I expect you have noticed that I have not posted very much at all lately. This is because I am getting very close to my final weeks of school, so all of the work is getting very stressful. So I have decided that I need to develop my inner self, including stress levels and my opinions of myself, as that is vital to how I am with other people and how I appear to them.

One of the ways I have decided to go about this is by doing the ProBlogger 31 challenge which started today. You may think it a bit strange to improve stress by doing more work? It makes perfect sense, to me, because if my blog is better than it helps you more and helping other people always makes me feel much more determined and motivated. So this month I will be writing about the daily events that I, and thousands of others, shall be participating in. Of course I shall be adding other posts as well.

Today’s activity was to create an “elevator pitch”. The first thing I had to do was work out what that meant. Luckily, Darren Rowse included an extract of Wikipedia’s definition.

“An elevator pitch is an overview of an idea for a product, service, or project. The name reflects the fact that an elevator pitch can be delivered in the time span of an elevator ride (for example, thirty seconds or 100-150 words).”

Wikipedia – Elevator Pitch

He also included reasons for writing a pitch.

• Your blogs tag line – having a short, sharp and descriptive ‘tag line’ for your blog can be a powerful technique for quickly communicating to new readers to your blog what it is all about. Readers who don’t get a sense for what your blog is about are in danger of leaving quickly – so a tagline that is displayed prominently on your blog can be a great way to hook them in.
• Your about page - the about page of a blog (if you have one) is one of the most read pages of a blog by first time visitors. It is an ideal place to communicate what you’re about and to ’sell’ to potential readers why they should subscribe and come back.
• Real Life Conversation – whether it be at a conference, in business interactions or just in everyday conversation, the topic of your blog is likely to come up from time to time and these interactions can be an ideal moment to pull out the elevator pitch to describe what your blog is about.
• Business Cards – I get a lot of business cards given to me at conferences and to be honest at the end of the day I can’t remember who gave me most of them. Adding an elevator pitch to a card can help trigger who you are and what you do in the mind of those you chat with at these busy types of events.
• Pitching to Media – One of the things I’ve noticed about many journalists is that they’re very busy people who are constantly being pitched with ideas for stories. Having a thought through and effective ‘pitch’ can help you get noticed and give a journalist a reason to listen to what you’ve got to say.
• Pitching to Other Bloggers – Similarly, I find that if I’m being ‘pitched’ to as a blogger that I take more notice if the person pitching to me gives me a brief insight into who they are and what they do.
• Email Signature – many people have links to their blogs in their emails, but a link can be somewhat meaningless on its own. Why not add your elevator pitch? Similarly signatures in forums can be a good place to have a short description of what you do to motivate people to check you out further.
• Social Media Profiles – the same thing goes for all those social media profiles that you have. Why not use them to not only point people to your blog but to give them a reason to go there!

I believe that another reason is developing what I was talking about earlier, your inner self. If you do not truly know and believe what you or your blog (or any other product) is about then you will not be able to make others understand it.

So now I understood the reasons why to make one… how do I go about making one? I searched the internet and found many pages such as this one and this one. I already have a tag line so I decided to work on making a longer pitch which is more detailed.

The first website that I showed you has the following information:

1. What is your product or service?
   Briefly describe what it is you sell.  Do not go into excruciating detail.
2. Who is your market?
   Briefly discuss who you are selling the product or service to.  What industry is it?  How large of a market do they represent?
3. What is your revenue model?
   More simply, how do you expect to make money?
4. Who is behind the company?
   “Bet on the jockey, not the horse” is a familiar saying among Investors. Tell them a little about you and your team’s background and achievements. If you have a strong advisory board, tell them who they are and what they have accomplished.
5. Who is your competition?
   Don’t have any?  Think again.  Briefly discuss who they are and what they have accomplished.  Successful competition is an advantage-they are proof your business model and/or concept work.
6. What is your competitive advantage?
   Simply being in an industry with successful competitors is not enough. You need to effectively communicate how your company is different and why you have an advantage over the competition.  A better distribution channel?  Key partners?  Proprietary technology?

Business Know How

Even after knowing what I need to have in my pitch, I could not decide on one! I shall list a few of the ones I considered. Please let me know your opinions!

1. Learn from other people’s mistakes so you don’t make them!
2. Many people’s lives go around in circles, Success Circuit teaches you how to break through the circle and enjoy life.
3. Success Circuit interviews the experienced, the inexperienced, the rich and the famous. We have all made many mistakes, learn from other’s mistakes so you don’t make them.
4. Success is gained one step at a time and we help you along the path. By interviewing successful business and sharing our insight on entrepreneurship.
5. Success is gained one step at a time and we help you along the path to success
6. Do you want to be successful? We help you define the meaning of success. We show you were other people have made mistakes so you don’t have to make them.

By tomorrow I shall have to choose one, so please let me know your opinions and have your input into the running of Success Circuit.

Thank you,

Shane