 Now, one of the things that I struggled with the most when I first started in business was how do I explain what I do to the people around me? And so I'm sure you've had it happen where someone calls you up or they want to do business with you, and they just launch into this monologue about how awesome they are, what results you can see, and it's just like, blah, and you just want to run away, you just want to escape. Well, we have a lot of really bad examples of how to introduce yourself to other people. I'm sure all of us can think of times when someone either tried to pick us up with an offensive or cheesy pickup line, or when we tried to do that to someone else, I'm sure we can think of times when we tried to introduce ourselves to a new friend, you know, and get out there and make those connections. And maybe it went well, maybe it was a disaster. But in all of these situations, and especially in the business world, where we're trying to network, trying to grow our connections, the way we introduce ourselves is crucial. And that is why I have brought in one of the best experts on elevator pitches to help you figure out how you can introduce yourself and get the best results. Joining me today with Zoom in the studio is Alicia Greer. Hi, Alicia, how are you? Hi, great to be here. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited you can make it. So I'm going to give you a chance. Would you be willing to give your elevator pitch to our audience and just introduce yourself and what you do? Sure, sure. And so understand, I'm going to process this, that the elevator pitch is something that is molded to each situation. And so it changes every time. So an example of an elevator pitch that I might give goes something like this. Hi, my name is Alicia, and I love speaking about leadership and I love making people better versions of themselves. That's really my passion. And I'm a graduate of West Point and I spent time in the military and I deployed both to Afghanistan and Iraq. I earned my MBA. I was an operations manager and a vice president at Goldman Sachs. And I'm currently the director of operations at a firm based in Washington, D.C. My passion, like I said before, is in spreading joy to people by making them better versions of themselves. And I find that I have so much experience through leadership based on all of the things that I've done previously that I'm actually pretty good at it and it makes me feel good inside. All right. Thank you. That's very helpful. I'm wondering if you could tell us some of the biggest problems that people face when it comes time to craft that perfect new elevator pitch. What do they struggle with? Well, I see a lot of people that want to put so much information into their elevator pitch and then they run out of time. So time is very limited, especially in conversation. And so you never know when the person that you're speaking to is going to have to get up and walk away or take a phone call or be interrupted. And so often people will start a conversation and want to tell you about themselves, but they can't get all of the information out that they want. And so having the beauty of having an elevator pitch is making sure that you throw the most important things that you want, the person that you're communicating to out upfront so that if they walk away after 10 seconds of talking to you, you've delivered the most important piece of who you are and what you want them to know about you. And it seems like it's not necessarily what you think is important about yourself. It's about what you think will be important to them. Is that right? Yeah, that's a great point. And one of the other things that sometimes people struggle with is they create a list and when I've worked with people developing their own elevator pitches, they create a list of the things that they, their qualities, their best qualities that they feel, the things that they think are important for other people to know about them. But when you deliver an elevator pitch, you really want it to be relatable to the person that you're talking to. You want to capture your audience. And the way to do that is to connect with them in some way. So you have to understand what your strengths are, but at the same time you have to be able to communicate how those strengths are relevant to the person that you're speaking to. And that's not always easy to do, but it's something that I think comes with practice and comes with listening and understanding who your audience is. I'm pretty curious about that, about how communicating your strengths in the way that matters to the person you're talking to. Would you be willing to dive into that a little bit more? Sure. So elevator pitches, like I mentioned earlier, are tailored to your audience. So if you are walking into an environment and potentially you are looking to get hired for a specific job, if I was walking to an environment where I wanted to showcase my ability to handle Excel spreadsheets, I would focus probably on my technical background and deliver that type of information that's relevant to being able to handle numbers and to handle structure and things like that. If I wanted to walk in and talk to somebody about delivering elevator pitches, I would talk about things like this, connecting with people, things about my background that connected me with other people or showed how I could reach in and understand personalities. All right, that makes sense. So I'm wondering if you could even tell us how you got started in elevator pitches. How did all of this get started for you? So this is a great story. And elevator pitches to me was one of those things that I just didn't believe in. I thought it was hokey and it was just a term that was coined and I wasn't really sure the relevance of it. But I had my own personal experience that shed light on this and has made me a true believer of the elevator pitch. So I was getting my MBA after I had gotten out of the military and we had a mandatory Saturday morning class and it was about two hours. And when you're in school, you don't ever want to have to go to a class on a weekend. So a Saturday morning mandatory class was not something that we all wanted to do. And I can probably say comfortably that me as well as some of my other classmates were there because it was