Blog · Introducing yourself
What an Elevator Pitch is and how to build one
Thirty seconds to make someone understand what you do and why they should remember it. It looks like a sales exercise: it isn't. It's the tool that makes your work referable — that is, repeatable by someone else when you're not in the room.
Published 18 March 2021 · revised 16 August 2026
What it is
A short line, and a precise reason to have one
It's a speech of a few seconds capable of sparking interest in what you do. There are whole courses and books on the subject, but there's only one point: you need to be able to present your work in very little time, to whoever's in front of you, at a business lunch just as much as in a lift.
The 2021 version of this article said "anyone is a potential referrer". That's half true, and the missing half is the half that matters.
Why it helps whoever introduces you, not you
A pitch that works doesn't help you sell: it helps whoever listened to you describe you to a third party without getting it wrong.
If after thirty seconds the person in front of you couldn't repeat what you do and who you're for, you don't have a likeability problem. You have a transmissibility problem, and it costs you every time someone tries to talk about you.
One word at a time
"Anyone is a potential referrer" is the line that needs correcting
Because it puts two acts of unequal weight on the same level, and whoever builds a network on this confusion ends up with a list instead of a channel.
Anyone can pass on a name
And that's true: anyone can forward a contact, even someone met just once. It's a gesture that costs nothing, and indeed it happens often and produces almost nothing.
Not just anyone can make a referral
In the discipline, the person who introduces you is called a Connector and their act is called a referral: they put their own reputation up as a guarantee of yours, in front of someone who trusts them. Who takes the risk, at that moment, isn't you — it's whoever introduces you (Sixth law).
That's why the pitch matters: you're giving them the words to take a risk for you with. If they're vague, they won't.
In practice
How to build the perfect Elevator Pitch
There's no single rule, but four constraints hold up in any version.
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Thirty seconds, not a hundred and twenty
Two minutes is the absolute ceiling beyond which you become boring. The length that works is thirty seconds: it sounds short, and it's enough.
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Adapted to whoever's in front of you
Different people have different needs. Pick up on the one belonging to whoever's listening instead of reciting the same line to everyone.
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The benefit, not the job title
Don't say what your job is: say what changes for whoever works with you. The difference is subtle and it shifts everything.
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Something the other person doesn't know
Close by leaving something open. It's not a trick: it's why the conversation continues instead of ending there.
An example, and how it's built
"I help companies get clients from people who already know them, instead of from people who've never heard of them. Usually the capital they need, they already have in-house — what's missing is someone to manage it."
It describes the benefit instead of the job, adapts to whoever's listening, and leaves an open question — who manages it? — that the other person arrives at on their own.
The first step
Where does your company stand, in one number
AIRA-SCAN© measures the relational capital your company already has: ten questions, three minutes, no registration. Your browser calculates the score and shows it immediately, along with the dimensions where you're losing the most points.
Then the extended report arrives by email, and within one working day a person calls you: you look at the result together and assess whether the AIRA-DX© Stoic Analysis makes sense for your company. It's free and limited to twelve a week, so it isn't owed to whoever does the check-up: it's decided together.
Prefer to just talk about it? The number is 0549 888808.