Jason Fried in his piece Ditch the elevator pitch explains why he thinks we don’t need elevator pitches and should abandon their restrictions and distortions. Two of his reasons:
- You can’t explain complex and new ideas in thirty seconds.
- What you want to say changes with the needs of your audience. Learning these needs form part of a real conversation. Listen before you transmit.
Refreshing, uncommon sense. But there are occasions when I do need an elevator pitch. Recognise these terrible, horrifying words: “Shall we just go round and quickly introduce ourselves?” Yes, it’s the meeting introduction. A boring chore pre-pandemic. A blood-sucking torture on Teams/Zoom/Meet/Whatever.
Remember standing on unfamiliar asphalt surrounded by unfamiliar faces on the First Day Of A New School?
Who are you?
What’s your name?
Why are you here?
Where are you from?
What class are you in?
Who do you support?
Those childish stand-offs were — well, they were child’s play compared to a supportive, welcoming, typical adult conference call round of introductions. The objective is the same: finding out if you are one of us. Are you in or out?
This is where you do need an elevator pitch. The one, two, or three liner that tells a story without debasing it. That explains just enough without cutting off further discussion. That says something about me and about my role both within and without the meeting. And then you have to do all this while avoiding bragging. Or humble-bragging.
It’s near impossible. You only have to read people’s twitter bio-lines to see that.
But is that a cop out? Can you just say that it’s impossible and you’re not doing it?
One approach might be that of a captured soldier. Name rank serial number. No more.
I might try that.
The “imagine x meets y” trope has merit, although dismissed by Fried.
I would take two characters from Winnie the Pooh. Imagine that Eeyore meets Tigger — that’s me. Half the time bouncing around with massive enthusiasm; the rest of the time, gloomy and alone in a field.
That is sort of personal, but does not recognise the audience or meeting purpose. I might want to tell my neurologist story if I wanted to set a scene of fighting the odds; or my speech therapist story if I wanted to encourage accepting limits and working with others; my school prize story (I still shudder at the school prize story) to promote effort and dedication.
Some people try to use the zoom-introduction-cum-elevator-pitch as a mission statement. Which it isn’t. There is too little thinking and not enough collaboration for it to be a meaningful mission statement. It gets degraded into a strapline.
And a strapline then becomes a label. In a bad way. You are self-labelling.
Another option might be to have an online bio or one-page profile and just tell people to go and read it if they were really that bothered. I quite like that idea — you could give name rank serial number and a link to the profile.
All things considered, it’s an unsolvable nightmare. We would all be better back in school yard.