Your website home page encapsulates your pitch. The 20-word opening intro of your 1-minute-marketing pitch is CRITICAL. To sell yourself effectively, you can’t be humble. But you can’t come across as arrogant either. URGGHHH. What’s the balance? These formulas jump-start ideas for your 1-minute marketing pitch.

What is a 1-minute pitch?

• Your 1-minute-pitch helps you plan what you want others to know about you.
• Your 1-minute-pitch is the growth strategy behind your marketing material and website.
• Your 1-minute-pitch generates new leads and starts business relationships.

Let’s prepare…

Write down 4 things:

1. Who you help or your niche audience.
   Wrong answers: women, entrepreneurs, over 45’s. Be specific.
2. Their statement of need, or the problem they want solved or their burning desire.
   What your niche customer is searching for, what they are trying to get done.
3. Your deliverable, their result.
   What will they have, feel, know or do differently thanks to you!
4. Your secret sauce.
   How you – and only you – deliver this guaranteed result! Is it a process you use? A tool you provide? A mindset you share? What’s the logic behind how you move your niche audience from Before to After.

Ten 1-minute-pitch formulas to spark your marketing intro

1. I transform <their problem> into <their burning desire>
   e.g. I transform your outdated Wix rental into a website you own, maintain and control.
2. I give <niche audience><their burning desire> by teaching them <your secret sauce>
   e.g. I give non-profits an affordable website that works, by teaching them how to update themselves
   
3. I help <niche audience> do <statement of need> through <your secret sauce>
   e.g. I help tech teams reduce support calls by providing easy-to-access training videos online
4. I connect <niche audience> to <burning desire> + <your secret sauce>
   e.g. I connect tech manufacturers to their ideal customer, by moving their B2B procurement online.
5. I <fix this problem>for <niche audience> + <secret sauce>
   e.g. I show off your organization’s track record, by creating content about past projects.
6. I’m a <expert skill> and I use <secret sauce> to deliver guaranteed results that <burning desire>
   e.g. I’m a web designer, and I use 20 years in marketing to guarantee you a website that works.
7. I help <niche audience> to <solve a problem>. I’m particularly good at <secret sauce>.
   e.g. now it’s your turn…
8. My company helps <target audience> in three specific ways <secret sauce>.
9. My team built a product that fixes <problem> for <niche audience> using <secret sauce> . Our product achieves <result>. Last month we had <proof of result>.
10. My company is developing <offering> to help <target audience> <solve a problem> through <secret sauce>.

These marketing formulas will help you identify key elements of your pitch, but your intro will still need to be polished and perfected. Many times.

It mustn’t sound like a tagline, or too clever, or silly or unbelievable. You might keep the pitch in this format on your business card and website – they work better in words than spoken.

Following up on your 20 word marketing intro

After your intro, you need to be able to follow up over the next 45 seconds with down-to-earth why and how. While the initial 20 words will be the same each time, the rest must adjust to your audience.

On a website or a presentation, you can give your pre-practiced paragraph.

If you are networking, rattling off for a full minute will get you nowhere. Think CONVERSATION!

• After your 20 word intro, pause to give your listener time to digest and consider your statement.
• Ask a question about their <problem>, <need> or <burning desire>.
• Make a comment that allows the person to self-identify as being in <your niche audience>.
• Raise a topic about their industry that linked to <your result>.

Practice, practice, practice

Most people don’t realize what they really sound like. Or look like. That leads to poor delivery.

1. Record your voice only and listen to yourself – focus only on the way your voice sounds.
2. Then practice your pitch in front of the mirror and get your facial expression right.
3. Then video yourself. Look at your posture, body language and movements.

Over the course of simply practicing your pitch, you’ll perfect your wording, and you’ll feel much more comfortable delivering it.

FINAL TIP: I have my own intro on an electronic “sticky note” on my desktop. I read it 10 times a day, at least a few times aloud. It keeps getting shorter. Just telling more people what I do, has got me 2 referrals in the past month.

Do you want to know how to write the REST of your 1-minute marketing pitch? Click below