mandatory and we were going through the motions and we were doing what we're supposed to do. So I went through, created my elevator pitch. Didn't think that I would ever use it. And when it came time two months later, two or three months later when I was looking for a job and I went on an interview at a Fortune 500 company that I was targeting that I really, really wanted to go work for and I went through a series of at the time I was in Georgia, the interviews were in New York and so I went and went through a series of speed interviews two days and speed interviews are when you go about 30 minutes per interview and I just went from office to office to office and was getting all of my interviews completed before I returned back to Georgia. And the last interview of the day was with the head of operations and the individual that asked me to come that recruited me came to me and stopped me before I went into his office and said, Hey, look, I'm sorry, but this the head of operations has gotten called pulled away to a meeting. So he's not going to be able to interview today. So I was a little bit disappointed, but I understood obviously there's nothing that I could do about it. So he proceeded to walk me over to the elevator. Ironically and that the head of operations was there and so the recruiter said to me, Oh, well, here's the head of operations right here. Listen, you're going to meet with him later. We're not going to go through the interview today. Just wanted to let you know. Great to have you out here. Thank you so much. And the recruiter walked away instead of walking me down and out the building. And so he left me at the elevator with that head of operations. So I got into the elevator on the 16th floor with the head of operations and it was just the two of us in the elevator complete silence as the door is closed and I thought to myself, you know what? I've got from the 16th floor to the first floor to either make an impression or to do absolutely nothing. And so low and behold, I spit out that elevator pitch, which at the time was very different than it is now, but I spit out the elevator pitch that I had practiced and the head of operations turned to me when we got down to the bottom floor and he said, Nice to meet you. Thank you very much. And I'll see you later. And he walked out. He left and I thought, Oh, well, whatever, you know, it is what it is. And I walked out and didn't think too much more of it. But then several months later when I was offered the job at that particular company and offered several other jobs as well. I realized that the job offer from that particular company came in lower than my other offers. And I called the recruiter back up and I said, Listen, I really want to come work for this company. But the salary gap is a little bit too much for me to ignore. Is there anything that we can do about it? And so the recruiter went back and said, Okay, let me see if I can talk to somebody and see what we can do. He called me back the next day and he said, Alicia, I don't know what you said the head of operations in that elevator, but whatever you said worked and he told me to give you what you want. And so there you have it. And I thought, Wow, what did I say in the elevator? And so that elevator pitch became very relevant to me at that point. All right. That's a really cool story. And I can just bet when you tell that on stage, it really helps your audience to recognize the importance of the elevator pitch. So I'm wondering if you can, you know, just in a couple of minutes, tell us about some of the biggest mistakes you've seen in elevator pitches that keep people from being successful. A lot of times people when we talked about one or ready, which is being relatable and making sure that you relate and make your yourself relevant to the person that you're speaking to. One of the other things that I find is difficult for some people to communicate is that they tend to lift all of their accolades and you can't you it's almost boring. It's almost like, Well, I did, you know, I did this, I did this, I'm really good at this and I'm really good at that. And there's no passion in it. There's no heart in it. I mean, these are your things that you've accomplished, things that you should be proud of. So when I talk about, you know, having been in the military, I'm proud of having been in the military. When I talk about earning my MBA or becoming a vice president at Goldman Sachs, I really feel that from the inside. So when I coach people with their elevator pitches, I try to remind them that these are things that they should be proud of. And when they're talking to people about themselves, you want to communicate that inner feeling that you have with those words. So elevator pitches are so concise and so short that you want to take out all of the fluff. You don't want to use words like, I really, really enjoyed my service in the military. You don't want to say really, really, but you can communicate those really, really enjoyed type of things through your expression, through your body language, through your gestures, and how you deliver your elevator pitch. The delivery is really important. It's important to get a concise statement out, but the delivery is also really important. And so the follow on question, I think that you might ask is, well, how do you, how do you get that delivery? How do you perfect that delivery? That is a great question. And so viewers, we will be right back. And when we do get back, we'll let Alicia answer that question. See you in a minute. Hello, everyone. I'm DeSoto Brown, the cohost of Human Humane Architecture, which is seen on Think Tech, Hawaii every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. And with the show's host, Martin Desbang, we discuss architecture here in the Hawaiian Islands and how it not only affects the way we live, but other aspects of our life not only here in Hawaii, but internationally as well. So join us for Human Humane Architecture every other Tuesday at 4 p.m. on Think Tech, Hawaii. Hey, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech, Hawaii. And they won't let me do political commentary. So I'm stuck doing energy stuff, but I really like energy stuff. So I'm going to keep on doing it. So join me every Friday on Stan Energyman at lunchtime at noon on my lunch