Photo courtesy of Laura Allen
Laura Allen is the co-founder 15SecondPitch, a company that help people to market themselves in 15 seconds on the phone, email, face-to-face, and on business cards. I met Laura at Boston Podcamp very briefly and grabbed her card so I could catch up with her for an interview for Blogher.
1. Why did you launch your company?
After 9/11/01 in New York, the economy was truly dismal. For the first time in a long time, I was concerned about finding work. What’s worse, everyone I knew was calling me and asking me to connect them to a job. I did not know of any jobs or anyone hiring. I started to get scared. I was so grateful just to be alive, but also fearful of the future. Jim and I decided that we needed to come up with an easy way to market ourselves and that we needed to share that idea with others because we knew the economy was going to be very rough for an extended period of time. Luckily, people immediately loved the idea of the 15SecondPitch and people started to buy our business cards with their pitches printed on them right away.
What we did not know at the time was that people would have a lot of trouble writing their 15SecondPitch, so that became an opportunity for me to offer my marketing/writing/shameless self-promotion expertise to help them decide what they wanted to pitch and how to say it in a way that was authentic for them.
2. What is this 15 second pitch anyway?
The 15SecondPitch is a concise, clever and compelling introduction of who you are, what you do, why you are the best at it and your call to action. The best part of the 15SecondPitch is that it can be delivered in just 15 seconds. The idea of the 15SecondPitch is also a nod to Andy Warhol. Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be famous for 15 Minutes” and I thought that was a very profound idea. Now, we live in an A.D.D. society, so my quote is, “Everyone can be famous for 15Seconds—everyday.” I think that our current technology (cell phones, ipods, blogs, podcasts, blackberries, etc.) is absolutely amazing and beyond anything I could have imagined growing up. The only downside is that people don’t have a lot of time to hear about who you are and what you are doing. You need to cut through everything else that’s vying for their attention at that moment and deliver a VERY memorable pitch!
3. Why do I need one? Is there research that backs it up?
15SecondPitch just completed an informal survey of over 2,000 professionals. We found that nearly 70% of professionals have trouble pitching themselves. We also found that 1/3 of the respondents hated going to networking events and also did not have business cards that reflect their unique talents. Here’s a link to the survey findings.
Guy Kawasaki makes a BIG point about how people should learn how to pitch in his blog entry called “Ten Things to Learn This School Year.” Even if you are not in school, I feel learning to pitch is one of the most important things to know if you want to promote yourself.
4. Why would a nonprofit organization need one?
Non-profit organizations are in desperate need of a great 15SecondPitch! There are so many amazing non-profits out there. How do you as a progressive, compassionate person decide which causes to donate money to? How do you decide which organizations to volunteer your time with?
Whenever I donate my time or money to an organization, it is usually because a someone I meet is PASSIONATE about this organization. How do I know they are passionate? They talk my ear off about all of the great programs and initiatives the non-profit has going on! And this all starts with a conversation. Usually they grab my attention by talking about the mission of the non-profit and then I get excited and want to be a part of it too! If everyone who was very passionate about a given cause took the time to create a simple 15SecondPitch, I’d bet that they’d all raise a lot more awareness and donations. It’s fast, easy and free to create a 15SecondPitch and display it on our website for our 1500+ members to see, so I can’t see why anyone would NOT want to do it.
I’ve presented my 15SecondPitch workshop at: Streetwise Partners and the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship. This year I’ll also be presenting for: StepUpWomen’s Network and New York Opportunity NetworkOne of the reasons why I like to work with people is because there have been times when I could not find work and it was a very scary time for me. I like to work with organizations who help people get the training they need that they might not be able to get elsewhere. The 15SecondPitch helps people feel more confident about who they are and the skills they have to offer to the world.
5. Tell me a story about how the 15second pitch has transformed one
of your clients.
This is the best part of my “job”. I love working with people and helping them come up with a great pitch that can really transform their lives! One of my clients is a singer/songwriter who emailed me a few days before she had to go to a major music conference. She knew that she did not have a good pitch and that she was not promoting herself as well as she could be. We sat down at a local Starbuck’s and we spent 90 minutes working on her pitch. I could tell you the whole story, but I feel that the pitch speaks for itself!
Here’s Mara’s pitch:
My name is Mara Sanchez and I am a Singer/Songwriter specializing in creating songs in 3 different languages. I write 'slammin' music and lyrics in the Pop, Latin, Brazilian and Jazz genres. I am great at what I do because I have toured and performed in Europe and Japan and have shared the spotlight with Stevie Wonder. I also sing in three different languages (Spanish, English and Portuguese) Right now I am recording a new CD of original Latin Pop songs and looking to tour internationally.
You can see her picture and her pitch on our website here
Mara had a limited budget, so she could not just go out and hire the people that she needed to help her make a name for herself. As a result of her new pitch, she found a music producer and a lawyer who was willing to work pro-bono. This is all because they believed in her talant because she was confident and knew how to marketing herself using her new pitch. Hopefully, Mara will become a household name in the next few years.
6. Aside from having a 15 second pitch up my sleeve, what other networking
advice would you suggest? Blogs to read?
I would suggest that women focus on creating their own networking groups. Start with one person that you like, add two more, then another and so on. I think that networking events are good, however, to grow your own circle of friends organically over time will always yield better and more consistent results.
I go to many networking events here in NYC every week and my goal is always to meet one or two interesting people that I’d like to get to know better. And if I focus on that, I’m never disappointed. I’d also recommend that everyone learn a concept that I created called the “Third Party Pitch.” What this means is that I will invite a friend whom I respect and admire to go to a networking event with me. I know what this person does and I believe in their work. Instead of just focusing on pitching myself all evening, I spend a lot of time promoting my friend. For example, if I meet someone who works at an entertainment company, I might talk about Leslie and her new film. If I meet someone in the music industry, I’ll mention Mara. It’s much easier for me and for most people I know to promote their friends and the vendors they work with. In fact, 90% of my business comes from word of mouth. People work with me and then they recommend me to their friends. This is the most effective type of marketing there is.
However, I make it easier for them to market me, by teaching them my 15SecondPitch and giving them a big stack of my business cards to give out when they have the opportunity to do so. Of course I do the same for them, whenever I can.
Some of my current blog favorites are:
Elana Centor
Wonder Branding
Learned on Women
Lifehack.org
Chris Brogan
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