Detailed Notes
In the latest episode of the Building Better Businesses podcast, hosts Rob Broadhead and Michael Meloche dive into the art of elevator pitch strategies—a crucial tool for entrepreneurs, developers, and business owners looking to set themselves apart from the competition. This episode explores how to craft a compelling narrative, niche down your audience, and refine your pitch strategies for maximum impact.
Read More: https://develpreneur.com/elevator-pitch-strategies-perfect-your-pitch-and-boost-your-brand/
The Challenge: Create Your Own Elevator Pitch Strategies
At the end of the episode, Rob and Michael challenge listeners to refine their own elevator pitch strategies. The challenge is simple:
1. Write down what you do in a single sentence. 2. Identify the key problem you solve for your ideal client. 3. Revise your pitch to focus on value and storytelling. 4. Practice in front of a mirror or with friends. 5. Share with the community for feedback.
This exercise helps you hone in on your messaging and ensures that whe
*Stay Connected: Join the Develpreneur Community*
How are your elevator pitch strategies shaping up? Share your thoughts in the comments or reach out on social media—we’d love to hear your take!
We invite you to join our community and share your coding journey with us. Whether you’re a seasoned developer or just starting, there’s always room to learn and grow together. Contact us at [email protected] with your questions, feedback, or suggestions for future episodes. Together, let’s continue exploring the exciting world of software development.
*Additional Resources*
* Pitching Your Services To Your Customers (https://develpreneur.com/pitching-your-services-to-your-customers/) * Niche Broad vs. Deep Expertise (https://develpreneur.com/niche-broad-vs-deep-expertise/) * Launch Your Business – Turn the Revenue Machine On (https://develpreneur.com/launch-your-business/) * Personal Brand Building – You are the Brand (https://develpreneur.com/personal-brand-building/)
*Follow-us on:*
* https://develpreneur.com/ * https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZOuFN_LhczvGyT2KSItH_g/featured * https://facebook.com/Develpreneur * https://twitter.com/develpreneur * http://linkedin.com/develpreneur
Transcript Text
[Music] and we're back all right Let's see we just like clicked our record there we had our little video we had our like our video cues so we are ready to dive into this sucker here we are going to do elevator pitch I we can jump into that I think that'll be a fun one because it's like some cool stuff and as I'm looking at this I'm trying to think what is my good thing bad thing going to be this time I thought I had I didn't write it down I'm struggling with those right now because I I'm I'm unfortunately having a little bit more bad than good some days sometimes it's like where do I find that good there's got to be some good in this where gotta think about it let's see well hopefully I'm G going to wing it and we're going to figure that out that's that's going to be probably the that'll be the good as it's like sometimes you wing it and you can come up with something even though yeah it may be really weak but it's like oh well suck it up you know deal with it you're you're not in the you're not in my position so you need to just get over yourself we'll do the little three2 well hello and welcome back we are continuing our season this is season 24 of the developing or podcast building better developers the focus this season building better businesses we've gone through a couple things in the recent Seasons this one we're going to get a little bit on that entrepreneur side the preneur side of develop preneur not to be close you know confused with the manure side of something because we don't even have that that's only if you're in farming and we don't have to deal with that right now but what you do have to deal with is me my name is Rob Broadhead I am one of the founders of develop or also a founder of RB Consulting where we are one of those Boutique Consulting kind of firms and what we do is we sit down with you we help you understand actually we we learn from you your business what is it that makes your business special it's not that we don't know anything about business but it's like yours is unique and so we work with you to craft that specific recipe through simplification automation integration Innovation to take your technology sprawl and turn it into a nice little like you know nice little pretty thing with a bow on top so that your big investment in technology is one that is a return on investment that is very good for you that you're very happy about it that you can manage it not only today but six months six years from now that you have that road map that technology road map that helps you be successful good thing bad things now the bad thing is is I was going into this for those of you that listen to it or look at it on the YouTube side you know that I'm trying to figure out what is my good thing bad thing for this week and yes I am buying time right now to try to figure out what that could be because I've sort of exhausted some of my good ones lately so one of the bad things is weather lately it's just not been it's not been Cooperative we've had a couple of nice days but it's really been like wet and it's cold because it's winter that's what all of this kind of stuff is the good thing is is it has allowed me some time where I was like normally would be doing you know yard work or stuff like that it's allowed me time to just be like stuck at home and so like you know there's definitely work to do around the house but it's also allowed me to like catch up on some games and some reading and some things like that cuz I've actually had a little bit of downtime even amidst all the work and that kind of stuff so there you have it I actually like managed to find a way to like work out a good thing and a bad thing and that also bought time for Michael to do the same because he's gonna introduce himself and give his good thing bad thing so dive into it thanks Rob my name is Michael malash I'm one of the co-founders of developer ner building better developers I'm also the founder of Envision QA where we help businesses build software that meets their needs and we do this using ACH test driven QA perspective where we walk through your user Journey what are your stories how do you work within your business or how does your software need to work for you through that through those questions through those Journeys we help you build the software or implement the right software for your business to streamline your processes good and bad so I will start with the bad because I'm hoping it's going to lead to something good coming out of this week so for the last few weeks probably say about a month now I have been in the process of switching off of coffee to tea and I thought I was being very healthc conscious being very good about it and last night after my wife bought me a new uh set of teed to try I'm reading the box and I realized that my idea to reduce the amount of caffeine in my system to reduce my strength and anxiety I went from drinking two cups of coffee a day to drinking two cups of coffee a day in the equivalent of 16 cups of coffee a day through tea so which explains why my anxiety and my stress has gone up exponentially over the last month so starting this week I have now dropped down to literally four cups of one tea bag a day and so far I am not going into crash mode so things are coming um hoping to get a little bit more sleep but even before the caffeine I already had problems sleeping so it's a lost cause so that's my good and bad for this one I will follow up that one I will just say that I like I