hour. We're going to talk about everything energy, especially if it begins with the word hydrogen. We're going to definitely be talking about it. We'll talk about how we can make Hawaii cleaner, how we can make the world a better place. Just basically save the planet. Even Miss America can't even talk about stuff like that anymore. We got it nailed down here. So we'll see you on Friday at noon with Stan Energyman. Aloha. Welcome back to Out of the Comfort Zone. I'm your host, Arby Kelly, here with Alicia Greer. And we were just talking about elevator pitches. Specifically, how you can make sure your delivery of the elevator pitch is really getting your message across. So, Alicia, what kind of things do you teach people to help them maximize their delivery? So I really try to encourage people to connect with the words that they're using. Make sure that the words have value to themselves. But really, you've got to practice and you've not just practice, you know, reading it or writing it down and memorizing it. I actually prefer people don't memorize it. I actually prefer that people memorize the components, the pieces of it. Okay, I'm going to start with my name and I do actually tell people to memorize starting with your name because getting the first sentence out is always the hardest. So usually once you get that first sentence out and you can get rolling, then everything else comes a little bit more naturally and you can kind of get into the flow. But I ask people to make sure that they smile when they deliver their elevator pitch because you can hear a smile in somebody's voice. You know, as people have said that when you're talking on the phone on sales calls that you should smile because you can hear that smile through the phone even though they can't see it. But I encourage people to sit up straight and have an open posture because that's just more inviting. Come listen to me in what I have to say as opposed to turning sideways or being slouched over or taking a closed posture which kind of may give a defensive message. I also ask people to try to be as natural when they speak as possible. And that's got to come, I think, from not memorizing the exact words and the order that you're going to say them in but understanding and memorizing the components of your elevator pitch and then just talking about them. That's very interesting. I noticed you talk a lot about smile which is a gesture of likability, approachability, friendliness and you also talk about standing up straight and that is something that comes across specifically as being more confident, competent, authoritative. So it's really interesting you bring this up because when you meet people they sort you into one of four categories and they sort you in those categories really quick and once you're in those categories it's really hard to get out. So for example, the first category is the friend category. If you've ever met someone and instantly just liked them that's a pretty good cue that your brain has sorted them into that friend category which it sounds like from your elevator pitch that's exactly what happened and that's what you teach your clients to do. So we don't have to get into the other three categories but I think that's really interesting that that's what you help your clients to do right away. Yeah and I think that the reason why that is because when you deliver an elevator pitch you want to call back. You want that person to feel comfortable reaching back out to you. That's usually the purpose. Elevator pitches are not usually delivered just because you want people to know about you and that's it and you know there's nothing else that there's not a relationship that you want to build. You want to build that relationship. You want it to continue and it's usually with somebody that doesn't know you in another environment or doesn't know you or doesn't know the service that you offer which is another thing. Elevator pitches are not necessarily only about you. Sometimes you can deliver an elevator pitch about your business or about the service that you're offering. So it doesn't have to be just a personal thing. It can also be a business that you're delivering an elevator pitch for. That makes sense. And so it sounds like the process you take people through as they build their elevator pitch is one write down what you've done and what you do get this whole big long list get it out on paper and then you start putting those pieces into your elevator pitch and it's maybe just a few sentences long but you put those pieces together. So I used to do this. I currently do this. I'm proud of this and you just put those pieces together until they make sense and they're relevant for the person you think you'll be talking to. And then at the very end it sounds like you come in and you help them practice their delivery. So it's smooth natural friendly and open so that they stand out in people's minds not just for what they've said but just for that like physical first impression that they make. Is that right. Yeah absolutely. And the components the components are important and I think that a lot of people get lost in drowned in the component especially when somebody has 30 to 40 years of experience you know a work experience or just experience in general and they want to fill everything in there. Well I like to do this but I'm good at this and so I really try to narrow down that the components the three things when I'm talking to people and the first one and it turns out that this is a really big one and a colleague of mine kind of opened my eyes to how big the first component is and I tapped on it earlier but it's your name. Your name makes a big difference because if if somebody pulled away after your first sentence and all they have left is your name and when today is day and age they go and say oh yeah remember I talked to that girl Alicia Greer and I really want to see I didn't get to hear what she did but I want to see what she did and they'll go to Google and they'll type in Alicia Greer and they'll see what comes up and it just so happens that with my name what comes up is a woman who just deceased she's no longer alive and that's a horrible thing I'm not laughing because of the situation I'm laughing because that's not what I want people to associate with me so I really