Transcript for "The Communicator's Pitch - Nail Your Narrative & Get The Job": Hello. Welcome everyone to the communicators pitch. My name is Chuck Gose, founder at Icology. We are thrilled to have all of you here with us this evening if you're Eastern time, late night if you're joining us from Europe, and also, I guess, early afternoon if you're West Coast, and all the people in between. To introduce yourself, please go into the chat. We're new to this Goldcast platform. You will find there's a lot of fun in the chat. Go into the chat. Go on and introduce yourself. Let us know where you're from and post a GIF that showcases to us your current emotions around the job hunt. I know some of you who've joined have been on this hunt for a little while. Go in there and find a GIF that shares your emotion around the job hunt, and let us get to know you. I think we've got some people jumping in. We got some shots. Oh, we got a floating dumpster fire. Classic. Perfect. Yeah. Keep those introductions coming in to us. Let us know where you're from. Daniel, I wanna welcome you to this. You're part of this collaboration with CommsGlobs. Thank you for all the work you're doing to help people in this cloud market, Daniel. No. Thank you for, helping, organize this event. I'm super excited, and, it's just you know, I'm so glad that you brought that question to to the session because it's scary out there. There's it's it's a very dynamic environment. A lot of people are struggling, and, it's it's really refreshing to see how the community is coming together to support all of those who are currently either job searching or, you know, preparing to to go into a job search. So, I was super excited to hear about this session and and really looking forward to learning from Greg, who's gonna teach us a lot today. Absolutely. No. And, again, Daniel, I wanna thank you. Everyone, go into the chat. Throw some fun emojis in there for Daniel. Thanking him for all the work he does, on the comms jobs efforts. It is absolutely amazing. And, Daniel, where where are you joining us from, actually, other than other than a guitar shop? Right. I'm, right outside of Princeton, New Jersey, so I'm on the East Coast. And, and, yeah, it's, it's been really sunny these days here. So today, it's a little cloudy, but it's been beautiful and really looking forward to, spring here in the Garden State. Yeah. Absolutely. And I'm coming from the beautiful Midwest. It is a picture perfect day in Indianapolis. Today, I've got some great sun. Kinda know I'm maybe a little bit too too much sun. But you're right, Daniel. We are here to hear from the man, Greg Monaco, and this is a treat. I'm I'm I'm fudging on the numbers here a little bit, but I think he normally gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to do this type of session. Or maybe this is just what he wants to get paid, or I think he's worth being paid to help people with their pitch and their personal branding. So, Greg, come on up. Join us here on stage, so that we you can share your wisdom with all of us. There's the man himself, Greg Monaco. Greg, I'm sure you also wish you made hundreds of thousands of dollars doing this, but I'm telling everyone that's what it's worth. So thank you for joining us here for this communicators pitch. Well, thank you, Chuck. And look, I know that you guys aren't paying me a hundred thousand dollars, but if anybody lands because of what we what happens here today, I do expect some kind of cut. Maybe a couple of points, one or 2%, that's fine. Whatever you make off your annual. So I'm glad to be here, Chuck, and, thank you, Daniel, for for hosting this. This is gonna be a great session. Awesome. So, Greg, when I first reached out to you, I actually attended one of your sessions a few weeks back, where you were working with people on their pitch, and it was very insightful for me to go through this. As someone who has zero issues talking ever, it is really hard to talk about yourself. It's really hard to talk about yourself. So go into some of your ideas and structures of how you're helping people with their pitch. Okay. Well, thank you. And, yeah, you're right. It's, uncomfortable to talk about yourself for sure. The worst question I think ever that you'll probably hear in every single interview that you have is tell me about yourself. That's a that's just a stumper. What I tell people to do in that case is just default to a story that you already know, Something that you just a story that you tell about yourself that you know very well just to get the just to get things going and get the conversation moving, to get past that awkwardness. So we can talk a little more about that. But I'm curious to know if you guys, listening in right now, just in the chat, and I'm new to the Goldcast platform. I'm not sure which chat to look at. Is it this one that says session or public? I can't tell. You know what? I think we've got both going on. So you know what? Let's let's act that that's a great call out here, Greg. Let's go let's start posting even though I just put a really great oh, let's see. Where's where did I put my Canada One? In the session one? Just put a great Canada GIF in the session thread. Let's all switch to the public. Well, let's start posting all of our chat and stuff in the pub we're not gonna lose the session gems that are in there. Let's start posting in the public, and I'll figure out why there's two another time. Alright. Yeah. Well, I would part of of learning a new platform, but on our like, I swear to everyone who's watching, like, on the back end, it looks amazing, and it's just going, like, really well. So, but I I agree. I mean, it would be good to just, agree on one channel. So go to the public, and and we can take it from there. Okay. Yeah. And and the reason why I want it because I I do have a question for everybody here. I would like to know if you're in an active job search right now. Just put yes if you're in an active job search right now. Alright. So we we got a lot of yeses in there. Oh my gosh. Wow. Okay. Good. No. This is this is excellent. So while people are answering the that question, I did a little desk research before this, and I would love to hear, Chuck, let's start with you first. I would love to hear how you landed your job. And I looked at you you have a lot of experience, by the way, Chuck. A lot of lot of stuff on your