Vanessa Van Edwards shows why a logline beats an elevator pitch by ditching jargon. She rewrites a pipeline compliance pitch to "I help pipeline operators maintain regulatory compliance," then adds an "aha" hook: "Most people don't realize pipeline safety matters to us all." This conversational confetti sparks curiosity and makes listeners feel smart, not lost.
I love giving feedback on your loglines. And so here we have a couple. I help pipeline operators maintain regulatory compliance through collaborative and efficient management of their cathodic protection and pipeline integrity or inspection projects because pipeline safety matters to us all. Do you know what I'm going to say? Look, this is so competent and there are so many big words and I love the words. I don't know what a lot of them mean, we're not writing it, when we're saying it out loud to someone at a party or, you know, at a barbecue, they're gonna feel confused and they're gonna feel dumb. I think we have to remember we don't want to ever feel smart at the sake of someone else feeling smart. So if you use words that someone doesn't understand or a system they don't understand, they're gonna feel like, ah, like, I'm not good enough, I'm not worthy of this connection, which is the last thing you want. So So what I do like, my favorite line is pipeline safety matters to us all. It does? Like, that's interesting to me. What you can say is I help pipeline operators maintain regulatory compliance or maintain compliance. Like, I get that. Then you can say most people don't realize it, but pipeline safety matters because or with. There's an education moment here that actually could give someone an aha moment. So say that you work on pipeline compliance. I love it. Like, I get that. But then tell me like, why is that cool? Because it is cool. Me what it is. Most people don't realize that is one of my favorite phrases at the end of a logline. If you have a job that people either don't understand or they don't click with, try that. Most people don't realize about my job, or most people don't realize about this industry is— that's like a hook. I call it conversational confetti. It's like, hmm, there's something interesting there, right? Like a little celebration.