moved off of caffeine many many years ago and have found that it really did now it could be because I got old and I'm just old and decrepit and stuff but it did feel like I got you know it seemed like my sleep got a lot better when I started shifting around my caffeine habits uh so I wasn't consuming caffeine and sugar at you know 9 and 10:00 at night instead of like I sort of get it out of the way by noon and more or less can make it although I'm not getting I'm also getting old so sometimes it's like 8:30 at night and I start to read a book and like one page into it now I'm asleep so there's that problem so some but it does mean that like if I do decide to like grab a Red Bull real quick at that point I will be awake for a while I might be bouncing off the ceiling spidermanning across the place but at least I will be awake that is a digression because what we're actually going to talk about this time is we're going to get into talk a little bit about like we call like the elevator pitch but it's really it's really bit like it's like the core what do you do kind of side of your business this is actually very useful from you from a professional point of view and a lot of us I think just like brush that aside which is I think part of why it's so difficult for us to do this for our business because it like as a developer what do you do I write code I create software that is very often what you're going to hear if you ask a developer what do you do they're like you know and they'll there'll be more to it because usually like because we're developers and we geek out a little bit it's like well I write Java code and I use JavaScript for the front end and I use SQL server in my back end or whatever it is and if you guys don't use that I'm sorry if I offended you if you love it great I didn't offend you but we we don't really talk about we don't have a story for what we do it's like what do you do I swing a hammer and I nail nails I write code I create softw there not really that's like that's not going to be a Blockbuster movie next summer like you know Marvel's Avengers is not they sit around and eat sandwiches you know it's like it's nothing like that it's there's a story and that's where you're going to be able to be more memorable particularly when we're talking about your business is get something that's going to like draw them in we've we've talked in the past now it's been a while we'll have to go back to this we've talked about the ideas of of funnels and bringing people in and sort of like you know casting a wide net and then starting to bring people into your business and your focus so that you go from people that man maybe they could be a customer to like these are probably customers like these are customers and being able to sell or pitch them a product that is one that they need that you you're now it's not a hard sell because it's like you've already figured out that these are the people that you're building this product for and so they're just like take my money take my money because that's what you're giving them but you start that with the elevator pitch or with your we'll talk like your brand and this isn't your vision or your mission statement because you know it can be enticing like when Google's used to be don't be evil but when they said oh no we can't do that anymore then you're in trouble because it's like wait a minute why aren't you no longer don't be evil why did you kick that why did you stop doing that one why did you have to say that in the first place and two why did you stop well we did I'm digressing a lot today I guess it's because it's later in the day the thing we want to do is you want to distill what it is your business does and provide to really as few words as possible like literally a couple of sentences so if you do software and your your company is well we just write software we write Solutions that's not going to help that's like everybody writes software Solutions or it feels like it there's a that's a huge field you're going to Niche down you need to find or if you're somebody that likes it said definitely you need to Niche down and you need to get to something that is very specific that somebody's going to be like I need that now not like yeah I like people that mow my yard at Casi it's somebody that's like I need you to mow my yard with a push mower today or something like that yeah like this is where we get into the specifics and so I think it's also something is important for us as entrepreneurs is to make sure we're doing something that we enjoy and this is part of what it is so instead of just like for example and this is sort of the journey that I went on at some point it's like I can write software I can write software in any language I can make it do pretty much whatever the heck you want it to do and I can make it do it in a way that is like pretty and I can even do it probably better than other people from a cost perspective that's like so that's like my first I'm like hey I'm not going to charge you an arm and a leg for it that doesn't mean I'm going to be cheap but that means that you're like you're going to get value for your money so it's like okay cool there's something I can sort of latch on to and as I started thinking about it I was like there are specific types of software that I really enjoy doing there's certain tasks that I like doing there's certain problems that I like to solve and that's where I got into things like hey people struggle with technology I understand technology I have spent a lot of time learning technology so I can help people understand where technology will meet their problems in a way that is efficient that is efficient in time in money and all those other resources so now I'm also you know I'm narrowing this thing down I'm getting to something more specific now within that then it's like you really gota it like it starts getting harder because now you're like niching down niching down and you think that what you're doing is you're throwing away potential customers that there's money that's coming at you that you're now swatting away because you're focusing but that's not it what's happening is you're actually getting to the people that are always that are actually going to give you money and not the people that are like H maybe someday you could get money for me if I trip and my wallet falls out of my pocket you're actually getting to people they're like you're you're getting to a point where like this is what I provide and there is a small you know very small pond of people that provide this and so this is what I'm giving you and so when you find the people that need to be in that pond it is a much easier transaction so thoughts before I like because I've gone all over the place so thoughts on that so my initial thought so when we talk about elevator pitch or kind of pitching your business these funnels the whole concept of the elevator pitch kind of came from the idea of you're in an elevator for 30 seconds a minute with someone how quickly can you explain your business or what it is that you do to the person next to you to sell them on your product that's kind of where this came from um I don't know the exact slogan but you know Apple had a good one like if you're selling products you know like a th songs in your pocket the iPad or the iPod they didn't get into technical specs they didn't get into hey this is a no here's a audio device that plays music Here's how many songs you have that's it sold millions of if you're selling a product like t-shirts coffee cups whatever it's very hard to say hey buy my coffee mug why would I buy your coffee mug or someone else's coffee mug that's where you kind of need to tell a story or describe your product or even your service in