need to know how to differentiate my name so actually in elevator pitches I tend to deliver my name is Alicia Chingrear because when you Google search Alicia Chingrear which includes my maiden name in there then I pop up and that's what I want people to see so that's an important component along with that I can see sometimes when people Google me they will Google RB Kelly body language and what comes up is a rap song so I should take that into account but what's the next component the next component is what service you're providing so immediately you want to relate to that person this is what I can do for you or this is what I would like to do for you and then the final one is the credibility around around you and why you can deliver that service so I think that those are really the most important things now there are just three things but they can also end up being an entire page long of stuff so that's why you write it all out and then you start to really condense it and you start to take words out that words like really or very or that the fluff words you take those out and you make it a concise statement that's simple but effective alright so backtracking really quick we have the first piece is our name the second piece is what we can do for them so not what we do but what we can do for them what they would want us to do for them and then we start bringing in our authority our credibility as proof that we could actually follow through right and it's important to note that as we're saying what can we do for you that you're not you're not contriving something you're not saying oh well I can deliver this service to you I'm not at all saying to try to deliver something that you can't deliver but you know it's again why that credibility piece comes in is because you should be passionate about it you should this should be something that you can do that you know that you're confident about it and and then you mentioned the body language piece after that but yeah you want if people walk away from you and they don't hear because you know these elevator pitches they can occur at any time you can be in a bar and you could meet somebody you can be in the Starbucks line and you can meet somebody that you want to deliver an elevator pitch to and it could be really noisy and it could be that they hear just these blips and just these little pieces of your elevator pitch but they remember you because you were so friendly or because you were so animated I don't know and it is good to be memorable that is memorable right right and that that brings up an interesting point I've talked about the four categories that people might sort you into and so the category we're shooting for is friend but most people fall into this last category which is where job interviews business deals pickup lines everything goes to die and that's the indifferent category so if you've ever met someone and forgotten their name forgotten their face forgotten what they do it's a sign they've fallen into that indifferent category and like you said Alicia you've got to stand out because if people forget you you can't get the job so you've got to find some way to be memorable so that when so that people do walk away remembering you thinking about you being curious about you yeah that's absolutely right and that's exactly what we try to communicate you're kind of you're kind of attacking from all angles here right you're giving the delivery through words so you're getting the audible but you're also giving the delivery through visual and then of course through connection right and so that the only way that I can describe connecting is that if you connect with your elevator pitch if you connect with those words people will feel that and if you're if you're delivering the words empty and you don't really believe in them yourself they're not going to believe in you either so it's about creating connections and creating a memorable experience through multiple avenues of delivery alright now this has been a very informative very helpful interview so I'm so glad you've come on but we've we've only got about two minutes left and I'm sure a viewer still have more questions so where can people go to learn more and even to get your help with their interview with their pitch so the best place to reach me is to go through a site called diligentplans.com it's exactly as it sounds diligentplans.com with an S and there's a list of speakers on that website and I'm listed as one of them and that's the best way to reach me alright so it sounds like you not only do coaching you don't just do coaching with people individually you also work as a speaker so you can target multiple groups at the same time yes I love to share just my leadership experience and in what I've learned as a leader through all of these different experiences both in the military and in the corporate world and also as a mom I'm a mother of four and I got to tell you that there's a lot of challenges in that arena as well and so I just I really I love connecting with people and I love making them better versions of themselves in very impactful ways and so I find that doing that through speaking and doing that through coaching is very gratifying to me alright I think we've got one last minute here what is the last piece of advice or the last important thing that you would want to give to our audience before you end the show today I would just say that when you are talking to somebody enjoy it you have an opportunity to connect with somebody connect and if you don't like talking to people which some people don't then it makes a little bit more challenging but understand that that we are humans and we live through connection and there's always something that we can learn from each other it's always a mutual kind of relationship and so when you're out there even beyond the delivery of an elevator pitch just connect with people it's important for your for your well-being alright well thank you Alicia thank you for coming on to the show today thank you for connecting with us and I really appreciate your time thank you alright viewers I hope you enjoyed this episode of out of the comfort zone and remember we'll be bringing on more experts for every episode to make sure you have everything you need to make your life better I'll see you next Tuesday bye