LinkedIn profile. We talked about the gray hairs earlier, Greg. Yes. I have a lot of experience. I didn't realize that you had that much experience. But you worked at the American Cancer Society. Can you, in thirty seconds, tell me how you landed that gig? Yes. That job meant a lot to me because I unfortunately lost my father to cancer just about a year before landing that job, and so I went full on force for that role. Okay. How did you get it? Interview. Okay. Shared my story. Shared my passion. Was it was it, a straight line from job post to you applying for the job, or did you know someone in in American No. This this so this is going back monster.com style job applications, Greg, back in the .com era of job applying. No. This was a straight I did not know a soul at that organization at that point in time. This is pre LinkedIn before you can even figure out who worked at that company. Got it. Okay. It's so you just did it like they did it back in the back in the day. Old school. Yeah. Old school. Okay. Yeah. One of the things that I'm hearing from a lot of people who apply on LinkedIn is that it's like a black hole. You apply and then nothing. Maybe maybe folks can, in the chat can just say, yep. I I know what that's like. You you apply and you don't hear anything. Daniel, I've got a question. I did a little desk research on you. The black I love the black hole emoji. So, Daniel, tell me, how did you get your job at BHP? That was so it was a a a like, two things. I interned at, at an agency that, provided services to to that company in Chile. And I was very lucky that when I, took the internship, I was paired with the general manager of the agency. So I got to learn a lot about like, with him, on the job. And then after my internship ended, they so how was yeah. He introduced me to the person that was in charge of the graduate program at BHB. And Perfect. And Oh, sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. And then they introduced me to them. And there wasn't an an opening at that point, but it was like, you should keep an eye on on Daniel. And and whenever this opens, like, you should definitely reach out to him, and they did. And that that's how I I landed that that job. Okay. Thank you, Daniel. The the point here is that 80 to 85% of jobs that are landed are through an existing network, not through online applications. Yeah. And to your point, referred candidates get four times more likely to be hired than ones who are not referred. So this probably comes as no surprise to anybody here that the most important part, most important aspect to pitching isn't necessarily pitching. It's laying the groundwork before the path. Of course, you wanna, like, when the interview comes, you wanna make sure that you've got your stuff together. But you wanna make sure that you're always actively cultivating the network so opportunities come to you when the time happens. And all of us are gonna be in those transition stages. I mean, Chuck had about 14 of them, I think, I counted, on his LinkedIn profile. A lot of transitions. You're really making me sound old, Greg. I was just surprised. You know, I know I'm surprised at how good you look, actually. I worked at an agency called Ogilvy and Mather. This just kinda proves the point. And I got hired as a freelancer. I, I I got cordoned off to the Fourteenth Floor. My my department was on the Fourth Floor, but they were booming, and they had no room for me. So I was up at the Fourteenth Floor, and they put me in a broom a literal broom closet, and I worked there for a year. And they had this ragtag team of creatives on the Fourteenth Floor that had nothing to do with my department, but I got friendly with them. And I would show them stuff I was doing, and then they would show me stuff they were doing. And as all freelance contracts do, they come to an end at some point. And when when it came to an end, I had already established an amazing relationship with these folks. And I said, hey, guys. You have anything? I was hired by them three days later. So it it proves the point that activating your network, and I've got a whole other talk that I can come back and do another talk about how to activate your network, but that's the most important aspect. Because I didn't interview. I didn't have to interview. I was literally just ushered in to the HR process at that point. My interview lasted essentially a year of getting to know these folks. So that's so I so go ahead. No. Sorry. I I was just gonna, share there and and and and I agree with you that, I never realized about that, and and I I think you're spot on, because so I'm originally from Chile. I moved to The US in 02/2015. I started my career in 02/2007. I started in Chile. I I, well, both in high school and college and started my career there. And I never really thought about my network as a thing, like, as a concept. I just had friends. I had friends at work. I had friends in school. I had friends in, other jobs that I had, like, seasonal. Right? And, everything kinda went that way. Like, I interviewed for my first job, but after that, as you said, you know, everything was kind of, oh, meet this guy that I've been working with him for for a year or so, and, you know, he's good. He can go to this role. Then, I was promoted because of the same thing within the the company. I was offered an international assignment. You know? And everything happened very quotation marks easily. But then, suddenly, I when when my wife and I decided to relocate to The US, I landed here. I was like, oops. I don't have a network here. Like, I don't know anyone. I don't know, you know, who to reach out to, who can help me put my first foot at the door. Right? And that's when I really started I had to rebuild my network from from scratch. And since I started in 02/2015, I haven't stopped because it's just so hard. Right? So, I just wanted to share that and and agree with what you were saying. Yeah. Thanks, Daniel. Thanks for sharing that story. You know, very often when you do land a job, you are consumed in that job, and you sometimes just take the foot off the gas on the networking. So most of the folks here are in transition looking for that next gig. I I can just tell you this. If you set up just casual chats, not like looking for job conversations, but casual chats with people in your target companies, then just for learning. Just