a way that one identifies who you are but what it is that the customer is going to get from your product or from your service I've heard this over and over again and for years I kind of skirted it it's like oh yes in some situations I really got it right in other situations I really got it wrong and interestingly enough it was during interviews for a job that it came to my mind that I'm I need to sell myself to this employer to get hired so I very quickly changed The Narrative of the interview to who I am and what I do not well and what I do but in a way that is what the company needs like I will be a value for you all this stuff on paper yeah it's me but you're going to nitpick and ask me well how can I establish myself differently from the next candidate or from another resume that's your elevator page it's what makes you excited what sells you what is it that you're doing what are you providing so like at the beginning if you've listened to a couple of these I'm constantly tweaking my elevator pitch because it is a little hard to sell QA or quality assurance software or services to companies when the bottom line is I need a product to sell I don't need someone to sit around and test you know it's cost versus you know product but every company needs some type of quality assurance to ensure that the product goes out well like if you have you know manufacturing you always see in some uh high-end products those little tags you know inspected by or checked by it's to make sure that the product goes out the same high quality every time so that you can say hey I have these wonderful soft Italian Cotton shirts that you know you wear and you feel wonderful that's selling the experience not the shirt yes someone will buy the shirt for that experience so that's a lot of the so I've also kind of gone off the rails in many different directions here but that's where it goes with these elevator pitches because when we're talking to our customers especially if we're selling services is our customer the person we're talking to may need a different elevator pitch than what we're used to giving so when you're talking to someone if you're trying to sell a service find out who they are what they do if they're a business and you're sell a service what services might they need you know what is it that they're doing that oh hey have you thought of this or you know what's your company do in this situation and that might be your in right there it could be oh well we don't have anything for that you know why do you ask that and then you could say well here here is a journey how you can get from here to there here's how we can improve that or here's a way to improve that sometimes even giving free advice or free tips is a good way to get a referral back to hey you helped me with this problem can your company help us with this other problem and I think that's part of it is being memorable and it's it's interesting to me that if you if you go and examine the masters of memory if you look at these people that go to these people that can like they can flip through a deck of of deck of playing cards and memorize the exact order in under 60 seconds or they can you know give them 10 different dollar bills and they can memorize all of the the uh IDs on each of those and delit like in a you know a minute or less or something like that when you talk to them or when you look at you know examine how this stuff works is it often comes back down to stories that that is much more memorable so you know 111 5556 a. blah blah blah doesn't hold anything but when they turn that into a story then the next thing you know it becomes memorable and it's even for a long period of time because now it's like triggering different portions of your mind and that's really what you want with an elevator pitch is it you're probably not g to be able to like just really sell them right there you may look out and it's like the right person the right time but a lot of times what it is and this is with networking in general and stuff like that you want to be memorable you want to have a way for when they're talking to their buddy or they're talking to their boss or a co-worker or something like that and come across somebody that knows or that needs a product that you provide that they're going to remember that product and you and be able to say hey I talked to this guy in the elevator the other day and this is the product that he provides and it sounds like that's exactly what you want now part of it is I think part of the whole pitch that some people Miss is yes you want to tell a story but I think what is very valuable is within that story within that pitch is you want to address the pain points or the questions that you the pain points you resolve or the questions that you answer this is really used a lot on uh when you do get to like funnels and stuff you get out in the web a lot of times what it is is it's because it's based on you know SEO and things like that it's stuff like I want the people that are asking these questions to come to my site because I'm going to give them the answer they need to hear I'm going to be able to solve that problem for them I'm going to give them an answer and it's going to be in a way that's going to like you know match their budget their time whatever it is and so that's part of what you want to lay out is you want to lay out within your pitch you don't want to be negative or anything but you do want to talk about like what is it what is the value that you bring and it's essentially what is the problem you solve or what is the pain point that you reduce or what is it what is like an part of it is like what is an ideal customer what are they looking for and then you get to say hey you're looking for me so it may be things like instead of just selling yourself in a general sense you think about it more of go to that you know that Avatar that ideal qu that ideal customer and if you're talking to them in an an elevator and you got those you know 30 seconds or a minute is touching on those points that are their concern so for example let's say I'm a real estate agent and I sell you know two bedroom apartments in the certain neighborhood that's like you know at a certain price range well you have a very specific specific customer you want somebody that wants a wants a two-bedroom in that price range in that neighborhood so that's part of what your elevator pitch needs to be is you need to make sure that you're highlighting that hey if you're looking for a two-bedroom apartment in this area for this price then this is exactly what I do from a software point of view this is where it gets really challenged if you're developer because this is where you need to really Niche down and you need to say okay where am I going to beat out everybody else it's a little bit what Michael M mentioned with the resume side it's like if you're in an interview there's a lot of people that have roughly the same resume roughly so the thing is is where is it that you can like hang your hat that you can really Shine for example I've said I can solve I can write in a lot of different languages I can do whatever software I need to build I can do it different environments however there are going to be some that I'm better than others some because I haven't done them in a while some because I just like them better whatever it is is going to like allow me to narrow down what do I want to do but another way you can look at it as a developer is like you're a problem solver so what are the problems you solve more often than not are you more of a like an e-commerce person do you generate cataloges do you do you generate code do you do code generation do you do uh mathematical or data manipulation do you deal deal