to Hack Your Bad Habits in Five Minutes
BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ.
There goes your alarm clock. Again. OOPS – that was your alarm going off – ten minutes ago. You're already running late. Again.
But hold on, not so fast. You can still hack your bad habits and make huge changes in your life in just about five minutes a day. And yes, it's still possible even though your boss is working your ass off, while you are raising your children, while you run your business and while you juggle a social life, family responsibilities, and even enjoy a little downtime for yourself.
And even better, making these changes is FREE. In fact, you're about to discover a complete five minute hack for changing your life.
Here it is. And it’s super-simple, yet most people don’t take the five minutes it takes to do it.
Every evening, before you go to bed, write down the 5-10 things you need to do the next day to move forward with your priorities.
What are the things you can do that will have the MOST impact?
Doing this simple exercise, EVERY DAY, gets your organized and focused on what needs to be done… and what doesn’t.
This little hack can turn into a giant step towards transforming your whole life. Easy-peasy, lemon squeezy.
Another Bonus Hack – Takes 10 More Minutes
The next ten minutes of your transformation are as important and are essential to making big changes in your life.
Wake up 10 minutes earlier.
Yeah, I know, the alarm clock sucked today. But now you have priorities. Now you have a checklist of things to do and motivation to get out of bed not just on time, but a little bit early, because it's going to make all the difference in your life.
Getting up early starts with making changes at night. Simply cut out a bit of TV today (TIVO it!), and get to bed on time – or even fifteen minutes early – so that you can get up with ten minutes to spare in the morning. When you do this, you'll be shocked at the difference it will make.
Every problem can be attacked better first thing in the morning when you have better mental clarity and fewer distractions. Eventually you should work up to getting up thirty minutes – or even an hour – earlier than you do now, but let's start with ten minutes tomorrow.
Keep your priority to-do list right beside your bed. When you wake up and get through your morning routine, go right to item number one on the list and start taking action to get it done. This might mean starting an exercise routine, preparing a better lunch for work, doing a CSI-style investigation on your bank balance, or simply going through a stack of unpaid bills on your kitchen table.
Whatever your number one priority is, attack it first thing in the morning. Again, you'll be shocked at what you can get done in just ten minutes without distractions. You'll get addicted to the progress you can make in the calm and silence of the early morning hours. Getting an early start is one of the top secrets of the most productive and successful people in the world. And now you're an insider just like them.
So far, so good. By borrowing just fifteen minutes from your busy day we've already made a dramatic change in what you are getting done. Your life is starting to change for the better. But we're only halfway done.
That's how you transform your life thirty minutes at a time. It all starts today, right now, by writing down your priorities to attack tomorrow.
IF you want more leads, signups and recruits, pay close attention to this one!
Should you start a blog?
Let me make it real clear for you…
IF you plan on being in the home business profession for any length of time..
You should do it ASAP.
Do you know my story?
I hemmed and hawed about posting stuff online about myself for years until I FINALLY broke down and posted a video with my story on it.
– It was really poorly lit.
– It was over 20 minutes long!!! (WAAY too long!)
– It was just horrible.
– BUT, my prospects WATCHED IT on my blog.
And… as a result, that lousy video on my blog made me hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I knew that I needed a place where my prospects could check me out online so that they trusted me enough (even just to return my call).
Since I made that decision, my life has never been the same.
I now get leads and sales every single month because of my blog. And I began to sell… without selling.
This is selling without selling in your network marketing business.
Yes, you can build it yourself.
BUT… do you really have the skill? Or the time?
So here is the dealio…
I've been wanting to offer this service to my peeps (YOU!) for AGES, but since I wouldn't be personally building your blog, I had to find the right people to take care of you.
After all, it's YOUR BRAND and YOUR MONEY, right?
I'm super excited to say that we've found the right team to get this done BEAUTIFULLY and ELEGANTLY for you! YAY!
AND… best of all, it's totally affordable!
How's that for awesome?
And if you needed any more proof?
Check this out..
Check out those stats! I've done ZERO promotion. I didn't even blog! Notice August 4th… 15 unique visitors, with 51 page views!
Do ya think that they were checking me out?
THIS IS THE REASON THAT YOU MUST HAVE SOME SORT OF WEBSITE/BLOG.
And I've found the guy to do if for you.
Simply and elegantly… and affordably.
So, if you want to sell without selling, conquer your prospects objections while you sleep and quickly build your brand, then…
This is your chance to get your website done once and for all… BEAUTIFULLY and ELEGANTLY!
Have you ever set an important goal, only to forget about it or lose momentum shortly after? It’s not that you didn’t want the goal enough. Rather, other things may have come into your life – new opportunities, obligations or distractions that eclipsed the goal you were once excited about.
This episode is about HOW to keep your important goals on the front burner of your attention so you accomplish them more often. Try these three simple strategies to stick to your goals more often:
#1. Visualization practice. When you first decided to pursue a goal, you dreamt about it and visualized it to the point where it felt real. In order to stick to your goals, make sure to do that as a daily visualization practice. Wake up in the morning, take a couple of deep breaths, close your eyes, and visualize yourself striving, struggling, and then attaining your goal. Picture yourself struggling happily and crossing the finish line. Follow this technique daily.