for learning. There was, I I used to be part of this networking group called the, marketing executives networking group, MENG. And I was pitching some business, but I didn't know anybody in that business. But I had a contact at MENG who knew someone at the business. I set up an informational conversation with this person. That's it. I got so much intel about the organization that the pitch was easy because I knew them in a lot of ways better than the CEO did because I got such an insider's glimpse. So that's something that you can do is just set up casual chats with with people who may be connected to those at your target companies. So I have a question for everybody here. Again, I'm gonna keep using this chat here. But how when you are let let's let's move forward into pitching. By the way, I do wanna point this out. I'm gonna I want I'd like to bring a couple of people up to the stage with us to do a little pitch work together. So I'm gonna ask for that. So just, you know, if you are wanna share the stage and work with me, free coaching, when we're ready for it, just raise your hand. You can raise your hand on the left hand side. I think there's a little hand there, and we'll bring you up on stage. We're not ready for that right now. So my question to everybody here is how do you know and, you know, to Chuck and Daniel as well. How do you know if your is effective? Kind of a weird question to ask, but how do you know if it worked? Like, when you're pitching someone, what would you like for them to say? So Ashley says if you got the job, that's that's it. I think the first reaction for me is if they they actually ask a question, that is something that, in my opinion, normally opens conversations. Right? If you get a reaction where they're like, oh, okay. That didn't land well. That would be my my gauge. I think it's also if you if you shared something that resonated with them that might pull a story out of them, something that related to them, and that was something I know you're gonna get into some of these technique, Greg, but one of the things you talk about is fine tuning your pitch and and kind of switching it up based on who you're talking to and what their reactions are. And so I think it's like, what what did they pick up on in your pitch? Because if to Daniel's point, if they sort of ask a question or wanna learn more, that's keeping them going. Or does it spur something inside them that starts more of a conversation and not a q and a back and forth? I I actually like your answer better than my answer because it's it your answers are about, like, inciting a dialogue. If you're if you if that happens, you're on the right track, and you're well on your way to these three different results. And these are the results. Maybe that's how I should have phrased the questions. Like, what results do you want from you wanna get hired, like Ashley said, of course. Like, I can I can use your help? That's I I would like to hire you. That's number one. Number two is, oh, I know someone who can use your help. So that means they can refer you. And then the third one is, oh, I can help you, which means to, like, amplify you. Or if you're if you're, like, a small company, maybe invest in you. So so those are those are three results that you would love to happen from your pitch. That's asking a lot for your pitch, but it without those results in mind, it's hard to back strategize how you get to a pitch that gets you there. And I think that's really the the learnings that we're gonna have today in this in in this forum. So the so, Jennifer, the three were I can I can use your help, meaning I can hire you? The second one is I know someone who can use your help, which is refer you. And the third one is I can help you, which is to amplify you. And that means to to Daniel and Chuck's point where the dialogue happens, that means they get you. They understand you. You have been clear. I had a conversation just today with six consultants, and my head was spinning because I could not follow. They were using a lot of jargon and a lot of I could not follow what they did. It took me about an hour to, like, just weed through everything to get to really who they were and what they stood for. And if the if you you don't have the clarity, they can't take those actions on you. They can't help you. So Right. I This is something that came in asking about your three things. Is is there a weight to these, or are they are they of equal merit? I think they're of equal merit. Okay. Because because the the audience can only help you in so much. Mhmm. You know? Sorry to chime in there. I I think also something to consider is that, you know, they sorry. I'm just trying to organize my my thoughts. I had a lot of thoughts. The thing is, like, you know, I think it's right to say that they have this the same value because a lot of times what happens is that the results of a networking interaction are not immediate. Right? I would say that, you know, if if if they say they can help you, if they can refer you. Right? Sometimes that it's gonna have, like, a a benefit right away, but other times, it's just gonna build something that it you're gonna see it way in the future. And that is something that a lot of people don't, don't consider when they're networking and pitching people because they want immediate results. So when they don't get immediate results, they get frustrated. And that's why every time that I'm speaking with people about, networking, I always tell them, like, well, first, you know, it's it's always good to network or or, you know, build those relationships when you're in a position of of, you know, in a good position. Like, your house is not on fire. Right? The other thing is that you need to think about it in a long term. Right? I always compare it to gardening. You know? Like, when you are building those relationships and pitching people, basically, you're planting seeds, and then you need to water those plants, and then you need to see them grow, and then you're gonna get fruits and veggies. Right? Like, which is the the big price of of what's gonna come back to you from your network. So, I I think you're you're spot on that in that sense. Like, whatever the result is, all of them are valuable. Sometimes immediately, sometimes in the long term. So I I agree with what you're saying, Daniel. I would challenge everybody here that when they