more with like moving stuff back and forth between systems and Integrations do you uh are you process driven where you can go through and you can find a way to create the most efficient processes or you a performance uh tuning kind of person where you look at stuff you find better ways to do it are you a Visionary of some sort where like the the UI and the user experience is really your like you help people you're like the person that can help people make that really clunky software a fun thing to use those are the things that you're looking for it's like what are the problems that you solve or the problems that you want to solve and what are the ones that you do the best because those are where you're going to start like getting those hooks out there that people are going to be like hey you have this problem I know somebody that will solve that problem and make sure you've got a business card or something for them as well so they can hand that off thoughts yeah it's interesting that you say that because the other thing too that the elevator pitch not just the cards and that but also talking to other people like on podcast or just social media in general Tik Tok wherever you know get out there talk to people I've seen some very good startups just go on Tik Tok just start talking and then all of a sudden they have followers and then they start talking to their followers and they get connections so well you have an idea or you may already have a business it doesn't hurt to try to keep pushing the envelope with your elevator pitch keep nishing it down one of the best ways to figure out if you need to Nish it down am I getting customers that are not my ideal customer meaning are these customers taking more time away from me working on my business or providing value to my other customers how do I not attract those type of customers how do I attract the customers I do like or I do work with better so it's not just about drumming up business it's also about refining the business that you have and improving the process is that you're you know that will help your business grow and improve those funnels yeah it's almost like a a negative Improvement where it's like sometimes some of the best things you can do is not take on certain customers and trust me I've had a few of those over the years where it's just like I would have been way better off had I not messed with that customer and it's not always because they don't pay P or their you know anything like that sometimes just like that took you away from your focus for example you could be sitting here right now and spending too much time like I don't know reading social media when you could be writing an email to us which is much more valuable at least to us but probably to you as well because then you can go out there you can recommend or suggest or request whatever it is that you want us to talk about and we will probably get around to it because we want to provide information and topics that are useful to you if you don't like email then you can do it at developer.com you can fill out our contact form there you can reach us on X develop Andor there's a Facebook a Facebook page out there this is the develop Andor Facebook page you can leave us a comment wherever it is that you are listening to this podcast or if you go out to the developer Channel out on YouTube you can check out all of our prior videos and and episodes that are the ones that have videos side to it all of that leave us questions or leave us comments leave us questions leave us feedback and we will get back around to you we promise it may take a little bit but we will get to you because sometimes we get some like stuff that's from a long time ago we got to go dig that back up and go say where was that code that we were using or where did we get that example sometimes it's from a site that no longer exists I digress but I'm not going to anymore I'm going to let you get back to your day so go out there and have yourself a great day a great week and we will talk to you you next time bonus material oh I guess one of the things we didn't touch on that is good for your elevator pitch stand in front of a mirror and Pitch seeing your facial expression see your hand motions will really quickly help you identify things to stop doing because if you're not looking the person in the eye if you're doing wild gestures people are going to either run from you or they're going to be turned off by you or just your mannerisms alone might make you un approachable so that's kind of my bonus is practice your pitch in front of the mirror and even practice it in front of friends and family the more feedback you can get about your pitch the better I think that's really the thing is it like it is a it is one of these things it's sort of an iterative process so the more you you pitch the more that you use it the more that you get feedback from it the more you can make all those little refinements and it sometimes it it is sort of like doing an AB comparison in a lot of cases to say you know maybe if I go this Direction with it or if I use that word or if I if I change my mannerism or my Approach or maybe I I flip it on its head and instead of the stuff that I was closing with I start with and vice versa I mean there's a lot of ways that you can tweak it and it is amazing there's a lot of science around like hitting the right word at the right time and using the right term and how that impacts your customers in particular because it there's going to have a lot of times we're going to find that there's going to be a way that the way we basically put the words together for our pitch will affect a lot of people a certain way but others it will affect them in a different way and sometimes that different way and those different people are our customers and we want to make sure that while maybe that word or that phrase doesn't make sense in the General sense it does for the our target audience it's one of those things it's like maybe it's like it's too geeky or it's a reference doesn't work but it does for our customers and so we can keep that in and it's actually a way to like be like okay if you don't get it not my customer you're like you're not going to have a you're not going to be a good fit and sometimes like I said it's as important to not take on a customer maybe as it is to win one that made me think it was try not post out laughing too bad but if you think about it there is a reason that girl scouts and boy scouts set up near gyms or places where people tend to eat very much so that's like no offense to anybody that would be in this world but I and I think there's actually a law against it and I'm trying to remember why because I I remember pitching this somewhere a while back is that girl scouts need to take those cookies and they need to park that spot right in front of one of those marijuana dispensaries because it's like boom they're going to come in there and they be like I need snacks and that's exactly what you want to be is you want to be that girl scout but I think there's some sort of like which probably is it's like Girl Scouts are like want to be a little more wholesome than being hanging out at like the you know the local dispensary but there's things like that you know location location location it's just like being an injury lawyer that happens to be like you know your office is next to a hospital or you know a bonds a a bail bonds person that your office is like right at the jail or you know a golf pro that happens to live right on the golf course that like all of those kinds of things that feed into being at the right place at the right time and that's what you want to do with your elevator pitch is you want your words to hit the right tone the right