The 3 Pitches That Separate Growing Entrepreneurs from Everyone Else
9 Jul 2026 · 19 min
Lori Harder breaks down three pitch lengths entrepreneurs need: elevator (5-10 seconds), dinner (30-60 seconds), and story (5-10 minutes). She introduces the PITCH framework to structure any pitch around a specific audience, the transformation you offer, your credibility, your unique angle, and a clear call to action. Mastering these separates growing businesses from the rest.
Chapters
This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Try the e-commerce platform I trust for Glossier. Start your free trial at shopify.com/happy. And Zazzle. Save 25% on your first order today at zazzle.com with code EARN. Monarch Money. Get your first year of Monarch Core for half off at monarch.com with code EYH. Northwest Registered Agent. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com/earnfree and start using free resources to build something amazing. Indeed. Indeed is giving Earn Your Happy listeners a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying that you heard about Indeed on Earn Your Happy. If you don't know how to pitch yourself in these 3 lengths, it means that you are struggling. I guarantee your business is struggling. You're not getting the sales that you want, and when you show up in networking rooms, you are not the person who people are wanting to connect with quickly or stay connected to, because you are missing this. You're missing how to get your value out to people in all the different ways that you need. Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast. It's time for another quickie because there's always time to fit in inspiration. I have been really deeply thinking about personal brand and what that means. We teach a lot about personal brand and what goes into a personal brand in our Mentor Collective Mastermind. And what I'm getting even more clear on is breaking down specifically what that is and what really makes a successful person and a person who has pull, who has leverage, who has influence. And one of the biggest things that sets people apart when I see them in our Elite Entrepreneur Mastermind or in our Mentor Collective Mastermind is that they have this innate or natural or learned or very practiced, in most cases, way of pitching. They all know how to pitch. Themselves, their business, and an idea. And so the difference between people who are successful and who are not, and this is always one of the biggest differentiators, is if they know how to pitch. I want to just break the thought process in your head right now. If you're like, oh God, I'm not good at this, this isn't something that comes natural to me, well, no shit. Like, I don't think it comes very natural to pretty much anybody out there. I just wanna say this is something that you can learn and you are so much closer to than you think. I know you might be thinking, I'm more introverted. That feels braggy. I was raised more religious or not to brag or to be humble or in a family that thought that you shouldn't talk about yourself, or that feels like so far outside of my element right now. A word, a sister friend, guy friend, whoever is listening, I couldn't understand you more. Like, it is such a foreign thing to me. To stand and be like, look at me, this is great. Look at the thing that I believe in. Look at the story. And I have to tell you that it is something that you can learn and you can get excited about, because now I understand that pitching is about drawing attention to something you are passionate about. It's about really getting people excited and being so enthusiastic that you can't help but almost be pitching yourself during the process. So the more that I really sat with this idea of how important pitching is, the more I really wanted to talk to you about it. Because after spending the last 10 years hosting Earn Your Happy, which is obviously the podcast you're listening to now, and having over 1,600 episodes with people, with founders, with authors, with investors, with industry leaders, you guys, I am aware of what goes into a great pitch and what doesn't. Because when you hear the word pitch, you might think of selling, you might think of Shark Tank, you might think about people asking for money, but that's not actually what a pitch is. I believe it's simply your ability to communicate the value or story or idea with clarity. That's it. So whether you're introducing yourself at a dinner or you're speaking on a stage or you're recording a podcast like this. Or you're networking at an event, or it's in your Instagram bio, or you're sitting across from an investor. You guys, you are constantly answering the same question, even in the dating world. Why should I care? Why should I care about you? Why should I care about this idea? And the people who can answer that question quickly and clearly are gonna be the most memorable people who get the opportunities. And the ones who struggle, it doesn't mean that they have a talent problem. You guys, like, it, it's not because they're not. Good enough. It's just because they have a messaging problem. They probably just have not gotten really, really clear on what it is that they're doing. So once I fully understood, like, this is just something that you can learn, you're going to start noticing something. It's, it's that they just don't have a great pitch. It's not just about having a great pitch, but it's also about pitching at the right moment. Like, they actually know where the pitch goes, how long it should be, and what that feels like. So sometimes a pitch is like 10 seconds, sometimes it's a minute, sometimes