Rock Your Career: In this series, Allison Hemming takes a rock ‘n’ roll song and weaves it together with personal branding and pop culture topics. Disclaimer: The songs were selected because of their title, not necessarily their lyrics, and most (but not all) songs will be classic rock. Our only hope is that it doesn’t suck. We’re sure you’ll let us know if it does.
Last week, The Pork Council changed its tagline from “Pork: The Other White Meat” to “Pork: Get Inspired.” Regardless of how you feel about the change, I’d like you to chew on why the original tagline worked so well and how you can apply it to positioning yourself.
Twenty-five years ago, pork had an identity problem: if you were going to choose between the two meat-evils, beef would win. When the Pork, the Other White Meat campaign hit, pork became the hip, healthy option to beef, and a tasty alternative to chicken. People started buying more pork and market share increased. A win all-around, except for the piggies, of course.
In the real world, our taglines are our elevator pitches. And delivering a winning one that people can buy into and share with others requires some diligent effort on your part. When it comes to elevator pitches, you’re told to practice them often and make them short and sweet. But most deliveries #fail because of user error. Instead of focusing on the content, we focus on the mechanics.
Content is king, kids. The power of a good personal pitch happens when another person can retell your story–without you standing there to coach them through it. If that can’t happen, you’re dead on impact. The original pork campaign worked so well because it acknowledged the competition. When you describe yourself or your company in relation to someone or something else. By doing that, you’re giving your audience much-needed context. Nothing is worse in a job interview then when a candidate proclaims that “there’s really no one out there more perfect for this job than me.” Oh really?! There’s no context there.
To get your elevator pitch remembered–and retold–you need to strategize first so that it not only resonates but embeds itself in the recipient’s brain. One need only look at list of the most popular terms used in LinkedIn Profiles to know that it’s easy for people’s elevator pitches to mimic one another (and ultimately go nowhere).
Networking events are chock-full of glad-handers who are “results oriented and motivated, team players” and “motivated and innovative problem-solvers who excel in entrepreneurial environments.” And then there are my most recent favorite group, the all-knowing “social media gurus” (now there’s differentiation for you). We’ve all been there, we’ve all met them, and usually we end up wondering “where’s the beef?”
If you try to put together an elevator pitch without the meat, you won’t be able to differentiate. Slow down, think about what you want to say, and tell a story that doesn’t sound like everyone else’s. Prove that you’re truly a “results-oriented” person by talking about a challenge, highlighting what you did to solve it and share the results of your efforts in a compelling and believable way. Getting comfy at giving examples is a skill set you can’t live without. When you add this kind of context, the person on the receiving end will retain your story–and be more likely to be able to retell it. And you can bet your elevator pitch won’t taste like chicken either.
Got a better tagline for the pork? If so, let’s have some fun and do a shoot-out in the comments.
Sound Check:
Piggies, by The Beatles
The White Album [iTunes]
1968
Notable Cover:
Greg Hawkes, keyboardist from the Cars, covered the song on the unusual, all-ukulele tribute album, The Beatles Uke. God forgive me for saying this, but it kinda works. (And the Cars have a new album coming out this spring, by the way.) Know of another good cover? Put it in the comments.
This you gotta hear:
This you gotta hear: The “Dear Prudence”- and “Piggies”-sampling “Change Clothes” track from The Grey Album. DJ Danger Mouse’s classic (and copyright-infringing) 2004 effort took White Album tracks and mashed them up with Jay-Z’s vocals from The Black Album (2003). Interesting.