chords for your audience for your ideal customer audience so that that can get you know that can reverberate and if it is something that is very memorable if you use a a turn of a phrase or something like that that sticks then it's going to be something that if somebody else hears it later or hears something that resonates with that will help that's why I love like I use technology sprawl because I just love that because to me it's just like paints a picture that you know and I got that from somebody else when we were walking through pitches and stuff like that but that's one I'm like God that just it it just has a a weight to it that you're like if I'm struggling with it I know what that is and those are the kinds of people that are my customers it's like I want if you know what that is if you've never heard that phrase before but you suddenly like are weighed down by it that's what I'm looking for what I'm looking for right now is dinner I got to get out of here I gotta go eat I got to go to the rest of my day and you guys probably do too hopefully you haven't starved to death and we'll cut this short before you pass out from lack of food or anything else that you may be lacking we will return though we are just cranking through this stuff so we will catch you next time go out there and have yourself a great day [Music]
Transcript Segments
[Music]
and we're back all right Let's see we
just like clicked our record there we
had our little video we had our
like our video cues so we are ready to
dive into this sucker here we are going
to do elevator pitch I we can jump into
that I think that'll be a fun one
because it's like some cool stuff and as
I'm looking at this I'm trying to think
what is my good thing bad thing going to
be this time I thought I had I didn't
write it down I'm struggling with those
right now because I I'm I'm
unfortunately having a little bit more
bad than good some days sometimes it's
like where do I find that good there's
got to be some good in this
where gotta think about it let's
see well hopefully I'm G going to wing
it and we're going to figure that out
that's that's going to be probably the
that'll be the good as it's like
sometimes you wing it and you can come
up with something even though yeah it
may be really weak but it's like oh well
suck it up you know deal with it you're
you're not in the you're not in my
position so you need to just get over
yourself we'll do the little
three2 well hello and welcome back we
are continuing our season this is season
24 of the developing or podcast building
better developers the focus this season
building better businesses we've gone
through a couple things in the recent
Seasons this one we're going to get a
little bit on that entrepreneur side the
preneur side of develop preneur not to
be close you know confused with the
manure side of something because we
don't even have that that's only if
you're in farming and we don't have to
deal with that right now but what you do
have to deal with is me my name is Rob
Broadhead I am one of the founders of
develop or also a founder of RB
Consulting where we are one of those
Boutique Consulting kind of firms and
what we do is we sit down with you we
help you understand actually we we learn
from you your business what is it that
makes your business special it's not
that we don't know anything about
business but it's like yours is unique
and so we work with you to craft that
specific recipe through simplification
automation integration Innovation to
take your technology sprawl and turn it
into a nice little like you know nice
little pretty thing with a bow on top so
that your big investment in technology
is one that is a return on investment
that is very good for you that you're
very happy about it that you can manage
it not only today but six months six
years from now that you have that road
map that technology road map that helps
you be successful good thing bad things
now the bad thing is is I was going into
this for those of you that listen to it
or look at it on the YouTube side you
know that I'm trying to figure out what
is my good thing bad thing for this week
and yes I am buying time right now to
try to figure out what that could be
because I've sort of exhausted some of
my good ones lately so one of the bad
things is weather lately it's just not
been it's not been Cooperative we've had
a couple of nice days but it's really
been like wet and it's cold because it's
winter that's what all of this kind of
stuff is the good thing is is it has
allowed me some time where I was like
normally would be doing you know yard
work or stuff like that it's allowed me
time to just be like stuck at home and
so like you know there's definitely work
to do around the house but it's also
allowed me to like catch up on some
games and some reading and some things
like that cuz I've actually had a little
bit of downtime even amidst all the work
and that kind of stuff so there you have
it I actually like managed to find a way
to like work out a good thing and a bad
thing and that also bought time for
Michael to do the same because he's
gonna introduce himself and give his
good thing bad thing so dive into it
thanks Rob my name is Michael malash I'm
one of the co-founders of developer ner
building better developers I'm also the
founder of Envision QA where we help
businesses build software that meets
their needs and we do this using ACH
test driven QA perspective where we walk
through your user Journey what are your
stories how do you work within your
business or how does your software need
to work for you through that through
those questions through those Journeys
we help you build the software or
implement the right software for your
business to streamline your
processes good and bad so I will start
with the bad because I'm hoping it's
going to lead to something good coming
out of this week so for the last few
weeks probably say about a month now I
have been in the process of switching
off of coffee to tea and I thought I was
being very healthc conscious being very
good about it and last night after my
wife bought me a new uh set of teed to
try I'm reading the box and I realized
that my idea to reduce the amount of
caffeine in my system to reduce my
strength and anxiety I went from
drinking two cups of coffee a day to
drinking two cups of coffee a day in the
equivalent of 16 cups of coffee a day
through
tea so which explains why my anxiety and
my stress has gone up exponentially over
the last month so starting this week I
have now dropped down to literally four
cups of one tea bag a day and so far I
am not going into crash mode so things
are coming um hoping to get a little bit
more sleep but even before the caffeine
I already had problems sleeping so it's
a lost cause so that's my good and bad
for this
one I will follow up that one I will
just say that I like I moved off of
caffeine many many years ago and have
found that it really did now it could be
because I got old and I'm just old and
decrepit and stuff but it did feel like
I got you know it seemed like my sleep
got a lot better when I started shifting
around my caffeine habits uh so I wasn't
consuming caffeine and sugar at you know
9 and 10:00 at night instead of like I
sort of get it out of the way by noon
and more or less can make it although
I'm not getting I'm also getting old so
sometimes it's like 8:30 at night and I
start to read a book and like one page
into it now I'm asleep so there's that
problem so some but it does mean that
like if I do decide to like grab a Red
Bull real quick at that point I will be
awake for a while I might be bouncing
off the ceiling spidermanning across the
place but at least I will be
awake that is a digression because what
we're actually going to talk about this
