It was a pretty standard networking event, and I was giving my standard elevator pitch.

“I build businesses quick-start content plans — a sort of minimum viable plan so they can do content marketing within their resources.”

Usually this elicits nods. This time, it elicited a question.

“So what exactly does that look like?”

You’ve probably heard me talk about the “curse of knowledge.” That’s when you know something so well, it seems like common knowledge.

You forget that what’s obvious to you is obscure to others.

I forget that, too.

So let’s workshop that elevator pitch. Feel free to workshop yours alongside me.

1. Who do I help?

Start with your ideal customer. Be as specific as you can. When I said “businesses,” that was way too general.

It’s tempting here to mention everybody you might work with.

Like, I work with entrepreneurs, solo business owners, and marketing teams. But that’s too much for an elevator pitch.

Zero in on your ideal customer. That might be the group that’s most profitable, that you enjoy working with the most, or that makes up the bulk of your client base.

For me, that’s marketing teams.

That doesn’t mean I won’t work with a solopreneur; I’m more than happy to. But I need to focus my message on the group I work with most.

2. What problem do I help them solve?

Zooming in on one customer segment helps you narrow down the value you’re offering.

This part isn’t about you and what you do; it’s about them and what they want.

If I were focusing on my solopreneur segment, I’d focus on the key problem they bring to me — usually, creating a content plan that will work for them.

Marketing teams, however, usually present with a different problem. They know what kind of content works for them; they don’t have time to execute their plans.

So that’s where I’m going to take my message.

3. How do I help them solve it?

Only now, at the end of this exercise, are we going to talk about ourselves.

The thing is, my “how” — creating scalable content plans that fit effective content marketing activities into the time you have available — applies across my customer segments. That’s where the curse of knowledge got me.

I know I can serve all these groups with the same “how.” But they don’t know that, which is why it’s important to call out a specific “who” and “what.”

So…

I help busy marketing teams develop effective content plans that scale to fit the time, energy, and resources they have available.

Notice all three elements are present — what I do, who it’s for, and the problem it solves.

Spring clean your content plan

If your content plan is feeling like a drag, I’m happy to help you freshen it up.

I’m looking for 4 businesses that want to have a clear, scalable content process up and running in the next 4 weeks. If this sounds like you:

• You have limited resources to put toward content (so you want to use them efficiently)
• You know who your ideal customer is and how you help them
• You love sharing what you do with people
• You’re excited to take a fresh approach

…then schedule a time to see what a Content Quick Start looks like and find out if it’s a good option for you.