My four-year-old daughter grabs her small pad of paper and a pencil and hops up on the step-stool, but before she lets me brush her teeth she declares “I need answers!”
I can kind of sense what’s coming.
“Do you have a particular question in mind?”
“No. I just need answers.”
So I give her some.
“The sky is blue.”
“Kittens are cuddly.”
“Snow is cold.”
She dutifully makes scribbles on her pad for each answer.
She lets me brush her teeth and seems quite content.
And it gets me thinking about your Elevator Pitch.
Because business networking questions can seem equally nebulous.
“What do you do?”
Are they asking about your title?
Or your years of experience?
Or what you do on a daily basis?
Or what products you offer?
Or how you go into your line of work?
How can you cram that all into a quick blurb?
Relax.
It’s nothing that complicated.
They want a few words they can scribble down in their mental notebook.
The simpler and more focused the better.
I don’t try to explain this history of the world to my daughter.
And people aren’t asking you for your life story.
They want a simple concept that makes sense in their world view.
“I work with bankers who are tired of corporate politics.”
“I work with homeowners who hate their back yard.”
“I do insurance for lawyers.”
“I’m the Willy Wonka of chemistry.”
Here are even more examples.