are pitching, networking situation, interview situation, if you don't come to one of those three results, take a hard look at your pitch. Because I have found in my experience, if my pitch is not clear, it's hard for people to take action. People usually wanna help you. That's the default state. And when I've gotten clear about my pitch, almost everybody can say, oh, I know someone who can use that. I I went to a networking event just this past week, and I tried something different. So you can categorize yourself, and I and I usually call myself a brand and story coach, which is a little vague and a little maybe maybe it's interesting, you know, and people go, what's that? But I tried this time. I tried I just said, I'm a pitch coach. So one guy was confused and thought I helped baseball pitchers throw curve balls, which is fine because it gave me an opportunity to explain what what it what it is. But for the most part, god, Ashley, you are really quick on the on the gifts. Most everybody got it That was at this like, they got what I did, and they thought it was interesting enough, and they started making connections right there. That to me and and I'm just creating a category for myself. I'm not necessarily, like, going in on my value or what makes me different or that. They got it, and they and I could see the wheels turning going, oh, I know someone. Let let's connect. I know someone who could use your help. Or, man, you know what? I'm having trouble pitching. I could certainly use someone. So, you know, that that to me is sort of a rubric for you to just see and test and see if your pitch is actually registering. So keep that in mind. So keep that in mind. Okay. So we've we've we have an ask coming in. I'm gonna go find this because she just gets us back on track, and then I'm gonna share this. Jennifer want Jennifer wants us to get to it. Greg, what let let's start talking about what these what these pitches look like. But I'm gonna talk about quick story about how pitches evolve. Greg, you and I have now known each other for eight years, nine years, ten years. I've lost track of how long we've Yeah. We've known each other. Your pitch then, when we first met, is different than what your pitch is now. Like, even in our relationship, that pitch has changed. This is now the first time we've really done something like this. So to Daniel's point around the power of networking, keeping in touch, and keeping in knowing people, and what are they up to, and what are you up to, and all those things, like, you never know what's gonna that's gonna then evolve to, which speaks to what we're doing here this afternoon. Yep. You are a an evolving piece of art, and you should always be critical about how you're presenting yourself. As soon as there's something that I call the leftover pasta problem. And this is when you know your pitch so well that it becomes rote and it becomes lifeless, almost like day old noodles get squishy. And, you know, all the ingredients are there. Man, Chuck, you're good. All the ingredients are there, but but, you know, you start to just coast on autopilot. So I always like to refresh things and and see, you know, like, a comedian may think that their joke is good but they'll never know that it's good until they get up on stage because the audience is gonna tell them it's good. So when do we have that opportunity to pitch? So I did something with Chuck mentioned it. I did the I I do these things called pitch parties, and we just test our pitches out. So, Jennifer, since you asked the question, if you would be brave enough to come up on stage with me, we can work on what a good pitch would be. I'm happy I'm happy to do that right now. And in the meantime, I would love to know I want everybody here to just kind of close their eyes and put themselves in a situation where they might be pitching. Could be a Zoom call that, you're being interviewed, or it could be, you know, a networking event, or it could be a trade show or something. Or it just could be you're at the dog park just hanging out, and someone's like, what do you do? What comes up for you as a challenge in how you pitch? Just put it in the chat. What is what What pains you in the pitch process? Curious to know. While we're waiting for that, we're getting a big cheering session here for Jennifer to come up on stage with us. Alright, Jennifer. Alright. Promoting myself is one. Trying to make what I sound, let me see. Being succinct. Okay. Brevity, promoting myself, talking about how comms relates to money for the business. There's a lot of here. Let's see. Layman's terms. Okay. Straight. These are good. Trying to be specific and interesting. Okay. I mean, all of these are relevant, and they're not unusual. Alright? Brevity. So, here's something that you can do from from from a brevity standpoint which is practice what it feels like to talk for thirty seconds or one minute, and you just time yourself. You can go on to ChatGPT and ask what are some of the most common interview questions, use those as your prompt, and roll as you time yourself for one minute. And get a feel for what it's like to pitch in one minute, and you'll be surprised that that minute gets taken up very quickly. So that's gonna keep you from doing what I call the the ramble scramble. Okay? If, there's Did you just come up with that on the spot? No. I didn't. I Okay. I just wanna it's it sounded a little like you're playing a rhyming game there, but I I I digress. So, so that that timing thing is, really helpful and really valuable to, to try to try that. What else was, said? Can't oh, not interesting. Okay. Alright. So this is a great one. Someone said I forget who said it, but they they didn't think that they were interesting enough. So it depends on the situation. But for you to be interesting, you need to be interested. And what I mean by that is get very curious about your target audience. Because if you understand what pain they are in, you're gonna relate to them. So you can do a little desk research on what your target audience is experiencing, and then you can tailor your pitch right on what those pain points are. So that's that's a hack for this. But the other thing that you can do is you can, in in the course of your pitch, you can start to ask mindful questions and get curious about them, about what their challenges are. And then you automatically become