Vanessa Van Edwards says ditch the 30-second elevator pitch. Keep introductions to 10-12 seconds instead, then let people ask questions. Test each part separately, watch what makes listeners curious, and trim until your intro fits a natural conversation.
The biggest problem with elevator pitches is they sound like they're being given in an elevator. Have you ever been in a networking event and they launch into a 30-second explanation that's memorized with perfect words and lots of buzzwords? We also know that in a very casual back-and-forth conversation, 30 seconds is just too long of a turn. So 10, maybe 12 seconds, right, at the most. That's really important for keeping that word count down. So here's what I want you to think about while you're testing these out. Try each part separately. You don't have to do all at once. So I would just start with I am a, right? Just see how that one feels. See what kind of reaction you get. See what kind of questions you get. For example, I used to say I'm a writer. And it was really interesting because what people asked me back helped hone the next iteration of my pitch. If I said I'm a writer, people would always say, what do you write about? And then I would say human behavior. And I realized, hmm, I should probably share that a little bit earlier. And that's where it evolved into human behavior hacker, human behavior researcher. So start with different parts of it. See what questions you get, see what response you get. If you get a, huh, doing good. If you get a, huh, maybe change it, right? So also test out different pieces so you can see what the reactions are. And then slowly you can add each of those in. Especially if it's over 10 seconds, you might wanna start with different pieces until you can shorten it up.