it's 5 minutes. But I believe that this is a skill that every single person should work on and learn. Like, you should practice this in the mirror because this depends on whether you and your business will be successful. So the 3 pitches that I think every single entrepreneur needs— essentially it's one large pitch that you can You can make small or you can make large. You can make it fit into whatever container that is. So I know you guys have all heard about the elevator pitch. That's like 5 to 10 seconds. You're in an elevator, someone asks you what you do, maybe you're in line for a coffee and you have that one or two sentences that kind of encapsulates exactly what you do, but it also piques curiosity to ask another question. So it's like the shortest version of your pitch and then the Second is your dinner pitch. This one is like you're sitting across from somebody at dinner. This is a networking event. This is usually 30 to 60 seconds. Just picture it. I want you to picture you're sitting at dinner, you're being introduced on a podcast, you're meeting someone at an event, and they've actually expressed some interest. So now you have enough time to explain what you do without overwhelming them. And then the third is your story pitch. This is what's gonna go on your podcast. This is on stage. This is during keynotes, media interviews. This is on your sales calls where storytelling actually matters and you're really bringing people into the longer journey and they're beginning to understand what you do and why it matters. And so the most successful people understand how to expand or shrink this pitch that they have. They have all three. So let's talk about what goes into being really good at pitching, what actually goes inside of a pitch. So I'm going to use the word pitch, P-I-T-C-H, so you guys can remember. The first thing that you want to do is you want to get really clear on the person you help. Okay, this is not everyone. Everyone in the beginning, and especially the people who have programs that like help a lot of things, right? You help entrepreneurs grow their business. Well, that means that you can help a lot of people. What kind of entrepreneurs, right? Like, it's so not specific that you wanna start getting a little more specific just to start weeding all of the other people out. Like, you want to get hyper-specific if possible, and you don't help everyone. So figure out who is your person, who do you actually wake up excited to serve? So instead of saying entrepreneurs, you might say something like, I help coaches or I help founders and personal brands turn podcast guesting into one of their biggest customer acquisition and revenue channels. You guys, I'm gonna use the example of the new program that I have coming out, Million Dollar Guest, so that you can kind of see this throughline of how I'm going to talk to people about pitching it. So, like I said, instead of just saying, oh, I help entrepreneurs get on, on podcasts. I wanna say I help coaches, founders, and personal brands turn podcast guesting into one of their biggest customer acquisition and sales channels. So immediately, if that's you, you're like, oh shit, that's literally me. Okay. All right. The next one is after pitch, P-I, we have I for impact. What changes because of your work, you guys? Because people don't buy what you do. They buy what becomes possible for them because of what you do. So I don't wanna hear about your program and all of the benefits that I'm gonna get inside of the program. I wanna know what my life is gonna look like after I work with you. So for me, that's gonna sound like my clients stop hoping podcast interviews create business and they start engineering every interview to generate trust, demand, clients, partnerships, and cash. So this now goes, oh, I understand what you are doing. And so T for trust— this is where you guys are going to earn the right to people's trust, earn the right for them to believe in you. And let me tell you, this is not by listing all of your accomplishments, you guys. I know you have a lot of them, and if you don't, that might have just made you nervous too. But this is going to be how we establish trust, so they know, okay, she has actually lived this. And so for me, if you look at what I've done, I am a multiple 7-figure business founder, an 8-figure entrepreneur, but that's not why people trust me, right? You wanna get really specific. So if this is according to my podcast offer, I could say something like, it's that I've spent more than 10 years hosting Earn Your Happy, producing over 1,600 podcast episodes, reviewing thousands of pitches, interviewing some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, and seeing exactly what separates the guests who create opportunities from the ones who don't. So that's a vantage point for me that very few people have that is gonna build the ultimate trust within this offer because it's like, I have gotten a seat at the table that most people never get. Not only have I gotten behind the mic, I have also been in the seat of the interviewer. I also get to read tens of thousands of podcast pitches. I also get to see the engineered pitch that they send to me that we're going to follow as a script on the podcast. Like, I have every vantage point to help somebody win and make a lot of money from being on podcasts. And you guys, that is what builds trust, is really saying exactly why I sit in that position. So let's— My husband Chris and I run masterminds, and we have worked with every type of entrepreneur from a beginner entrepreneur all the way up to 7 and 8 figures. And I will tell you that a lot of them share the theme that Not everyone has the foundation of their business dialed in at all, especially in the beginning. 