time is we're going to get into talk a
little bit about like we call like the
elevator pitch but it's really it's
really bit like it's like the core what
do you do kind of side of your business
this is actually very useful from you
from a professional point of view and a
lot of us I think just like brush that
aside which is I think part of why it's
so difficult for us to do this for our
business because it like as a developer
what do you do I write code I create
software that is very often what you're
going to hear if you ask a developer
what do you do they're like you know and
they'll there'll be more to it because
usually like because we're developers
and we geek out a little bit it's like
well I write Java code and I use
JavaScript for the front end and I use
SQL server in my back end or whatever it
is and if you guys don't use that I'm
sorry if I offended you if you love it
great I didn't offend you but we we
don't really talk about we don't have a
story for what we do it's like what do
you do I swing a hammer and I nail nails
I write code I create softw there not
really that's like that's not going to
be a Blockbuster movie next summer like
you know Marvel's Avengers is not they
sit around and eat sandwiches you know
it's like it's nothing like that it's
there's a story and that's where you're
going to be able to be more memorable
particularly when we're talking about
your business is get something that's
going to like draw them in we've we've
talked in the past now it's been a while
we'll have to go back to this we've
talked about the ideas of of
funnels and bringing people in and sort
of like you know casting a wide net and
then starting to bring people into your
business and your focus so that you go
from people that man maybe they could be
a customer to like these are probably
customers like these are customers and
being able to sell or pitch them a
product that is one that they need that
you you're now it's not a hard sell
because it's like you've already figured
out that these are the people that
you're building this product for and so
they're just like take my money take my
money because that's what you're giving
them but you start that with the
elevator pitch or with your we'll talk
like your brand and this isn't your
vision or your mission statement because
you know it can be enticing like when
Google's used to be don't be evil but
when they said oh no we can't do that
anymore then you're in trouble because
it's like wait a minute why aren't you
no longer don't be evil why did you kick
that why did you stop doing that one why
did you have to say that in the first
place and two why did you stop well we
did I'm digressing a lot today I guess
it's because it's later in the
day the thing we want to do is you want
to distill what it is your business does
and provide to really as few words as
possible like literally a couple of
sentences so if you do software and your
your company is well we just write
software we write Solutions that's not
going to help that's like everybody
writes software Solutions or it feels
like it there's a that's a huge field
you're going to Niche down you need to
find or if you're somebody that likes it
said definitely you need to Niche down
and you need to get to something that is
very specific that somebody's going to
be like I need that now not like yeah I
like people that mow my yard at Casi
it's somebody that's like I need you to
mow my yard with a push mower today or
something like that yeah like this is
where we get into the specifics and so I
think it's also something is important
for us as
entrepreneurs is to make sure we're
doing something that we enjoy and this
is part of what it is so instead of just
like for example and this is sort of the
journey that I went on at some point
it's like I can write software I can
write software in any language I can
make it do pretty much whatever the heck
you want it to do and I can make it do
it in a way that is like pretty and I
can even do it probably better than
other people from a cost perspective
that's like so that's like my first I'm
like hey I'm not going to charge you an
arm and a leg for it that doesn't mean
I'm going to be cheap but that means
that you're like you're going to get
value for your money so it's like okay
cool there's something I can sort of
latch on to and as I started thinking
about it I was like there are specific
types of software that I really enjoy
doing there's certain tasks that I like
doing there's certain problems that I
like to solve and that's where I got
into things like hey people struggle
with technology I understand technology
I have spent a lot of time learning
technology so I can help people
understand where technology will meet
their problems in a way that is
efficient that is efficient in time in
money and all those other resources so
now I'm also you know I'm narrowing this
thing down I'm getting to something more
specific
now within that then it's like you
really gota it like it starts getting
harder because now you're like niching
down niching down and you think that
what you're doing is you're throwing
away potential customers that there's
money that's coming at you that you're
now swatting away because you're
focusing but that's not it what's
happening is you're actually getting to
the people that are always that are
actually going to give you money and not
the people that are like H maybe someday
you could get money for me if I trip and
my wallet falls out of my pocket you're
actually getting to people they're like
you're you're getting to a point where
like this is what I provide and there is
a small you know very small pond of
people that provide this and so this is
what I'm giving you and so when you find
the people that need to be in that pond
it is a much easier transaction so
thoughts before I like because I've gone
all over the place so thoughts on
that
so my initial thought so when we talk
about elevator pitch or kind of pitching
your business these funnels the whole
concept of the elevator pitch kind of
came from the idea of you're in an
elevator for 30 seconds a minute with
someone how quickly can you explain your
business or what it is that you do to
the person next to you to sell them on
your product that's kind of where this
came
from um I don't know the exact slogan
but you know Apple had a good one like
if you're selling products you know like
a th songs in your pocket the iPad or
the iPod they didn't get into technical
specs they didn't get into hey this is a
no here's a audio device that plays
music Here's how many songs you have
that's it sold millions
of if you're selling a
product like t-shirts coffee cups
whatever it's very hard to say hey buy
my coffee mug why would I buy your
coffee mug or someone else's coffee mug
that's where you kind of need to tell a
story or describe your product or even
your service in a way that one
identifies who you are but what it is
that the customer is going to get from
your product or from your
service I've heard this over and over
again and for
years I kind of skirted it it's like oh
yes in some situations I really got it
right in other situations I really got
it wrong and interestingly enough it was
during interviews for a job that it came
to my mind that I'm I need to sell
myself to this employer to get
hired so I very quickly changed The
Narrative of the interview to who I am
and what I do not well and what I do but
in a way that is what the company needs
like I will be a value for you all this
stuff on paper yeah it's me but you're
going to nitpick and ask me well how can
I establish myself differently from the
next candidate or from another resume
that's your elevator page it's what
makes you excited what sells you what is
it that you're doing what are you
