Creating a mini pitch and why its important.

Having attended my fair share of professional networking events, I can’t count the number of times I’ve had to answer the question ‘what do you do?’  What I have found over the years is that being able to answer this question confidently and succinctly will make it much easier to strike up valuable conversations in these sorts of situations.

Here I’m talking about a 15-30 second clear introduction of yourself or what you do for a living, with the view that anything longer can lose people’s attention. Remember, there needs to be something included that is unique or memorable to create an interesting first impression.

I’ve included some steps below to create your mini pitch, but remember depending on the situation you’re using it for (selling a product, selling a new idea or introducing your business or self) you may need to tailor your approach.

1. Introduce yourself quickly (name/business), then…..
2. Pitch the most interesting/memorable thing about yourself first to ensure you can hold someone’s attention in those first few seconds  (try to make this relevant to your audience so that you can grab their attention and perhaps spark the start of a conversation).
3. Think of 2-3 more key things to get across that might be the key to connecting with the individual/s so that they are more likely to continue the conversation.

I’ve heard this called THE HEAD AND THREE LEGS where the head is a very short introduction of 3 seconds and the legs are the pieces of information you want to include that might be relevant to your overall goals of meeting people.