How To Build A Better Elevator Pitch - With Heather H. Bennett

Tom Bailey, founder of Succeed Through Speaking, interviews Heather H. Bennett.

Heather H. Bennett is an author, marketing strategist and personal brand coach with over 20 years of experience marketing products and people. Drawing from a background in Research and Development, an MBA, and digital marketing expertise, she coaches clients to create strong, authentic, and unique brands.

Why you've got to check out Heather's episode:

- Learn how Heather helps executives and entrepreneurs who want to improve their personal brand.

- How her clients don't typically have the time to work on their elevator pitch and don't necessarily know which clients to target with their pitch.

- Why it is important for an Executive to be known as a key influencer in their industry and the importance of building a personal brand.

- How you can communicate clearly what you need, what you are looking for and how / who you can help, as well as giving a clear call to action in your elevator pitch.

- Get access to Heather's new book and free resources on her blog.

Resources / Links

https://creativebrandcoach.net/books

https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-h-bennett/

Transcript

Tom Bailey: Hello and welcome to succeed through speaking the place for experts and entrepreneurs who want high value ideas to boost business results.

Hello, I'm Tom Bailey. And in today's episode, I'll be getting to know Heather Bennett, who is an author and marketing strategist and a personal brand coach with over 20 years experience in marketing products and people. So Heather, hello, and a very warm welcome to today's episode.

Heather Bennett: Thank you so much for having me on.

Tom Bailey: I really appreciate you being here and just out of interest for everyone listening whereabouts are you based?

Heather Bennett: I am based in Chicago, Illinois in the U S.

Tom Bailey: Amazing. Thank you so much. And I'm going to share a little bit more about you before we do get started. So, Heather has an MBA. She's also got a background in research development and also digital marketing expertise as well. So, with this experience that she coaches clients to create strong, authentic and unique brands, the title for today's episode is How To Build A Better Elevator Pitch. And Heather is going to show us how to do that in just seven minutes. So, question one today is who are your ideal clients,

Heather Bennett: Executives, and entrepreneurs looking to improve their personal brand.

Tom Bailey: Yeah. Perfect. Nice and succinct. All of that. And when you speak to these clients of yours, then what would you say is typically the biggest challenge that comes up for them?

Heather Bennett: It's really twofold. One. They don't have the time to work on it. And then secondly, they don't know who to talk to. They don't know who their target market is.

Tom Bailey: Got it. Yeah. And when, just out of interest as well, we're talking about an elevator pitch, is this for products for sales, which part of marketing is this elevator pitch for?

Heather Bennett: it's truly about selling both the products and services that you sell, but it's also promoting yourself as a personal brand and who's in an executive or C-suite position being known as a key opinion leader. A key thought leader in their industry is key. So that aspect of promoting their personal brand is vital for success.

Tom Bailey: Okay. And for those people, you haven't quite now the elevator pitch or that they haven't really perfected it. What impact does that have on them or their business?

Heather Bennett: It's, it's really an efficient way, not only to do networking, but to make sure that you're communicating what you need and what you're looking for who you can have. Because it goes both ways. It's not just what you're looking for, but it's also how you can help others. So, offer and to give the person a real call to action at the end of it, you know, let them know how to reach you and how to connect with you.

Tom Bailey: Amazing. Thank you. So, thinking of somebody out there, listening to this, who wants to build a better elevator pitch? What's that one piece of advice that you'd give them to get started?

Heather Bennett: Take the time to understand the pain points of their target market. If someone they want to be hired by. So, an employer understand why they need you for that position. So, and what you bring that's, that's unique. That's powerful that will help them solve that problem. If you can focus on that, then the messaging that you'll be using, the words you're going to use will resonate with them more. It's the same thing as making sure your LinkedIn profile is well-written. If you write the right words for the person who's looking for them, they're going to find it.

Tom Bailey: And like you said, it's all about making sure you get that message to market match so that there's just complete alignment in everything that you say and do. Fantastic. So, if anybody just wants to get started, find out more or learn more about you, where would you say they should go? Or what resource could you offer them?

Heather Bennett: Oh, of course. The best place to reach me is on LinkedIn. Heather. And I also my website, creative brand coach.net that actually has a wealth of resources. I have a blog on there that talks about social, how to do social media. What a personal brand is target marketing all kinds of I've filled it full of lots of information. And then of course I, you had mentioned, I just wrote a book. That's been based on 20 years of experience working on people's professional brand or personal brands, and it's fun and fulfilling careers. One question at a time, and of course it's found on Amazon.

Tom Bailey: Incredible. Thank you so much. So, what I'll do is I'll put links to all three of those things on the show notes. So, your LinkedIn profile, your website, and also that book. So, people can just dive in and find out more about you if they want.

Heather Bennett: Wonderful. Wonderful.

Tom Bailey: So quick question then about yourself, Heather, what would you say is one of your greatest either mistakes or failures that you've made either in life or business? And what did you learn from it?

Heather Bennett: I was not as reliant on other people as I should have been early in my career. I've really learning that you need to outsource, you need to collaborate. You can't do everything yourself. Is important. Yeah. It's fun to learn new things, but at the same point to be successful at business, you really need to rely on other people and being open to that and being willing to take the time to find the right person to help.

Tom Bailey: Yeah. Fantastic. I speak to so many people that are wearing too many hats in that business and ultimately it means they're juggling too much and not able to really, you know, get anything right at all. The last question from me today then is what is the one question that I should have asked today that will also bring some great value to our audience?

Heather Bennett: So that would be how to create a great elevator pitch in four quick steps.

Tom Bailey: Fantastic. I'd love to find out.

Heather Bennett: So we'll start with introduction, make sure you introduce your name, your full name, and two to three things of who you are. So, I'm a marketing strategist and a personal brand coach that tells you what I do. Secondly, focus on what your ask is, you know, what do you like? I'm looking for a job in the tech industry focused on software and technology. And then next, make sure you offer help. You know, I am very good at helping people with their speaking career and yeah. To learn how to do interviews, whatever, give them something that you can help them with. And then finally make sure that you give them a call to action. And that would be tell them how to reach you. LinkedIn is such a great resource right now, but a lot of people are incredibly active on a variety of social, social media platforms. So, if there's one that you spend a lot of time on it could be Twitter or Facebook, Instagram, whatever, make sure that you let people know you're there because they may also be very active and it would be wonderful to have that connection as well. The only thing I would say about the entire elevator pitch is try to add an element of storytelling in it that you are memorable and neat and engaging. Yeah. That would be good.

Tom Bailey: Yeah. Awesome. I love that format because you know, ultimately answers the questions that are in people's heads. Who are you? What do you do? How can you help me? You know, what's in it for me, those kinds of questions are getting answered in that pitch. So yeah, I love that format. So Heather, thank you so much again for your time today for sharing such great value and for coming along to this podcast.

Heather Bennett: All right. Thank you so much, Tom.