Elevator Pitch tips
Summary
TLDRIn this video, Vanessa Van Edwards, from Science of People, discusses the importance of an effective elevator pitch for making a strong first impression. She critiques a viewer’s pitch, praising clear enunciation and open body language, while offering tips for improvement. Vanessa encourages adding movement, using hand gestures for emphasis, and incorporating storytelling to make the pitch more engaging and memorable. Her actionable advice aims to help viewers create impactful pitches that resonate with their audience and boost their chances of success.
Takeaways
- 😀 First impressions matter, and having a strong elevator pitch is crucial for leaving a positive impact.
- 🗣️ Clear enunciation and pacing are key components of a good elevator pitch, as the audience is hearing it for the first time.
- 👐 Body language, such as keeping an open torso and using appropriate hand gestures, enhances engagement and makes you more approachable.
- 💡 Slow down your delivery to give the listener enough time to process new information, especially when discussing technical topics.
- 🔄 Incorporating movement like head tilts or slight nods can make your pitch more dynamic and engaging.
- 👋 Use nonverbal communication, such as hand gestures, to illustrate and emphasize concepts during your pitch.
- 🖐️ Adding hand movements can help both explain what you do and add more fluidity to your body language.
- 📖 Include a short, relevant story or example in your pitch to make it more memorable and relatable for the listener.
- 🎯 The goal of an elevator pitch is to show how you can help the listener, making them want to learn more or ask for your business card.
- 👍 Practicing your pitch until it's memorized allows for more natural body movement and expression during delivery.
Q & A
What is the primary focus of the video?
-The video focuses on improving elevator pitches, particularly helping viewers enhance their first impression by refining their pitches.
Why is an elevator pitch important, according to Vanessa van Edwards?
-An elevator pitch is crucial because it forms the most important part of a first impression. Knowing exactly what to say and how to say it helps people understand your work quickly.
What are some positive aspects of John’s elevator pitch highlighted by Vanessa?
-Vanessa praised John’s clear enunciation, good pacing, and open body language, all of which make his pitch more engaging and easy to understand.
What common mistake does Vanessa highlight regarding elevator pitches?
-One common mistake is the lack of movement, where people focus so much on their words that their bodies remain still, making the pitch feel less dynamic and engaging.
How does Vanessa suggest John can improve his pitch through movement?
-Vanessa suggests incorporating more head, arm, and torso movement to add fluidity and natural expression. She emphasizes using slight head tilts and nodding along with key points.
What is Vanessa’s second suggestion for improving John's pitch?
-Vanessa recommends adding non-verbal explanations using hand movements to visually demonstrate concepts, which will help the audience understand what John does more effectively.
What example does Vanessa give for using hand movements in a pitch?
-Vanessa suggests using hand movements to show larger concepts, such as using both hands to represent a website analysis as 'the whole thing' or shrinking a large problem into a small, manageable solution.
How can storytelling enhance an elevator pitch, according to Vanessa?
-Storytelling helps make the pitch more memorable and personal. When people hear a story, they connect the speaker's work to themselves, making the pitch more engaging and relatable.
What specific storytelling element does Vanessa advise John to add?
-Vanessa advises John to include a quick example or story of how he has helped a client, even if it’s brief, to make the pitch more relatable and memorable for the audience.
What is the ultimate goal of an elevator pitch, based on the video?
-The ultimate goal of an elevator pitch is to get the audience to recognize how you can help them, ideally leading them to engage with your services.
Outlines
🎤 Introduction to Elevator Pitches and John’s Example
Vanessa van Edwards introduces the concept of elevator pitches, emphasizing their importance for first impressions. She explains how an effective pitch helps convey what you do when asked and proceeds to review an example pitch submitted by a reader named John. Vanessa commends John’s efforts and introduces the plan to break down and improve his pitch.
📊 Key Strengths in John’s Pitch
Vanessa highlights the strengths of John's pitch, focusing on his enunciation and pacing. She notes that the pitch is clear and well-paced, making it easy for the audience to process information, especially when dealing with a technical subject like website analysis. Vanessa also praises John's body language, particularly his open torso, which signals engagement and confidence. These elements contribute to making his pitch effective and relatable.
💡 Suggestions for Improvement: Movement
Vanessa points out that John’s pitch lacks physical movement, which is a common issue when people memorize their words. She suggests incorporating more head, arm, and torso movements to make the pitch feel more dynamic and engaging. By memorizing the pitch thoroughly, John can focus less on recalling words and more on adding natural fluidity to his body language, including slight head tilts and nodding to emphasize key points.