interesting because it's no longer about you. It's all about them. And all of us are communicators here, so we all know the value of understanding who we're talking to and relating to them. But that's the trick, is to take the pressure off yourself and put it on where it counts, which is them and what their problems are. And if you center your pitch around their problems and their day, it makes your life a lot easier and you become a superhero to them. I I I'll tell a quick story about, I have a my right knee is a is a mess and I got about five years ago a partial knee replacement. So, this is because I played soccer all my life and just abused my body. So I needed this done, and I didn't want to get surgery. I tried everything. I talked to eight different orthopedic surgeons. All of them went right to, okay. This is the procedure. This is what we need to do. And some of them agreed, some of them disagreed, but there was one doctor in particular who happened to be the doctor I chose who's who started to inquire about the pain that I was experiencing. He's like, does it hurt worse when you go down the steps? I'm like, yeah. It actually does. He's like, how's your hip? Like, pretty stiff. He started to understand and talk about my pain in words that I didn't have and started to shine a light on the problem that I didn't realize that I was experiencing. Because he was asking me questions, and it was a it was a dialogue. He wasn't just giving me the solution. It was he was establishing this ground of relatedness with me. That made him the most interesting man in the world to me because he was he was gonna he's like, I can help you, Greg. I can get your knee back to 95% of what it was like when you were 27. And that to me was all I needed to hear because I felt like he totally got me. So being interesting means being interested. So be interested in your target audience. Greg, can I interrupt for a second? Yeah. I'm gonna bring up I'm gonna bring up a a comment that someone added, and then we've got we've got Jennifer ready ready to join us up on stage. Alright. So I'm gonna speak directly to Amy on this. Everyone else just talk amongst yourselves, go and pay some gifts. I'm talking to Amy here. Amy, never ever apologize for giving off too much energy. Never. No one's energy is ever too big at any point in time. People feed off of energy. People feed off of enthusiasm. We have a term in our house, and this might be a bit of a mixed crowd, but it's after six, I feel like I can say it. I have big Chuck energy. That's just how I roll in in my life. So if you've got big Amy energy, feed it. Give it out. Share it with everyone. Never apologize for giving off too much energy. I just had to call that out, Greg. Sorry. That's great. That's great. And I and I agree. Thank you. Yeah. You are you, and use that energy as your filter. Like, maybe there are people that can't pair with it, and that's okay because you don't wanna be working with them anyway. And, yes, I'm also accused of Chuck ghosting my life, which is a whole other scenario that in the chat that does happen. So Chuck ghosting your life. Are you ready to bring are you ready to bring Jennifer up? Great. Yeah. Let's do it. Yeah. Let's have some fun. She's been asking for fifteen minutes to get into this pitch. So, Jennifer, let's see how this works. Here she's coming. Hey. There she is. To my background. All good, Jennifer. Thank you for place to plug in the computer. Thank you for being our, guinea pig experiment here with the live pitch. You're you're a trooper. We'll we'll send you a fun little, thank you gift as a result of, raising your hand. So now I spoke directly to Amy. We had our little moment there, Amy. Now, Greg, you and Jennifer, this is now, this is now your show. Okay. Perfect. Jennifer, great to meet you. Tell me, are you actively in a, job search right now? Yes, sir. And unemployed for six months. Six months. Okay. So who is your target audience? Who are you trying to get it who is gonna hire you? So I'm hoping that someone that'll hire me will be a CEO or, vice president of communications, to do so I can go in and be a senior manager or director of either internal comm or communications overall. Okay. So why don't we say, VP of communications right now for, I imagine, a a large organization? Yeah? Seems to be on the line. For a semi, like, less than 5,000 person organization. Ideally, a vision driven organization. Okay. We're gonna so We're gonna try something. Jennifer, would you mind turning your camera off? I I think there might be a lag issue happening here. So it might work better without your camera on. Yeah. I think the connection is, that's enough. Yeah. Okay. I think this will just stabilize us for a little bit. And we just wanna hear your your pitch. That's all. So I'm gonna turn into this v VP of communications. I'm I'm the person that you're you're gonna be pitching to. Okay? And I'm gonna ask you that very awful question, Jennifer, of, like, tell me about yourself. I'll lead you in, but I'm gonna give you one minute, okay, to tell me about yourself. And then I'll when the minute starts to wind down, I'll give you a countdown. Five, four, three. You know, I'll just do it with my hand. I'm not gonna interrupt you. And you just know that you're gonna need you're gonna need to wrap it up at that time. Okay? Is that clear? Okay. Sounds good. Okay. So I am, the VP of communications for this company. Okay? Jennifer, welcome. It's good to it's good to see you. I've, I've looked at your LinkedIn profile and your resume. I have a stack of resumes behind me that I'm getting through here, but I would love to hear more about you from your perspective. So please tell me. Well, thank you so much for your time today, Greg. I appreciate it. A little bit about myself, I've been doing communications and marketing for twenty five years, and I am passionate about being able to bring stories, to be able to bring an organization's perspective to all their stakeholders. And I really see my superpower as being a puzzle solver. I don't see problems as challenges. I don't see challenges as issues. I see them as puzzles that need to be solved, and because that's really what you're doing. You're trying to solve the puzzle in front of you so you can solve the issue at hand and move the organization forward. I have experienced an internal communication, external