How to supercharge your one sentence business summary

How to supercharge your one sentence business summary
[The Elevator Pitch, part 1]

What do you say when you’re asked what you do?  Do you have something specific and memorable to respond with?  What’s your brand message?  As an introvert, it has really helped me to have something ready to say or write when introducing myself at networking or online.

So here’s how to nail your one sentence summary!

The Elevator Pitch, part 1: The one-sentence summary

The Elevator Pitch is a marketing term for your business intro.  It gets its name from giving a 30-60 second pitch about what you do, in the time it would take to travel in a lift with someone.  It needs to be persuasive enough that they will remember you, and go and look at your website or socials as soon as they get back to their desk! 

These days of course, you would connect online on your phones there and then, but it's still useful - to introduce yourself clearly and succinctly online, or in real life at a networking meeting or just talking to someone new.

You might be able to fit quite a lot into that minute, but today we’re going to start with just one simple sentence to introduce yourself with. 

I have also seen this called the Mission Statement, though I feel that is more for a big company’s over-arching mission, or for when a small business starts or belongs to a wider movement or mission to change the world. 

Another term for this is your Brand Message, and I would agree with that one, as it will reflect your brand and what you are all about, albeit in only one sentence!  It's essentially the main thing you want to be known for, and the main thing you want to tell your audience about, combined with introducing yourself.

[See part 2 in the next blog, to expand your one sentence summary into a full elevator pitch].

Five Steps to help you supercharge your one sentence business summary:

So what message do you want to share about your business?  Get clear on what you do, who for, and how you’re different.

Here are five questions to answer, to help you craft the one-sentence summary of your brand message.

1. Who are you? What’s your business name?

2. What do you do? / What do you sell?  – Narrow this down to one main thing if you can!

3. Who do you do it for, who do you help, who do you sell to?  Who's your ideal client/customer?

4. What’s the benefit? – what problem do you help them solve, what is the transformation they get, what goal do you help them achieve?

5. What’s your USP, why are you different? – what’s the unique value of working with you over someone else?

Craft your one sentence business summary

Using your answers to the above questions, put them together into a single sentence.  It may well take a few tries!  (See my examples below). 

Here are a couple of  ways to help you do this, by filling in the gaps of the following sentences:

I help… to… by/through/with…   

Or:

I help… so you can… without…

The shorter the sentence the better, for making it understandable and memorable.   Be interesting too!   Position yourself as the expert, and be clear how you help people.   Your ideal client/customer needs to know that you are speaking to them.  It needs to fit your brand too, and match all the other messages you are putting out there about you and what you do.

Repeat it lots, use it everywhere, so people get used to hearing/reading it.  

It is then more likely to stick in their minds, so they remember what you do ready for when they need you, or to recommend you to someone else. 

(There are some examples of where to use it further down).

Example One Sentence Summary

As an example for you, here’s my current one (as at first writing this blog in 2019!).  And I say that, because it has taken a while to get here with it, which is why I thought it might be useful to share all this with you.  There’s no need to feel that you can never change it: refer back to it all the time, and amend it when your business changes, or you’ve just learnt more about your business and ideal client.  If you have different ideal clients, for different parts of your business, write a different sentence for each, and use depending on the context.  Try and have one overall version too though.

“I help female business owners to grow their visibility, brand and business, with beautiful story-telling brand photography”.

Or I could shorten it even more to: “I help female business owners get more clients with amazing photography”.

Sometimes I swap ‘business owners’ for ‘entrepreneurs’, and I’d like to narrow the who part down further – it’s a work in progress!  Obviously in person, with someone new, I would preface it with  “Hi I’m Jane, of Picture Your Brand”.  I can also say it the other way round:

“I create beautiful story-telling brand photography for female entrepreneurs, to grow their visibility, brand and business with”.

Write a few versions of yours, and see which you prefer.  

Update: Four years later, my current short(ish!) intro, now that I do more brand and visibility for introvert business owners online as well as the branding photography, goes something along the lines of:

"Hi everyone, I'm Jane of Picture Your Brand, I'm a branding photographer and brand & visibility strategist/mentor.  I help quiet, camera-shy and introvert business owners with branding, visibility and marketing - so that you can confidently show up as yourself, stand out, and sell more easily."

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Using your Summary

Now you’ve got it sorted, use it everywhere!  Get sharing, and start getting yourself more visible. Here are ten places you can use your sentence:

1. As your LinkedIn headline

2. In your social media bios

3. At the top of your website homepage

4. Whenever you are asked ‘What do you do?’

5. At the start of your elevator pitch

6. At the start of your one or two minute networking introduction

7. When introducing yourself in a new Facebook group

8. When advertising yourself on a share your business thread on social media

9. Include it in your bio for guest blogs or PR

10. Use it in your email signature

It’s also super useful for guiding you in everything you do for your business.  Keep it in mind with every bit of work you do, all your content, all your marketing – is it all aligned with what your business is and who it is for?  It can help you to decide what you do next, what you stop doing, what you keep doing.  It’s rather handy isn’t it?!

Read my next blog, on expanding the one sentence summary into a whole one or two minute pitch: How to Perfect your Elevator Pitch.

Next Steps:

- Ready for more personal mentoring, brand, visibility and marketing strategies that work for you, a community of fellow ambitious introverts, training, and accountability to put it all into action?  Come and join my Brand Plan membership, and get support to show up, stand out, and sell more🤩 

- Need to know more about personalising your brand, crafting your brand story, your brand messages?  It's all covered in my brand foundations course, From Ordinary To Authentic.  Find out more here.

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Blog topics / categories: 

#Strategy and Planning

#All Things Visibility

#Being An Introvert Entrepreneur

[This blog was first written in October 2019, then transferred to this website and updated February 2024]

The photo for this blog is one of mine of Laura McDouall speaking at an event in London that I was photographing for Lisa Johnson.