How to Pitch Your Business With a One Liner (4 Easy Steps)

When someone asks what you do, can you tell them in one simple sentence? Can you pitch your business in 30 seconds? If not, you may be losing business opportunities because of not knowing the key words to communicate about your business to others.

Learning how to basically give an elevator pitch about your business in one line can help you confidently sell your product/services. If you need a simple way to describe your business, you’ve come to the right place!

Watch this video and learn more about the 4 simple steps to creating a one liner for your business. This should help you tell others about what you do and what products or services you provide, in one line, in just one sentence! Making you a more efficient and confident sales person and great human lead magnet for your business.

Have you finished the StoryBrand Messaging Framework online course, and you’re struggling to put together your one-liner. I get it. It is hard to take your entire marketing message and condense it down into a couple sentences. My name’s Ryan Toth, I’m the CEO of clear brand. I’m a StoryBrand certified guide. And in this video, I’m going to walk you through how to create a freaking amazing one-liner that you’re going to feel proud of, and that your customers are going to connect you with. Let’s jump in.

The hardest part for most people when it comes to their messaging and applying that to their marketing is that we have so much to say about our business. How am I supposed to leave some things out on my website or in my emails and especially in my one-liner, this is so hard. So the first thing that I want you to know is that marketing has layers and that’s okay. So you’re not going to talk about everything in every place. Let me tell you the four steps that I take my clients through that I train my team with when we create one liners for our clients to connect with their customers. 

I want you to imagine that you’re out at an event or you’re at a bar or you’re at church or somewhere that right now is probably closed because of COVID now sink into that space for a second, because this, this is the place that you’re going to use. Your one-liner, your one-liner is not where you cram as much information as possible. This is it’s the sentences that you use when you’re at a coffee shop, or at church and somebody says, “hey, what do you do?” So your first, first goal here is we want to stay down to earth. All right, we’re not going to start pulling out words that the other person needs to look up a dictionary to figure out what they mean. I needed this to be so, so, so simple. The goal here is not to convince them to work with you. The goal is to pique their interest. The one-liner is going to hook them in it’s appropriate. It fits into that coffee shop setting. You’re passing somebody on the sidewalk and they, oh, I haven’t seen you in forever. What is it that you’re doing now? You’ve got to keep the setting in mind. We are not convincing people. We are merely peaking their interest. 

Alright. Once you’ve locked in your brain, you’re in this setting. You’re not convincing you are simply piquing interest. Now the first sentence of your one-liner is the problem. Most folks, when they’re asked about what they do, they either say, oh, it’s complicated, or I can’t really explain it here. That’s not going to be helpful. The other thing that we do is we start talking about the solution, but a solution doesn’t actually matter, unless there’s a problem, right? The solution solves a problem. It doesn’t just stand alone. So without a problem, a solution doesn’t have context. So we can’t just jump in there. We’ve got to start with the problem. Now, the other benefit of starting with the problem is that the problem is actually what engages people. If the person you’re talking to has the problem that you mentioned, that is what will peak their interest and get them to ask you for more information. 

They’ve got to get really clear what the problem here. We want it to be the simplest, most basic version of the problem on your brandscript. A lot of the people we work with there’s this separation between what the, their customer’s real problem is and what their customer’s perceived problem is. This is a problem for a lot of, a lot of clients that we’ve worked with and everybody comes in and they want to address the real problem. This is not the time for that yet, but we want to do right now is connect with your customers on that perceived problem. Let me give you an example. We worked with a client who, uh, sends jars full of notes from people who you love and they send it to you and you get to open this jar and it’s full of all of these notes that are, they say nice things about you that encourage you and so what is the problem that we identify when we worked with them? Well, most gifts people give just aren’t memorable. They get thrown out within a year. They get forgotten. Now, if I say that to you, you’re probably already thinking about a gift that you threw out or a gift that you gave that you knew the person was going to throw out, right? This problem that I just shared has now peaked your interest and you are now ready to hear a solution. It’s kind of like priming the pump. So think about that problem that you solve. Look at your brandscript, and we want to get the simplest most basic version of it. And then go back to step one. Now, imagine somebody asking you what you do or asking you a question about the problem you solve. Even just to make this hypothetical a little bit easier for a minute. Would you feel comfortable telling them that problem? Is it simple enough that you would throw it into a conversation at a coffee shop? If it’s not, make it simpler, most gifts aren’t meaningful, most gifts get thrown out, right? That’s a very simple problem and it’s easy for your listeners to connect with. 

You’ve gotta talk about your product. What is it that you offer now that we’ve identified and shared the problem that your customers are having? We have created context. We’ve created a need for that problem to be solved. So let’s solve it, but we’re going to solve it specifically, your product or service. In this jar of notes, the company is called little love jar by the way, if you’re looking for a meaningful gift, go to littlelovejar.com, buy one of these things. It’s amazing. I gave one to my wife. She loved it so much quick plug for them cause they’re awesome. So the problem is that most gifts aren’t meaningful and they get thrown out or forgotten within a year or so. What’s the solution going to be? Well, we collect notes from you and your friends and put them in a jar to give to your loved one as a gift, right? That is a description of the product. Now we need to make sure that it solves the problem. So at the end of that, we could add that is a, that is a gift that they will remember forever. So we’ve tied together. The products that you sell, we’ve made sure that it solves the problem that we mentioned. Now let’s jump onto the fourth step, which is the result. 

We want to add in the happy ending with this little love jar. The happy ending is the gift is remembered forever. That’s a happy ending to this. I want to be the guy who gave a gift that gets talked about for years. So now think about your story that you’re telling. What is the success that your customers want and when they’re searching for a product like yours and also make sure, you’ve kind of created a storyline here, you’ve got a problem, you’ve got a product that solves that problem. Now we want to make sure the results were in line with that. Now, once you’ve got the problem solution results, we’re going to put it all together. Typically it’s about two sentences. Cause the results we just kind of tack on to the end of the second sentence, to the end of that solution sentence, you can have a third sentence if you want. 

And now I want you to imagine yourself at a coffee shop. If somebody says, “Hey, what do you do?” Is this actually something that you would say in that moment? And granted it takes, it takes a little bit of courage. It’s a little bit weird at first to jump, to start the answer to that question with the problem. But let me tell you, you will see results. You’ll see people’s eyebrows go up. They’ll lean in, they’ll get engaged and you’re never going to go back. So just imagine yourself at a coffee shop is all of this simple and plain English enough that you would say it to a friend on the street or at a bar or at a coffee shop. If it’s not make it simpler, tweak it. So that is something that you would just flow off your tongue if you happen to pass somebody, you know? So now you have an incredible one-liner, that’s actually usable, memorize it, have your team memorize it, then use it to grow your business. If you liked this video, click subscribe below, turn on notifications. So you find out the next time I post a video like this one to help you grow your business. I’ll see you soon.

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