providing so like at the beginning if
you've listened to a couple of these I'm
constantly tweaking my elevator pitch
because it is a little hard to sell QA
or quality assurance software or
services to companies when the bottom
line is I need a product to sell I don't
need someone to sit around and test you
know it's cost versus you know
product but every company needs some
type of quality assurance to ensure that
the product goes out well like if you
have you know manufacturing you always
see in some uh high-end products those
little tags you know inspected by or
checked by it's to make sure that the
product goes out the same high quality
every time so that you can say hey I
have these wonderful soft Italian Cotton
shirts that you know you wear and you
feel
wonderful that's selling the experience
not the shirt yes someone will buy the
shirt for that experience so that's a
lot of the so I've also kind of gone off
the rails in many different directions
here but that's where it goes with these
elevator
pitches because when we're talking to
our customers especially if we're
selling services is our customer the
person we're talking to may need a
different elevator pitch than what we're
used to
giving so when you're talking to someone
if you're trying to sell a service find
out who they are what they do if they're
a business and you're sell a service
what services might they need you know
what is it that they're doing that oh
hey have you thought of this or you know
what's your company do in this situation
and that might be your in right there it
could be oh well we don't have anything
for that you know why do you ask that
and then you could say well here here is
a journey how you can get from here to
there here's how we can improve that or
here's a way to improve that sometimes
even giving free advice or free tips is
a good way to get a referral back to hey
you helped me with this problem can your
company help us with this other problem
and I think that's part of it is being
memorable and it's it's interesting to
me that if you if you go and examine the
masters of memory if you look at these
people that go to these people that can
like they can flip through a deck of of
deck of playing cards and memorize the
exact order in under 60 seconds or they
can you know give them 10 different
dollar bills and they can memorize all
of the the uh IDs on each of those and
delit like in a you know a minute or
less or something like that when you
talk to them or when you look at you
know examine how this stuff works is it
often comes back down to stories that
that is much more memorable so you know
111 5556 a. blah blah blah doesn't hold
anything but when they turn that into a
story then the next thing you know it
becomes memorable and it's even for a
long period of time because now it's
like triggering different portions of
your mind and that's really what you
want with an elevator pitch is it you're
probably not g to be able to like just
really sell them right there you may
look out and it's like the right person
the right time but a lot of times what
it is and this is with networking in
general and stuff like that you want to
be memorable you want to have a way for
when they're talking to their buddy or
they're talking to their boss or a
co-worker or something like that and
come across somebody that knows or that
needs a product that you
provide that they're going to remember
that product and you and be able to say
hey I talked to this guy in the elevator
the other day and this is the product
that he provides and it sounds like
that's exactly what you want now part of
it is I think part of the whole pitch
that some people Miss is yes you want to
tell a story but I think what is very
valuable is within that story within
that pitch is you want to address the
pain points or the questions that you
the pain points you resolve or the
questions that you answer this is really
used a lot on uh when you do get to like
funnels and stuff you get out in the web
a lot of times what it is is it's
because it's based on you know SEO and
things like that it's stuff like I want
the people that are asking these
questions to come to my site because I'm
going to give them the answer they need
to hear I'm going to be able to solve
that problem for them I'm going to give
them an answer and it's going to be in a
way that's going to like you know match
their budget their time whatever it is
and so that's part of what you want to
lay out is you want to lay out within
your pitch you don't want to be negative
or anything but you do want to talk
about like what is it what is the value
that you bring and it's essentially what
is the problem you solve or what is the
pain point that you reduce or what is it
what is like an part of it is like what
is an ideal customer what are they
looking for and then you get to say hey
you're looking for me so it may be
things like instead of just selling
yourself in a general sense you think
about it more of go to that you know
that Avatar that ideal qu that ideal
customer and if you're talking to them
in an an elevator and you got those you
know 30 seconds or a minute is touching
on those points that are their concern
so for example let's say I'm a real
estate agent and I sell you know two
bedroom apartments in the certain
neighborhood that's like you know at a
certain price range well you have a very
specific specific customer you want
somebody that wants a wants a
two-bedroom in that price range in that
neighborhood so that's part of what your
elevator pitch needs to be is you need
to make sure that you're highlighting
that hey if you're looking for a
two-bedroom apartment in this area for
this price then this is exactly what I
do from a software point of view this is
where it gets really challenged if
you're developer because this is where
you need to really Niche down and you
need to say okay
where am I going to beat out everybody
else it's a little bit what Michael M
mentioned with the resume side it's like
if you're in an interview there's a lot
of people that have roughly the same
resume roughly so the thing is is where
is it that you can like hang your hat
that you can really Shine for example
I've said I can solve I can write in a
lot of different languages I can do
whatever software I need to build I can
do it different environments however
there are going to be some that I'm
better than others some because I
haven't done them in a while some
because I just like them better whatever
it is is going to like allow me to
narrow down what do I want to do but
another way you can look at it as a
developer is like you're a problem
solver so what are the problems you
solve more often than not are you more
of a like an e-commerce person do you
generate cataloges do you do you
generate code do you do code generation
do you do uh mathematical or data
manipulation do you deal deal more with
like moving stuff back and forth between
systems and Integrations do you uh are
you process driven where you can go
through and you can find a way to create
the most efficient processes or you a
performance uh tuning kind of person
where you look at stuff you find better
ways to do it are you a Visionary of
some sort where like the the UI and the
user experience is really your like you
help people you're like the person that
can help people make that really clunky
software a fun thing to use those are
the things that you're looking for it's
like what are the problems that you
solve or the problems that you want to
solve and what are the ones that you do
the best because those are where you're
going to start like getting those hooks
out there that people are going to be
like hey you have this problem I know
somebody that will solve that problem
and make sure you've got a business card