communication, and that includes everything from employers to donors, to board members, to executive staff, to media. And I would just really love the opportunity to work for your organization and bring that skill to you. Well done, Jennifer Kemp. Round of applause. Yes. Absolutely. Well done. Yeah. Okay. So, Jen, I'm just going to ask the, everybody here what they what's the one takeaway that you got from what Jennifer said about herself? What's the one thing that you remembered? I I'm gonna jump in because I put it in the chat. I love that she she said something about superpower. I was like, oh my god. Superheroes have superpowers. She is a superhero. Like, the like, that that clued me in. That I like I like including that word in there because it it meant something. It meant she was different than everyone else in a good way. Yeah. For me, it was that, I I was just paying attention to the overall thing, and and it just gave me a sense that she has a lot of experience. Like, she's very seasoned. Got it. Yep. So I'm looking at the chat as well. A lot here about solving puzzles, which is which is really strong. And a lot about experience here, doesn't shy away from problems, experience with varied audiences, forming stories of the organization she worked. So people got a lot of things out of your pitch, Jennifer. It seemed like if I were to rank them, the puzzle solving thing would rank at the top. Okay? So Thank you. Here's the challenge, is because you you were working to land a lot of different ideas, people had different interpretations from your pitch. Okay? So and this is this is part of the fact that I put you in the hot seat and and asked you the unfair question. But it's hard for people to latch on to who Jennifer is when you give k. Them so many ideas to absorb your experience, you're a problem solver, and all of the other things that people had in the chat. Look back at the chat, if Chuck Chuck shares that, and you'll see. Wow. Okay. Let me ask you, Jennifer. What was your intention? Mhmm. What did you want me to understand about you, Jennifer? That I'm not afraid of, addressing any issues. I think that's one thing a lot of people don't wanna highlight that, hey. I can solve problems. I can sound solve challenges. That was one thing, and I've also been told that I need to focus on my, quote, unquote, superpower, because otherwise, I tend to be too broad in what I can do because I've done everything. I've been a one person shop for a long time. I've supervised staff. I've done everything from soup to nuts. And so they said that I've been told in the past that that was too broad to have in a pitch or in a description to answer that question, to focus on what I bring to the table. And I've Okay. I'm gonna have to stop. That bringing to the table is the problem. Okay. Sorry, Jennifer. I had I had to stop you because I totally forgot what you wanted to you said something in the beginning, and just tell me again what was the thing that you wanted to land in my mind with with your pitch That you that you're not afraid of I'm not afraid Go ahead. Yes. Correct. You're not afraid of what? Not afraid of solving problems. Solving problems. Not afraid of solving problems. Okay. Great. Alright. Good. We have a tendency when we're in a job search, you've you're six months in it to keep the funnel wide. We wanna be able to jam as much as we can in that minute. That minute is precious. We'll realize this. You have many one minute pitches in an interview setting. So what I'd like for you to do, Jennifer, is to land that one idea. I am not afraid of any problems and solving or however you wanna phrase it. I want you to land that one idea. That's it. Okay. And then I want you to tell me a story, an anecdote k. That illustrates that idea. Do you have something in mind that that Yes. Talks about how you're unafraid to tackle a hard issue or solve a sticky problem. You do? Yeah. You do? Okay. Okay. Perfect. And then at the end of your one minute, we're gonna try it again. I just want you to remind me of that point that you're making. I call this so for everybody here, you can write this down. I call this method par, p a r, point, anecdote, remind. This is gonna be your framework for when you pitch. So you make a point, one point only, don't make two. If you try to make two points, that's like listening to two songs at once. It doesn't work. I start getting confused right away. So Mhmm. You just think about how much ADD you have. It's hard to retain stuff today. So make your point. Tell me a story about that point, a real story. Nothing's theoretical. I wanna hear a real story. And then button it up, bookend it with a reminder of what that point is. Can you do that? Yeah. Let's give it a shot. I'm gonna Yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna lead us in, and then I wanna hear everybody's, comments on on how this has improved. Okay? So, Jennifer, hey. It's great to meet you. I have read your resume, and I've seen your LinkedIn profile. Obviously, you seem qualified here, but I would love to hear more about you from your perspective. So please tell me. Thank you so much for your time, Greg. I am excited to be here. One of the things I have is twenty five years of experience in puzzles. Many of them call many people call them problems. I call them puzzles. For example, when I was at the foundation, we had an issue with our online donation website. We weren't bringing in as much money as we could. And I looked at the data, and I saw that we really didn't have that middle level that we had low low numbers coming in and high numbers in, but we were missing a lot of the middle level. We did a very simple solve for that prob that puzzle. We took out a low level dollar amount, put in a middle level. Suddenly, we had this lovely bell curve, and we were able to tweak the website based off that. And in seven years, we increased the revenue from the website by a 70%. So I am not afraid to face challenges, and I am very willing to pick up problems with your organization. Alright. Mic drop moments. Okay. I would love to hear from folks on what they felt and what they heard and what they got out of Jennifer's new pitch. And while people put in in the chat their ideas, Jennifer, how did that feel to you? Very narrow. It was very focused. And I think if you knew the job you're going in to talk to that person about, you'd be able