Hello and welcome to the Business of Executive Coaching podcast. I'm Ellie Scarf, a senior executive coach and now mentor to executive coaches who want to grow their businesses with more corporate clients. I've grown my coaching businesses both solo and in partnership over the last 20 years. I've worked as an associate coach and I've even worked as an in-house coach so I have seen it all.
And now I want to help you on your transition to building a thriving executive coaching business that replaces your corporate salary, gives you the flexibility you want to live life your way and makes a difference to your clients, your coaches and the world. As we celebrate the holiday season and take a short break, I wanted to share with you some of the most popular episodes from this year.
These episodes have something in common which is that they are very practical, they also have real problems you might be grappling with as a leadership coach, working with organizational clients. Today's episode is called, So what do you actually do? A new take on the elevator pitch. Now I wrote this, Rotten recorded this episode because so many of my members have networking and showing up to networking events as a key part of their marketing strategy and I think that's really smart.
But the problem is, it's not just about networking events, it's also about like all those other times when we cross paths with people. The problem is that it brings shivers to the hearts of most of us when someone says, so what do you do? And if you're anything like me, you go, it's quite complicated, right? Or you might say something that sort of summarizes it but kind of doesn't give people a sense of how they could refer work to you or to know whether or not your work is something that might be important for them or somebody that they know.
So what I've done in this episode is I'm sharing a different model that you can put together quickly and easily that is going to remove all of the stress from answering that question of what do you do? It's going to make it the easiest answer you ever had and it's something you can write down, you can practice and it doesn't sound like you are going through a one paragraph lecture when someone asks you what you do and you sort of say, well, go to your loins, this is what I do.
No, so this is a really simple, really easy approach and we'll take some of the load off when you're going into situations that are kind of stressful anyway. So I hope it helps. Enjoy the episode and don't forget to reach out if you want to talk about how I can help you to grow your business. Okay, so why does the traditional elevator pitch feel awkward, right? Why do we feel awkward selling ourselves or telling people what we do? I think particularly as coaches, we come to our work with a great sense of humility and we come to it with a sense of service, right?
And it can feel very contradictory to this idea of being in service of others to feel like we are promoting ourselves. So typically, you know, we might go down all sorts of, you know, training and development to get better at coaching, but often we don't get better at talking about what we do.
And of course, there's this contradiction because if people don't know who we are and what we do, then we're not going to get the opportunity to coach a lot, are we? So anyway, it feels awkward because of those things. It is counter to a lot of our values as coaches to feel like we are self promoting. And an elevator pitch by its definition, a sound bite like this, is ultimately self promotion. I want us to think more positively about this idea of self promotion because that is how we help people.
That is how people, that's how we're going to have an impact on the world. And it is how we're going to help people to solve their problems, right? And the first part of that is letting people know what we do.So, you know, most coaches have either one of two tendencies. One is to over explain, right, to go into the technical details of what a coach is, what we do, exactly what they do, the sorts of the sorts of models they bring in, right? So, they might tend to over explain and you may have met some of these coaches or they undersell what they do, right? And when underselling or understating what they do, they might start with things like, oh, I'm just getting started or I do a little bit of everything or, you know, I'm just seeing how it goes.
And all of this dilutes your credibility. So, the first thing we need to do is get really confident or at least make a commitment to figuring out how we are going to explain what we do without the, without the writers, right? Without the, oh, but or the, I'm just or this like to, You know, we need to commit to getting to a place where we can explain what we do in a very clear, short, simple way. Because also, if you're, if you're a sound bite leaves people confused, then there's no way they're going to refer you, right? They probably won't remember you, but they certainly won't be referring to you.
And, you know, I think all of this comes down to what we're saying is reflecting out in a world, right? And so, if we are feeling uncomfortable defining ourselves in a way that feels aspirational to us as we start, or if we feel like we are overstating our new identity or role that we're going to, that we are still exploring, you know, we are not going to be clear.
And so, that's what I'm hoping, you know, I can help you with today is getting clear on what you're going to say, but more importantly than that, how are you going to say it and being aware of what might be getting in the way. So, firstly, we need, really need to reframe the goal, right? The goal is not to introduce ourselves, not just to introduce ourselves, right? The goal is also to train your network. And this was shared by one of our wonderful members, this idea. What we're actually doing is we're helping people to learn who we help, how we help, and why it matters.
And the goal is to make it easy for them to say, oh, you should talk to, you know, person A, and also for them to know when they should tell person A that they should speak with you, right? That's ultimately the goal. It's not to introduce yourself, it's not to, You know, yeah, it's not networking for networking's sake. We want to get out there, We want people to know who we help, how we help them, why it matters, and make it easy for them to join the dots between us and either themselves or a person that might need us.So, what should this sound like and when should we use it? So, this framework works in lots of context.
You could potentially use it in your written communication in many formats, like LinkedIn, or, you know, bios, those sorts of things. But really what I'm talking about is a framework that you can use when you meet people in formal networking events, and especially in those casual conversations, those casual meetings where you're introduced by someone in your network.
And that person says, hey, what do you do? Right? We want to be confident, we want to be referable, and we want to be really clear. So that we are referred, right? It's pretty simple. So, what is this sound bite? The sound bite is simple, and I'm going to give it to you in two parts.
The most simple version of this sound bite is I help or I work with your target audience who have or are in certain situations or certain problems, right? So really clear, I help or I work with those who have this sort of problem situation challenge.
Really simple, right? So we want people to mostly remember who you work with, and what challenges those people are experiencing that are basically hand raises, right? So we can get people to go, oh, yeah, that's me, or that's us, or that is this connection that I know. Once we clarify that, what we might choose to add when we feel comfortable, when we feel more confident is a result or transformation that this person or organization gets as a result of working with us, and possibly even a connection to a bigger outcome or emotional payoff for those organizations or individuals.