#2. Weekly scoring. High performers self-monitor more than underperformers. This means it’s vital to review your goals and rate your performance on a weekly basis. Look, life can be chaotic. If you’re not monitoring and scoring yourself on your important goals they’ll quickly fall to the backburner.
#3. Social support. One of the best ways to stick to your goals is to tell other people about those goals and get them involved in striving with you. The people in your life should know what you’re trying to accomplish, why you’re trying to accomplish it, when you want to accomplish it, how you want to go about pursuing the goal, and how they can help. Without others who will give you feedback, cheer you on and keep you accountable, it’s likely you’ll stop pursing your goals.
Watch the video above for the full lesson so that you can reach high performance and continue living #TheChargedLife!
Want a text message when I release new episodes? Just text “podcast” to 818-492-1802. I’ll also text you two of our most popular episodes, keep you up to date with my books and events, and alert you when I’m in your area speaking or visiting.
Like this episode? Please share it! My blog, videos and podcast are ad-free ONLY because you share my work!
Spring cleaning is the process of thoroughly cleaning a house from top to bottom once the weather has lost its winter chill.
Yeah… whatever. I don't know about you, but I don't love the idea of cleaning my house, but I do love the idea of cleaning up my business.
Since it's officially Spring, it a perfect opportunity to SPRING CLEAN YOUR BIZ!
Ideas:
DO A DIGITAL DETOX:
Facebook Groups. Which ones are you getting value from? Which ones are you not even engaging with?
Facebook Pages. Which ones do you get excited to see in your newsfeeds? Which ones do you hate seeing in your newsfeed?
Facebook Following. Who do you see being a positive influence in your life? Who do you not really care to have in your private circle anymore? This one is HUGE. Get rid of people that drag you or your business down. You'll be doing yourself a great service.
Twitter Following. Who has given you tons of great content or value? Who is just posting junk and unhelpful advice?
Instagram Following. Whose photos bring you joy? Whose photos are not resonating with you?
Pinterest Following. Which boards or pinners bring you inspiration or strategies? Which boards do not give you anything relevant?
Unroll.me is a cool app where you can instantly see a list of all your subscription emails, and unsubscribe easily from whatever you don’t want.
CLEAN UP YOUR DESKTOP:
I think you know how to get this one done. 🙂
CANCEL ACCOUNTS FOR SERVICES OR SOFTWARE THAT YOU DON'T USE ANYMORE:
Some people complain like crazy when their credit cards get hacked. I don't! For me it's an opportunity to only update the subscriptions that I'm actually using. If your credit card hasn't been hacked, then this is what you do:
Review every Paypal, credit card and bank statement for recurring payments.
Create a canned response email response to just copy and paste saying you would like to end your services with them.
BACK UP YOUR COMPUTER:
Make sure to back up your computer on a hard drive and in the cloud. Take a day to upload everything.
Program all your personal and business passwords. Think of membership, project management systems, banks, social media accounts. At Home/ In Office
ORGANIZE YOUR DESK AND DRAWERS:
Create 3 piles – Keep, Scan, Trash.
Go through all drawers and place in the 3 areas.
What you put in Keep, needs to have a new “home” spot. Look into getting drawer organizers or other boxes to store. What you put in Scan, put it through the scanner and place into your external storage choice.
Are you making this mistake? I see this mistake all the time especially if you are brand new to being an entrepreneur in the home based business/network marketing/direct sales/multi-level marketing and affiliate marketing industry, is that people brand their company rather than themselves. Let me share why this is a mistake and how simple it is to fix.
The main reason for this mistake is that you come to the industry from having a traditional job where you associate yourself with your company. When people ask what you do, you are accustomed to replying, “I am the account executive for X company” or whatever your title is in that company.
Once you start your own business and people ask the same question you say the same thing, “I’m a distributor of X company.” And that is a big NO-NO! Don't do that! The most important thing you can do now, (even if you have a job) is brand yourself not your company.
For those of you who are still employed, I don’t know why anyone would brand themselves online and say I am with company X. The average person in the United States is employed for a whooping 2 years!
When you transition into entrepreneurship it’s important to brand yourself. With all that is going on in the online industry it is better to brand yourself for future protections.
Your prospect doesn’t care about your product.
People buy things and get started with people they know, like and trust. They don’t care about the company you are with or about your product, they care whether you can help solve their problems. How can that be, you ask?
Listen, People buy things and get started with people they know, like, and trust. People are looking for someone to help solve their problems. Whether it’s not enough time or not enough money; they are looking for a human being to solve their problem!
I cringe when I see people all over Facebook and Instagram promoting their product or their company. When all they need to do is switch that around and provide value. Then the perfect customer will come running to you like you are a giant magnet.
The biggest reason you should be branding yourself is because companies come and go.
My husband and I were with a company for about seven years, and we never thought about leaving that company. Suddenly, everything fell apart, the company fell out of integrity, and suddenly we had to go find another way to make a living. If we had not branded ourselves and provided value online, we would have been dead in the water.
Big changes are happening in the network marketing industry! In the last year, four huge companies, in the United States, have had to drastically change their business model and most people have left those companies scrambling to find other sources of income. This is going to continue to happen.
One of the best things you can do to bulletproof your future is to brand yourself and not your company.
I would love to hear from you. Lay down some comments below or share this video with your team. I’m here to assist you with growing your business.
You must be logged in to post a comment.