Elevator Pitch tips

Summary

In 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

00:00

🎤 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.

05:00

📊 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.

Keywords

💡Elevator Pitch

An elevator pitch is a concise, persuasive speech that explains what a person does, typically lasting under a minute. In the video, Vanessa emphasizes the importance of a well-crafted elevator pitch for making a strong first impression, as it can quickly communicate the value of one’s work to others, like when John explains his job as a website analyst.

💡First Impression

A first impression is the initial perception someone forms about another person, often based on brief interactions. Vanessa stresses that a solid elevator pitch contributes to a great first impression, which is crucial for making a lasting impact in both personal and professional settings, particularly when explaining one’s job.

💡Pacing and Cadence

Pacing refers to the speed at which someone speaks, and cadence refers to the rhythm and flow of speech. Vanessa praises John’s pacing and cadence, noting that it allows the audience to process the information without feeling rushed. She highlights the importance of delivering an elevator pitch with clear and steady pacing to ensure understanding.

💡Open Torso

An open torso refers to maintaining an open posture with uncrossed arms and legs, signaling confidence and engagement. Vanessa notes that John effectively uses this body language to appear approachable and engaged. This physical openness helps in creating a positive impression and fosters a better connection with the audience.

💡Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication involves body language, gestures, and facial expressions that convey messages without words. Vanessa encourages John to incorporate more nonverbal cues, like using hand movements and head tilts, to enhance his message and engage his audience. Nonverbal communication can complement verbal explanations, making a pitch more dynamic.

💡Storytelling

Storytelling is the act of conveying information through narrative. Vanessa explains that incorporating a brief story into an elevator pitch can make it more memorable and relatable. She advises John to use an example or a client story to illustrate his work, such as how he helped improve a specific website, which would make his pitch more engaging.

💡Movement

Movement refers to physical actions like gestures, head tilts, and body shifts that can add energy and expression to a presentation. Vanessa critiques John for his lack of movement, suggesting that incorporating more physicality, such as hand gestures and slight nods, can make his pitch more engaging and memorable.

💡Engagement

Engagement refers to how involved and attentive the speaker is towards their audience. Vanessa emphasizes the importance of engaging the audience through both verbal content and body language. She mentions how using head tilts and open posture can demonstrate engagement, helping the audience feel more connected and interested in the speaker's message.

💡Memorization

Memorization is the process of learning something so well that it can be recalled easily. Vanessa advises John to memorize his elevator pitch so thoroughly that he no longer needs to focus on the words. This allows him to concentrate on other aspects, like body movement and engaging his audience, without getting stuck recalling the content.

💡Clarity

Clarity refers to the clearness of speech or expression. Vanessa compliments John on his enunciation, which helps the audience understand his message easily. She highlights that clarity in an elevator pitch is essential so the audience can quickly grasp what the speaker does without confusion or misinterpretation.

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