or something for them as well so they
can hand that off
thoughts yeah it's interesting that you
say that because the other thing too
that the elevator pitch not just the
cards and that but also talking to other
people like on podcast
or just social media in general Tik Tok
wherever you know get out there talk to
people I've seen some very good startups
just go on Tik Tok just start talking
and then all of a sudden they have
followers and then they start talking to
their
followers and they get connections
so well you have an idea or you may
already have a business it doesn't hurt
to try to keep pushing the envelope with
your elevator pitch keep nishing it down
one of the best ways to figure out if
you need to Nish it down am I getting
customers that are not my ideal customer
meaning are these customers taking more
time away from me working on my business
or providing value to my other customers
how do I not attract those type of
customers how do I attract the customers
I do like or I do work with better so
it's not just about drumming up business
it's also about refining the business
that you have and improving the process
is that you're you know that will help
your business grow and improve those
funnels yeah it's almost like a a
negative Improvement where it's like
sometimes some of the best things you
can do is not take on certain customers
and trust me I've had a few of those
over the years where it's just like I
would have been way better off had I not
messed with that customer and it's not
always because they don't pay P or their
you know anything like that sometimes
just like that took you away from your
focus for example you could be sitting
here right now and spending too much
time like I don't know reading social
media when you could be writing an email
to us which is much more valuable at
least to us but probably to you as well
because then you can go out there you
can recommend or suggest or request
whatever it is that you want us to talk
about and we will probably get around to
it because we want to provide
information and topics that are useful
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of that leave us questions or leave us
comments leave us questions leave us
feedback and we will get back around to
you we promise it may take a little bit
but we will get to you because sometimes
we get some like stuff that's from a
long time ago we got to go dig that back
up and go say where was that code that
we were using or where did we get that
example sometimes it's from a site that
no longer exists I digress but I'm not
going to anymore I'm going to let you
get back to your day so go out there and
have yourself a great day a great week
and we will talk to you you next time
bonus
material oh I guess one of the things we
didn't touch on that is good for your
elevator pitch stand in front of a
mirror and Pitch seeing your facial
expression see your hand motions will
really quickly help you identify things
to stop doing because if you're not
looking the person in the eye if you're
doing wild gestures people are going to
either run from you or they're going to
be turned off by you or just your
mannerisms alone might make you un
approachable so that's kind of my bonus
is practice your pitch in front of the
mirror and even practice it in front of
friends and family the more feedback you
can get about your pitch the better I
think that's really the thing is it like
it is a it is one of these things it's
sort of an iterative process so the more
you you pitch the more that you use it
the more that you get feedback from it
the more you can make all those little
refinements and it sometimes it it is
sort of like doing an AB comparison in a
lot of cases to say you know maybe if I
go this Direction with it or if I use
that word or if I if I change my
mannerism or my Approach or maybe I I
flip it on its head and instead of the
stuff that I was closing with I start
with and vice versa I mean there's a lot
of ways that you can tweak it and it is
amazing there's a lot of science around
like hitting the right word at the right
time and using the right term and
how that impacts your customers in
particular because it there's going to
have a lot of times we're going to find
that there's going to be a way that the
way we basically put the words together
for our pitch will affect a lot of
people a certain way but others it will
affect them in a different way and
sometimes that different way and those
different people are our customers and
we want to make sure that while maybe
that word or that phrase doesn't make
sense in the General sense it does for
the our target audience it's one of
those things it's like maybe it's like
it's too geeky or it's a reference
doesn't work but it does for our
customers and so we can keep that in and
it's actually a way to like be like okay
if you don't get it not my customer
you're like you're not going to have a
you're not going to be a good fit and
sometimes like I said it's as important
to not take on a customer maybe as it is
to win
one that made me think it was try not
post out laughing too bad but if you
think about it there is a reason that
girl scouts and boy scouts set up near
gyms or places where people tend to
eat very much so that's
like no offense to anybody that would be
in this world but I and I think there's
actually a law against it and I'm trying
to remember why because I I remember
pitching this somewhere a while back is
that girl scouts need to take those
cookies and they need to park that spot
right in front of one of those marijuana
dispensaries because it's like boom
they're going to come in there and they
be like I need snacks and that's exactly
what you want to be is you want to be
that girl scout but I think there's some
sort of like which probably is it's like
Girl Scouts are like want to be a little
more wholesome than being hanging out at
like the you know the local dispensary
but there's things like that you know
location location location it's just
like being an injury lawyer that happens
to be like you know your office is next
to a hospital or you know a bonds a a
bail bonds person that your office is
like right at the jail or you know a
golf pro that happens to live right on
the golf course that like all of those
kinds of
things that feed into being at the right
place at the right time and that's what
you want to do with your elevator pitch
is you want your words to hit the right
tone the right chords for your audience
for your ideal customer audience so that
that can get you know that can
reverberate and if it is something that
is very memorable if you use a a turn of
a phrase or something like that that
sticks then it's going to be something
that if somebody else hears it later or
hears something that resonates with that
will help that's why I love like I use
technology sprawl because I just love
that because to me it's just like paints
a picture that you know and I got that
from somebody else when we were walking
through pitches and stuff like that but
that's one I'm like God that just it it
just has a
a weight to it that you're like if I'm
struggling with it I know what that is
and those are the kinds of people that
are my customers it's like I want if you
know what that is if you've never heard
that phrase before but you suddenly like
are weighed down by it that's what I'm
looking for what I'm looking for right
now is dinner I got to get out of here I
gotta go eat I got to go to the rest of
my day and you guys probably do too
hopefully you haven't starved to death
and we'll cut this short before you pass
out from lack of food or anything else
that you may be
lacking we will return though we are
just cranking through this stuff so we
will catch you next time go out there
and have yourself a great day
[Music]