How to Sell Yourself in 60 Seconds

Just like when you have someone come to your web site, your first impression is very important. So you need to be ready when someone says to you, “so tell me what you do”. The best way to hurt your professionalism is to answer them by stumbling through your work using words like HTML, CSS, and other acronyms or being too simple and just saying “I build web sites.” That person just gave you an opportunity to sell yourself to them, whether they need a web site or not, they probably know someone that needs one, and you at least want them to tell others about you should they hear about someone else needing a web site. This leads to more word-of-mouth referrals – the most powerful referral you’ll ever receive as a business person.

Anatomy of an Elevator Pitch or 60 Second Infomercial

Most importantly, you need to keep your infomercial short, simple, and to the point, but interesting enough to ensure that you keep their attention, and remember you. Remember, the person you’re talking to is going to talk to a lot of people that night, and collect a lot of business cards.

Part One - the Introduction

The first step is to actually introduce yourself. Give your name, job title, and the name of your business. For example, “Hello I’m Jarrod Goddard, President of Net Shift Media.” That’s it.

Part Two - Services Overview

Next you want one line that describes what you do, you can then quickly explain them in a sentence or two. Don’t get too technical or descriptive because you’ll lose them, but try come up with something to hook them and pique their interest in what you do. “We’re an Internet marketing and development company but we don’t just build web sites, we help our clients plan their web strategy and create a web presence to sell their services or products online.”

Part Three - The Story

Follow that up with a story, and drop a couple names of some of your big clients. For example, “One client of ours, ABC Company, sells tens of thousands of dollars a month in widgets directly through their web site – we handle the design and implementation of their site as well as their online marketing and search engine optimization to provide them with a complete web strategy. We do the same for XYZ Corp, and National Widgets Ltd.” Depending on who you’re talking to and what sort of event you’re at, swap in and out some of your bigger clients. For example, when I’m at a local networking event, I drop the names of the local agencies I work with such as our local chamber of commerce, economic development agency, tourism marketing agency, and a few larger corporations. This shows that you have some big clients, but also a lot of local clients - which is important to local businesses.

Part Four - Ask for Business

This can be the most intimidating part of your infomercial, but let’s be honest, every one is there to make contacts and get new business. You don’t want to be too direct and ask them for business and say “do you need a web site?” but talk about the type of clients you want to work with and say something like “a great client for us is a large product manufacturing company that can ship their product worldwide, we can help them not only reach a much larger audience on the web but help them find new opportunities to sell their product.” That tells the person what type of client you are looking for, and also shows that even though a company may already have an existing web site and sell product online, you can still assist them in finding new customers through the web. The key to remember here is that as soon as you mention the type of client (large product manufacturing company) the person you talk will automaticall start thinking of anyone they know who fits that description, if you’re keeping them interested, they just may give your their name and contact information on the spot.

Part Five - Your Hook or Tag Line

Finally, you don’t want to drag on about yourself, so end your pitch with your memory hook or tag line for your business. Don’t just keep it plain like “we’re a full service web company”, but make it humorous, or witty so the person remembers it. In my case I always say “I make really cool stuff.” Probably because of my youth a lot of people get a kick out of it just because I use the word “cool”, but I’m just being honest – “I make really cool stuff, check out my web site to see!”

The Combined Pitch

Here is the script, customize it to suit your business and your style.

Hello, I’m Jarrod Goddard, President of Net Shift Media. We’re an Internet marketing and development company but we don’t just build web sites, we help our clients plan their web strategy and create a web presence to sell their services or products online. One client of ours, ABC Company, sells tens of thousands of dollars a month in widgets directly through their web site – we handle the design and implementation of their site as well as their online marketing and search engine optimization to provide them with a complete web strategy. We do the same for XYZ Corp, and National Widgets Ltd. A great client for us is a large product manufacturing company that can ship their product worldwide, we can help them not only reach a much larger audience on the web but help them find new opportunities to sell their product. We make some really cool web sites.

Say that out loud, it’s probably only about 30 seconds, but you covered every aspect of your business and explained exactly what type of client you’re looking for and gave some examples to back up your claims. If the person you are talking to even knows one of the clients you worked with they’ll probably say so and you can talk about how great they are to work with to keep the conversation going further and lead into other areas.

More Tips

Don’t be too self-involved. One big piece of advice is to always ask about what the other person does first. You don’t want to come off as arrogant and always wanting to talk about yourself. When you do introduce yourself ask “so tell me about what you do?” and ask them about their business. Most likely they’ll ask you the same once they introduce themselves and their business and then you can launch into your own business.

Bring a friend. When I first started out I had a couple other friends who had businesses and I always went to these events with at least one of them. You don’t want to go with a bunch of friends because you won’t talk to anyone else as much, but you can then work together and introduce each other to your contacts that you recognize there and even talk to a couple people at once making it a little more casual – you still want to socialize and have fun.

Always end with your business card. Finally, bring lots of business cards with you and give a card to each person you talk to. That way they have something they can pass on to someone else they might know, or keep it for themselves. Sometimes if the conversation went well enough they’ll ask for a couple cards.

It gets easier. A lot of the same people go to local networking events, so you’ll find that as you go to them month after month, you’ll start to get to know a lot of the people there. It will make it easier to talk and make conversation, and it can lead to those people introducing you to even more people.

Follow up. Always get the business card of the people you talk to so you can send them a quick e-mail saying it was nice to meet them – if they gave you a hard lead then be sure to phone them if you need more information, or just to say thanks.

There is a ton of information on the web about business networking, just google “business networking tips” and you’ll find a lot, or you can check out Freelance Folder.