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Giving your Elevator Pitch
Be a Shameless Self Promotor
Issue: 11.1 (January/February 2013)
Author: Bob Keeney
Author Bio: Bob is the owner of BKeeney Software that provides Real Studio and iOS consulting for clients all over the world. In addition to providing consulting, BKeeney Software provides REAL Studio training videos (currently over 36 hours worth) and sells software to consumers and developers alike. He is a founder and former President of the Association of REALbasic Professionals.
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Article Length (in bytes): 4,418
Starting Page Number: 82
Article Number: 11111
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Excerpt of article text...
I recently joined Toastmasters to help improve my public speaking. Not that I thought I was necessarily bad at public speaking—I just didn't feel comfortable. I always felt, about 10 minutes after I finished speaking, that I had failed to bring up a really good point. To me, this said I was too nervous to think about what I was saying.
Another reason I decided to join a public speaking organization came from listening to myself while editing my Real Studio training videos. I realized I was using 'filler words'—a lot. Some of that is just not wanting to have silence while I was recording but it's also a nervous habit. While there are some linguistic reasons why we use filler words, it's not a way to get your point across and it sounds unprofessional.
After six months of Toastmasters I definitely feel more comfortable talking to a room full of people. I highly recommend it if you have any fears of public speaking. Many people do, and technical people especially seem to have this phobia. Get these people one on one and they can talk all day long, but put them in front of a group, the um's, ah's, and you know's come out in full force.
One thing I've discovered is that once you tell people you have your own business is that they're curious about what you do. They want the 'elevator pitch' because it's a very brief (around thirty seconds) introduction to what your company does. The elevator pitch is designed to hit the highlights so you have to sound sure of yourself and really convey positive meaning to the person you're talking to.
"BKeeney Software is a ten year old consulting company specializing in developing cross-platform (Mac, Windows, and Linux) desktop applications. We also develop web applications using the same development system that compiles down to native executables on all supported platforms. Our team consists of four full-time developers and we have the capability to bring in outside experts on an as-needed basis."
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