🤲 Incorporating Non-Verbal Explanations
Vanessa encourages John to use hand gestures to help explain concepts non-verbally. She provides examples of how he could use his hands to represent ideas, such as indicating something comprehensive or simplifying a complex problem. Adding these movements can help the audience better visualize what John does and create a more engaging and connected presentation.
📖 The Power of Storytelling
Vanessa discusses the power of storytelling in elevator pitches. She suggests that John include a brief example or story to make his pitch more memorable and personal. For instance, John could mention a past client he helped, as stories resonate with people and make them more likely to relate to and remember the pitch. Including such details would also invite the audience to consider how John's work might apply to their own situations.
🎯 Final Thoughts and Encouragement
Vanessa wraps up by thanking John for submitting his pitch and encourages viewers to submit their own for critique. She reiterates the importance of the tips shared, such as adding movement, non-verbal cues, and storytelling, to improve the effectiveness of an elevator pitch. Vanessa invites others to apply these strategies and reminds them of the goal: to get people interested in your services.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Elevator Pitch
💡First Impression
💡Pacing and Cadence
💡Open Torso
💡Nonverbal Communication
💡Storytelling
💡Movement
💡Engagement
💡Memorization
💡Clarity
Highlights
Vanessa van Edwards introduces the importance of elevator pitches for making a strong first impression.
John's elevator pitch focuses on analyzing website traffic to identify areas where businesses are losing potential leads and revenue.
Vanessa praises John's clear enunciation and pacing, noting that slower delivery helps listeners process information more effectively.
John's open body language, with an uncrossed torso and visible arms, contributes positively to his pitch.
A common mistake in elevator pitches is the lack of movement due to over-focusing on memorized words, which Vanessa highlights as something John can improve.
Vanessa encourages John to add more fluid body movements, such as head nods and slight tilts, to convey engagement and natural expression.
She suggests incorporating hand gestures to visually explain concepts, such as showing 'analyzing a whole website' using hand motions.
Nonverbal explanations, like bringing abstract concepts into simpler visual representations, can enhance clarity and engagement in a pitch.
Vanessa advises John to add a short, relatable story or example at the end of his pitch to make it more memorable and personal for the audience.
The use of stories in elevator pitches triggers emotional engagement and helps the audience better understand how they might benefit from the speaker's services.
Vanessa demonstrates the impact of small head movements and gestures on making a pitch feel more dynamic and less rigid.
John's verbal content is praised for being clear, but Vanessa highlights the need for a more emotional connection through storytelling.
The ultimate goal of an elevator pitch is to prompt the audience to think about how they could use the speaker’s services.
Vanessa invites viewers to submit their own elevator pitches for feedback, emphasizing the importance of continuous improvement.
The video demonstrates the balance between verbal and nonverbal communication in making an elevator pitch impactful and memorable.
Transcripts
hi welcome to the science of people I'm
Vanessa van Edwards and today we're
talking about elevator pitches so I love
helping people with their elevator pitch
and the reason is because it is the most
important part of a first impression you
need to know exactly what to say and how
to say it when someone asks you so what
do you do today one of our readers John
4 submitted his elevator pitch and I
love it it's the perfect example of a
pitch that just needs a little bit of
tweaking to get perfect so John thank
you so much for submitting let's watch
his pitch and then we're going to
quickly break it down review it and show
John exactly what he needs to do to fix
it hi my name is John for and I'm a
website analyst I study the traffic of
your website and I find out where your
website is leaving money on the table
where it's losing leads and what
opportunities it's missing to attract
and engage your customers the website
data won't tell us why people do what
they do on your site but it does tell us
the story of what they do and how they
do it and I think this is an important
and interesting story for your business
to understand okay John here is what I
love what you did so well and you can
never lose and everyone who's watching
if you can incorporate these things into
your elevator pitch it will make you
even more impactful so here's what you
did that I thought was fabulous first
your enunciation is great I can very
clearly understand you you also have a
very good pacing your Cadence is very
understandable and the reason why that's
important is because you've heard your
elevator pitch a thousand times you've
said it you've heard it you probably
wrote it but other people they're
processing it for the first time so one
of the classic elevator pitch mistakes I
see is that people quickly go through
what they do because they think it's
boring everyone you know they already
know it they've already heard it but
they need more time to process more than
the average conversation especially when
they're learning something that's a
little bit different when you're talking
about a website or website analysis it's
super important that you go as slow as
you did now you don't want to go too
