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January 23, 2006
Elevator pitch
Elevator pitch: An investor describes how to compose a description of your work, which someone can understand in the time it takes to ride an elevator. He recommends a sentence to describe the problem, a sentence to describe what you do about it, a sentence to describe how you're better than other solutions, and a sentence to describe who already believes in you. In comments there's a followup 10 Tips to a Perfect Pitch, for when you've moved past the quick paragraph and into a longer, more formal presentation of your work.
Posted by John Dowdell at January 23, 2006 08:52 AM
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Heidi Miller of talkitup.typepad.com has a podcast called "Diary of a Shameless Self-Promoter" that deals with this subject a lot. She has coached several pros with not only their elevator-speech but also their 10-second and 2-second introduction (my favorite, for a NASA project manager: "I herd the geeks who run the Hubble Telescope.") I don't have the episode handy, but I know that several of her earlier shows have been dealing with this topic.
I believe the podcast itself is at http://heidimiller.libsyn.com/rss
Posted by: Gray Miller at January 23, 2006 10:56 AM
For those of you who are totally freaked out by the idea of public speaking/communication, you should check out www.toastmasters.org.
Toastmasters is an international non-profit organization that teaches public speaking. There are approximately 10,000 clubs world wide (200k members), cost is about $100 per year and most employers will reimburse it as a business expense. It can be a lot of fun and a fantastic, well respected way to improve your communications skills.
Posted by: Ryan at January 23, 2006 03:25 PM