to pick up a much better story. I just picked one that I had in the forefront of my mind. Mhmm. But if you had an internal communications position or you had a media relations position that you're applying for, then you could pick a problem or an antidote, a story focused on that. So I I just picked one that I knew by heart. It's a great story. And what your story did for me is it made theoretical concepts stuff. I call it generic excellence. You know? You're you're good at what you do Mhmm. But you're not giving me a real life thing that happened. And what you did was you gave me this is the problem. We weren't seeing the donations that we needed to see. I we created a very simple fix, and we transformed this organization from this state of not great to a state of great in very simple terms. You gave them a sense of what that transformation was with a real so the the the anecdote, you you really placed the anecdote perfectly. You had a nice introduction, ten, fifteen seconds, and then you got, like, forty seconds or so for the anecdote, because that's the heartbeat of it, because that's what people remember. And then you've got five seconds to remind them of what that is, and that will incite a conversation. When someone hears that story, they're gonna say, now tell me again. All you did was you you just made the lower tier donation into a mid tier, and then you saw those results? Tell me more about that. That that's what's that becomes interesting to people. Telling people telling people in in, yeah, in in vague terms that you help solve problems doesn't invite conversation. A lot of people say that. There's as a matter of fact, I I, you know, I would I would imagine there's 70 people on this call right now. There's probably 50% of them can call themselves a problem solver or a puzzler like like you are, but none of them have that story, Jennifer. None of them have that donation story. Thank you so much. Well, I mean, it's just your story. They have other stories. So so, anyway, thank you for playing. I appreciate it. I think you did a great job. Yeah. Yeah. Round of applause. Go back into the chat. Round of applause for Jennifer for, that bravery in stepping up and doing something in front of a bunch of strangers. So thank you, thank you, Jennifer. Alright. We might have time to do one more if you'd like to do one more, guys. Well, we have we have some some questions in the chat or that have come in. Greg, if you're if you're good, us kinda bumping through those. Yeah. The best people to go on is kind of upvote some of these perhaps. But I'm gonna I'm gonna pull some out that one, talk about and we're gonna try to do these rapid fire because I do wanna be respectful of everyone's time here. Talk about this one, effect pitching virtually versus in person. Be able to read somebody's body language versus not being able to read somebody's body language. How do you trap how do you practice both of those separately from one another? Or is there a difference? I mean, yeah. Yeah. Just being in the presence of another human being changes the dynamic drastically. You can read people better. They're gonna they're gonna give off a cent. You know? So, there's nothing better than the simulation being as true to the form. I would say that, if you have someone like a a significant other or a partner or somebody who you can do some role play activity with in this realm, it's great to do that for those personal settings. Because practicing for a live interview on Zoom isn't gonna be, as good of a simulation. It'll help. It might get your concepts and thoughts straight, but being in the room and and that kind of engagement, you're not you're not going to you're not gonna feel it the same way. And there's just different challenges on Zoom that, you you know, you're a little blind, and it's easier for people to be distracted on on Zoom. You know, you'll you'll if they're checking their email while you're talking to them, that's that's not a good sign. That means you you shut it down and and you ask a question, which is always a good strategy, by the way. If you feel like you're losing them, shift and ask a question. Hopefully hopefully that's helped. Tazig, next next next question is, what what's some some good tips or advice or approach, I guess, using exact question here, on refreshing your pitch. Is it about perfecting getting one down, or how do you keep it fresh? What's what sort of feedback or cues do you get to say, like, that one's getting a bit stale. It's time to refresh it. So Jennifer had a story that she queued up in seconds. It it was it was actually pretty amazing. And and the way she stole it, told the story, it it tracked. It was, a well put together, you know, from, I call it a from to story. They were from, at this point, and they, and then they, they got it to this point. So, it, all it took was just her going into her, just, mental archive and finding that story. So a great way for you to keep things fresh is to have a catalog of stories that are in alignment with who you are. So Jennifer is a problem solver. Okay, Jennifer. You should come up with 30 stories of you solving problems. I have this trick. I learned this in in, a screenwriter's, school in Los Angeles. There was a guy who wrote a movie called The Usual Suspects. And the way he wrote the movie was he kept index cards near him all the time. And he would write down a piece of dialogue or a scene or a thought or an idea on index cards. One idea per card. So I've adopted that for my own. And if you if you if you, subscribe to my newsletter, which I suggest you do, it's all these stories that I bring up. Stuff from my past that relates to who I am as a brand and story coach. So you have an unlimited wellspring of stories. Stuff that's happened to you at on the job that are related to your own zone of genius. That's how you do this. So just catalog these stories, one story per card, and I've got probably a hundred cards here on my desk. And I'll I've only told half of these stories. So I'm adding your your link to your site in the in the chat, Greg. Oh, got it. Yeah. Put that in there for everybody for everybody to see it. I'm gonna we're gonna pick out one more because I think this is an an interesting topic, since you were picking on some of us who are a bit more seasoned in their career, Greg. Jennifer mentioned twenty five years of experience. Does