slow so your Cadence was perfect don't
lose that the second thing that I loved
is that you have a very open torso so
first of all thank you for giving me a
full body video you know I love to read
body language so you had a really open
torso you didn't cross your hands over
your chest you didn't try to cross your
legs you didn't try to hide behind an
object or a cup or a phone so keeping
that open torso as much as possible and
keeping it aimed towards the person
you're speaking with is hugely impactful
now I talk about on my website all the
time how important it is to show that
you're engaged even when you're talking
you can do this by having an open torso
and aiming it towards the other person
okay so now on to a couple of things
that I think you can improve and these
are things that are just going to up
your impact level people are going to
remember you more they're going to
understand and remember what you do more
quickly and hopefully they'll be begging
for your business card the first thing
that I want you to work on is a hugely
common problem for people doing elevator
pitches and it is lack of movement so as
you can see I'm playing your video in
the background on silent and if you
watch it you'll see there's very little
head arm and torso movement and this is
a very easy mistake to make and the
reason is because when you're thinking
about a pitch that you've memorized
you're focused entirely on the words
you're saying so your body sort of
freeze frames while you try to recall
those words okay so here's my first
challenge to you I want you to inst
start incorporating more movement into
your pitch so the way that you do this
is you memorize your pitch like it is on
the tip of your tongue you can just
instantly recall it and the reason for
that is because if you're not focused on
remembering the words it's much easier
to have more fluidity in your body so
once you've memorized it memorized it
down pat I want you to practice uh
loosening up those shoulders a little
little bit um bringing up your hands and
we're going to talk about that in
Challenge number two and having a little
bit more head movement so for example
let's say that I'm talking to like this
my name is Vanessa vanent Edwards I do
science ofe people.org um I love what I
do I teach body language and Li
detection now I have no movement in my
torso at all look at the difference
between when I say this time with a
little bit of head movement and what you
want to do is you can do a slight head
tilt which shows engagement and you can
also nod very slightly along with your
most important points so here here's how
it looks a little bit differently my
name is Vanessa van Edwards I work at
the science of people.org I teach body
language and human light detection so as
you can see just those slight up and
down movements and the head tilt that's
going to add a lot of fluidity a lot
more natural expression to your body and
to your um Pitch so that people can feel
like they're connecting with you on a
deeper level okay my Challenge number
two the second thing that I'm hoping
you're going to work on is adding in
nonverbal explanations to your elevator
pitch so a lot of people they just focus
on the verbal content of their pitch to
explain what they do but you can
actually use your hands to demo or
explain Concepts so I want you to think
of at least two different ways that you
can use your hands in your pitch so an
example could be um I analyze websites
right so that's like the whole thing
this this is a non-verbal concept of the
whole thing which shows that you're kind
of allinclusive so that could be a way
that you could add in hand movement into
your into the way that you do your pitch
you can also bring a big concept into
something small so if you say um I make
really complicated technology problems
easy for my clients that's a way that
you can do it so I want you to think of
two different ways you can use your
hands to demo that's going to do two
things first it's going to help the
other person visually understand what
you do and second it's going to add more
movement right when you have your hands
moving you then your torso moves it adds
a little bit more freedom of expression
and again makes you more connected and
more engaged Okay the third thing that I
want you to do is actually about your
verbal content so I thought it was very
clear I really understand what you did
but I think that you're missing one
thing and it's the power of a story so
research has shown that our brain loves
stories when we hear a story We light up
we remember them we all of a sudden feel
like what you do is personal to us so
what I want you to do at the very end
when you talk about um how you work with
clients think of a very quick example so
you can say something like for example
one of my recent clients she had a cake
decorating business and I did everything
on her website for her now I'm just
making that up but it can be that short
examples when people hear example or
story they instantly tie it to them so
that's what I want you to try to do
because that will help pull them in so
they can say oh well you know I have a
website I should tell you about it
because that's what you're trying to get
them to do the ultimate goal of an
elevator pitch is to see how can you
help them and therefore they want to
hire you okay John I hope that was
really helpful for you and for our
readers I hope it was helpful for you to
watch what JN could do to improve his
elevator pitch so you can use the same
to improve yours be sure to submit your
elevator pitch while I'm still in the
mood to critique a bunch um just go to
science.com and submit it to my email
thanks
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