Okay, so though you can add those if you want to,and that makes it sort of a longer sound bite, and you can choose whether or not you want to add those second parts out. The second part, certainly if you're putting it in written communication, I think is important, and I would love you to get to a point where you feel comfortable saying it out loud.
But if you just do the first bit, that's still great. So here's some examples, and bear in mind that I'm talking about coaches selling into organizations, you would have a different one for individuals, right? You would just take the same theory and apply it to individuals.
So here's an example. I help law firms going through rapid growth to strengthen their leadership pipeline like new partners and senior associates. All right, that's the first section, and then I could add on to the end so that they can grow without burning out that top performers or getting a bad reputation that makes it impossible to hire. Okay, so here we go. I help leadership teams in government agencies struggling with silos and misalignment to build shared focus and collaboration.
so they can lead change more effectively. Or I help finance departments going through restructures to rebuild trust clarity and confidence so they can keep performing in the face of the uncertainty. Or I help senior HR leaders who are trying to embed a coaching culture to take it from a buzzword to something people actually use so that managers can lead more effectively day today.
Or I help executive teams in mission-driven organizations or purpose-led organizations who are stuck in firefighting mode, help them to reconnect with their strategic priorities so they can lead with purpose not just urgency. Right, so you can kind of hear I'm going now all of these work if we just share the first part, right? So I help law firms navigate rapid growth to strengthen their leadership pipeline. I help leadership teams and government agencies struggling with silos and misalignment.
I help finance departments going through restructures who need to rebuild trust. I help senior HR leaders trying to embed a coaching culture but where people in the organizations see it as a buzzword. I help executive teams in purpose-driven organizations who are stuck in firefighting mode so you can see how those stand really well on their own and we can add more to the end. But no matter what, if you share even that first section it's going to bea conversation starter, right? It's going to give people a sense of oh that's so interesting, right? So that because because you've painted a very clear picture for them but beyond oh that's interesting what we really hope it will do and it will do if we give them this layer of specificity is
say oh I know that person right? Oh I know people like that.
Now I actually you know you might remember back to previous episodes which is that you know I don't recommend being too niche and these examples that I have shared are very specific, right? So I've suggested that you might have up to three ideal clients, right? So sectors or industries that you work with and I don't want you to be too narrow.
So you kind of want to think about you might have a couple of these depending on the audience where you're in or you might generalise who you help a little bit, right? So you know instead of saying executive teams in purpose-driven organizations you might say I help executive leadership teams who are stuck in firefighting mode, right? Or you might say I help organizations that are trying to embed a coaching culture or I help organizations going through restructures to rebuild trust or I help leadership teams struggling with silos and misalignment, right? Those sorts of things. So you kind of get a sense of what we're talking about.
So takes some time, definitely write yours out and I think I'm going to share this offer is please, if you'd like DM yours to me on LinkedIn you can either do it in writing or in a voice note and I'll give you some feedback. I'd love to, so please do that. But because once you have it in place you really have to practise it and this is the same for presenting. It's the same for running workshops. Unless you say it out loud you're never going to get comfortable saying it in the moment, right?
So you have to practise so you can get comfortable saying it without the cringe factor and you know the cringe factor, right? It's and we want you to go in there and have none of that. We want you to just go into these conversations embodying confidence.
So here are some ways you can practise. So firstly record yourself on audio or video, listen it back, listen to it back. You could tweak a word at a time, right? Make the tweaks, listen to it again, say it, record it, listen back, tweak it, record it, listen back, tweak it,record it.
The next thing is say it out loud at least 10 times before your next event or the next time you think you might have to use it. And I want you to really get in your body when you're saying it, right? Really feel like you are in that context. You've been asked what you do and you're ready to go, right? And think about the people who do it most naturally.
You can see a sense that they're relaxed, they're not overthinking it. Think about not just saying it but also embodying it like a whole body sort of situation. And then make sure you remove all qualifiers, right?
I don't want to hear I'm just starting out or I'm kind of doing or I'm trying, You need to be concise and you need to be proud of what you do and in love with what you serve, the service you're offering and the outcomes you can help people achieve.
So I would also say if you feel like you're over engineering it, go for confident, over clever, it's better to be clear than, you know, cute or, you know, doing some some word gymnastics. Being clear is the answer here. You can also ask chat JBT to give you some feedback, if you don't want to DM it to me, you can ask to chat with JBT. So this is what I'm thinking, you know,
what would you tweak and see what it says. And then I would say gradually scale your use, right?So start practicing it or sharing in your coaching communities, right? So like the corporate coach accelerator, then take it to your friends and your family, try it out with them, make sure you're saying it out loud. Sometimes that will be even more awkward than a networking event. But once we're out there, we're practicing, we've set it out loud, we've, you know, we're good with it, then the sky's the limit. And you can change it, right? These things aren't set in stone. It's just a tool to have in your toolkit to help you navigate those certain contexts, right? Networking events, informal introductions where people ask you what you do, and you want to be open to letting opportunities emerge, right?
So that's what we want it for. Have this tool in your toolkit. So I really hope this has been helpful. If you would like to send me yours, as I mentioned, just drop me a DM on LinkedIn and I will give you some feedback. So bonus points if you send me a voice note of you saying it out loud, and, you know, let me know how it feels, like what doesn't feel right, and I will give you my thoughts.
And as always, if you are wondering if my program, the corporate to coach accelerator is for you, please head over to the show notes to book a call. I love talking to coaches about your businesses, and I'd love to help you achieve your goals. So let's have a chat about how we can do that together. In the meantime, have a great week, and I'll speak to you again next week.