that ever run the risk of working against you from an ageism standpoint? Did you mention how long you've worked? Is that a concern in the pitch? Use it to your advantage. I mean, they're gonna know. They're gonna know. It's hard to hide your age. I mean, Chuck, you hide it pretty well. But, it's hard to hide your age. So, you know, use it as an asset. And again, it's gonna become a great filter. Those twenty five years, maybe they're looking for youth, and you aren't you're not that. I mean, you can't fake your way into that. So, embrace it, own it, and don't apologize for it because there are people out there that value it. I've got 30 So I just put in the chat one of my favorite one of my favorite quotes from some of us know. I I'm I'm crediting it to her. I don't know if it's hers or not. Lindsey Turner says if you can't fix it, feature it because that's what can make you stand out. And so I I I have always adopted I have always adopted that out there. We're we're coming up on a little bit of time here. Greg, I do wanna share with everyone as a thank you for Jennifer being brave. I love rewarding bravery and people standing out, taking risks, getting help. Psychology is gonna support her and do it pay for a session for her to have directly with you, Greg. So Jennifer gets that one on one time directly with you so that she can benefit from that. That's how we wanna say thank you to Jennifer and encourage her in her job search. And I believe also, Greg, you have an offer that you wanna share with everyone here today. I do. Yes. I do. So I've got a course. I'm looking for the link right now. I'll put it in the chat. It's called Pitch Like a Pro. And Daniel and Chuck are generous enough to have me on and, they've also subsidized this course. So if you would like to take this course and you use this coupon code, I'll put the coupon code. So don't buy it now, buy it with the coupon code. Alright. So there it is. The coupon code is Icology, but the course is $99 And if you use that coupon code and it's just for today, you'll get it for $19 So thanks to Daniel and Chuck, they're saving you $80 on the course today. So it's yours for $19, an unprecedented price for that course. And it's essentially everything I know about pitching. So hopefully, it'll be very helpful for you, and I look forward to seeing you there. So, yes, everyone go save that link. You should be able to remember the code. Are we did we just lose everybody? Are we at time? Did it No. No. They're still there, I think. Oh, true. I thought we thought we lost everybody. Okay. Here's, here's what I wanna remind everyone. So so Daniel and I were great. It was great partnering with CommsJobs to do this. I wanna talk quickly about iCology for those that are not familiar with it. It is a heart and soul of of what I'm here to do for the, internal communicators out there, whether you're currently in a role, looking for a role, whatever it might be. We we have a soft spot for those that don't know that are out there hunting, and we know how hard it is and how challenging it is. So we have the gift of grace membership to join iCology. So what that is is it's three free months while you're in between opportunities to come in and take advantage of our community, our network, join us, be inspired by others, do some of that connecting and networking that, Greg talked about. And I will put that link in here as well, icolo.gy/join. If you're looking for that role oh, I guess I should have put the HTTPS. I thought we were past that now. I guess Well, I know you're you're you're doing two things at a time, but I I I was just gonna interrupt you, and say, you know, full disclosure, I'm a member of psychology since it began, well, officially as what it is today, like, three years ago now. Right? Four years. Yeah. Four years. And, and I I can't say enough good things about that community. It's just a really great and supportive environment and really something where you could, for for example, practice your pitch in a very safe environment. So, I I encourage everybody to take advantage of that, very generous offer, from Chuck and then Kristen to open the community for those that are in transition and and give it a shot, you know, try it out and and get to connect with some folks. And, really wanna say thank you to Greg. I love the the power approach to pitching. I was saying there in the chat that what I love about it is that here, we're all communicators. We are storytellers, and we should definitely bring stories into our answers. It it's it it comes natural for us. So, I love that, and, I just wanna remind everybody that, you know, comps jobs is that open community in LinkedIn. We try to keep it that way. LinkedIn now is not allowing to follow hashtags, so we kinda have to rely on each other in trying to monitoring those. But I just created, a group, a private group on LinkedIn, because some people were asking, like, how do we keep track of this? Well, at least that we're gonna have, a place, right, where we can stay in touch and and share some some jobs and resources for the community. So, definitely check that out. I'm gonna post it, tomorrow to start promoting it, and let's make sure to stay in touch. I mean, it was so great to see everybody talking on the chat and and connecting with each other. So you've got you've got three people here who are all cheering you on in your job search, whether it's been a few weeks, a few months, or longer. You've got three friends here. You've got our LinkedIn connections. Hopefully, you're able to keep track of some of the other people in here and connect with them on LinkedIn. But more importantly, we're all cheering for each other. So I wanna be respectful of time. We're a few minutes after. Thank you everyone for joining us for this. We will leave the stage here now, and I'll keep I'll see if I can keep this live for a little bit, and you can go back into the chat. If you wanna find some people, find some connections, please do that. But, again, proud to do this. Please keep an eye out for all the great things Daniel's doing with CommsJobs. We're continuing to build community with ecology for all the internal communicators there. And Greg is helping the entire universe with their comms pitches and their personal brands and helping you tell your story. Hope everyone has a great Thursday, and we'll see you soon. Bye. Thank you.