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And listeners of the show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com/podcast. Just go to indeed.com/podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Let's look at C in pitch, because that's the cause. And this is one of my favorite parts because this is where people discover why you're different. So for me, let's go back to it. I don't believe podcast guesting is about getting booked. A lot of people think if they just got on that big podcast and got to tell their story because their story is so amazing, or talk about their stuff, that it would be a game changer. But for me, I believe that podcast guesting is one of the most overlooked customer acquisition channels in business today. So I'm not teaching people how to get interviews. I wanna teach them how to make money off of the interviews because I have people who literally in the first day that the podcast link went live and they came on my show, they made $25,000 in one day from a podcast interview. That is what I teach. So I teach them how to monetize a podcast interview. That is my cause. That's my edge. And that's what people are going to remember. And every great pitch, every great brand has one. You guys, you have one. You just have to find specifically what makes you different. All right, so home. This is about bringing it home. This is essentially the invitation. This is essentially the invite to download the freebie. Here's my course, book a call, all of the things. But a lot of people lead with this. And really successful people do the opposite. First, they're gonna help you understand who they help, the transformation they create, why you, you should trust them, what they believe. And then only then are you going to do the invite because it's not gonna feel like a pitch anymore. It should feel like the obvious next decision because they're so into the story that you told them and the enthusiasm. I have to tell you this, if you are missing this one ingredient, enthusiasm. I want you to really understand what that is and go watch people who have it. If you are missing this, the whole thing will go out the window. You have to be convicted by your own message and convinced by your own message to the point where when you're saying it, you're literally fucking pitching yourself so well that it's like, this is so in me that I can't imagine this person on the other side not wanting this. So I'm going to kind of put this all together for you. So if I were to put together my own full story pitch, it sounds something like this. So I threw this together quickly, and this is based on the podcast offer that I am talking about, that I've been talking about, where I want to help people make money off of podcasts and make it their biggest sales channel. So I would say, I'm Lori Harder. I help entrepreneurs turn podcast guesting into one of their biggest customer acquisition and sales channels while building a personal brand that's bigger than any one business. After producing more than 1,600 podcast episodes and interviewing some of the world's top entrepreneurs, I noticed something almost nobody was talking about. The guests making the biggest impact weren't more famous or more talented. They simply had a strategy before they ever hit record. That's why I created Million Dollar Guest, because I believe podcast guesting isn't about getting booked. It's about getting paid, and I teach entrepreneurs how to engineer conversations that build trust, create demand, and naturally lead listeners into becoming paying customers. So if you're ready to stop hoping podcast interviews work and start turning them into one of your biggest sales channels in your business, that's exactly what I help people do. So the biggest mistake I see is that people always go straight for home, which means they go straight into the pitch instead of really talking about what they do, the transformation, why they are the person they should listen to because they have lived this. So you guys, I hope that this helps. I hope that you really start putting thought into this because in full body, like knowing, if you don't know how to pitch yourself in these 3 lengths, It means that you are struggling. I guarantee your business is struggling. You're not getting the sales that you want. And when you show up in networking rooms, you are not the person who people are wanting to connect with quickly or stay connected to because you are missing this. You're missing how to get your value out to people in all the different ways that you need. So this is really, really important, and I pray that you guys start focusing on this because it's gonna be an absolute game changer for you. So you guys, I hope this helped. And if you are interested in learning more about what I'm talking about and also getting my free media kit template that actually is going to help you pitch and understand what is all going into a pitch, let me tell you, this is a pitch that will get you booked on podcasts. It's the pitch that I wish you were sending me, but you're not. So go and check it out. You can go to milliondollarguests.com. Www.heykati.com/media-kit, and this is gonna change the game for you. We have had thousands and thousands of people download this offer and write me about how incredible this is and how it's working already. So I'm so excited. You guys go check it out, and until next time, earn your happy. Bye everyone.
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