It’s Monday!
Today’s Curio includes:
🧠 The elevator pitch that’s taken over my TikTok.
🚀 Let’s not call it ‘The Great Resignation’.
And inspiring ideas and insights to help you lead better, think smarter and build stronger.
🧠 The elevator pitch that’s taken over my TikTok.
By chance I came across the elevator pitch that consistently lands 7-figure clients for marketing strategist Jano le Roux several weeks ago.
And now it’s taken over my TikTok FYP.
I know the internet is full of let-me-show-you-how-to-get-rich-quick advice, but this one is different.
Le Roux’s pitch is based on the simple idea that people want to be treated with kindness, have meaningful conversations, and feel comfortable being themselves.
And his elevator pitch does all three.
I made me realise how conditioned I had become to the tried and tested way of introducing myself in client meetings or sales calls.
And creating my elevator pitch made it is much easier to start engaging conversations without the need to revive the other person from a jargon induced coma, first.
Here’s the example le Roux shared in his article on Medium.
You know that feeling you get when you have to painfully squeeze out the last squirt of toothpaste in the tube before going to bed after a long miserable day at work?
Prospect: Oh yes! That’s the absolute worst!
The absolute worst! [Mirror]
So, people come to me feeling just like that when their hair turn grey because paid ads are sucking the life out of them — and their wallets.
I bring a stroke of life back by helping them diversify their online traffic streams through Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and Pinterest ads so that they can focus on growing their businesses instead of constantly stressing about what happens when one traffic source randomly goes dry.
Prospect: It sounds like we should totally have a chat sometime. My ads are driving me crazy! Let’s exchange business cards and we can find a time that works for both of us.
Make your prospect feel something familiar first.
Emotions are data that prepares us for action.
Believe it or not, rationality in decision-making is woefully overrated.
Every day, we make decisions and behave in ways that maximise our emotional satisfaction and wellbeing both in the moment and in the future.
Le Roux’s pitch works so well because it first triggers a familiar emotional response.
He reminds people of their pain and prepares them for action.
Right off the bat, he builds a transformational relationship.
He describes how he’s helped others and that now their lives are different as a result.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth. It’s great to have many ideas, but it’s better to work on ideas that solve problems.
And as le Roux writes:
A problem is worthless if its pain points can’t be percieved.
Let’s stop calling it 'The Great Resignation.’
Sure, it makes for a great headline.
But it also distracts us from looking at the real problem: Poor job design.
We can't design jobs in the knowledge economy the same way it was done a century ago.
Let’s rewind to the early 2000s.
Our obsession with the tech sector is at its peak, and everyone wants to have hammocks, on-staff baristas, and foosball tables peppered around their office.
We thought the tech companies had it figured out.
And like them, we started substituting job satisfaction, personal wellbeing, and personal growth with temporary distractions.
But then the pandemic happened and the balance shifted.
It was a total mess at first.
And it forced us to find the balance between effort and reward.
And apparently, that’s what many of us needed to discover that there are other ways to pay our bills that don’t involve sacrificing our wellbeing and professional development.
Let’s call it the Great Reset.
Let’s park our obsession with growth at all costs and take this opportunity to rethink how to design better jobs.
Professor Ton at MIT Sloan believes that before you can offer job satisfaction, belonging, and meaningfulness, you need to provide jobs with:
good pay and benefits,
a stable and predictable schedule,
a career path, and
security and safety.
Her Good Jobs System is based on the idea that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
She believes that we do more with less by simplifying jobs, using automation and creating new opportunities for career growth through cross-training and stretch assignments.
It might sound counterintuitive, and you may be worried about how it will impact your growth. Don’t be.
You’re not abandoning your growth targets, instead, you’re building better jobs to continue driving growth (and stop worrying about keeping people onboard).
Here’s a mental model I built to rethink how I can design my operations.
It’s helped me make the most of automation, task simplification, and intentionally create more professional development opportunities without compromising my growth objectives.
Hopefully, it’ll help you too.
💡Inspiring ideas & insights
🖖 Lead better:
Building equitable collaboration in a hybrid workplace. /Google
When gradual change beats radical transformation. /SloanReview
Does your company offer dead-end jobs? /HBR
👩🔬 Think smarter:
Marketers report similar email open rates on mobile & desktops. /MarketingCharts
Navigating China’s new AI & Data regulations. /Forrester
Why do people share content publicly on Social Media? /MarketingCharts
The ever-changing and increasingly challenging role of a CMO. /Digiday
👷 Build stronger:
How Ferrero accelerated its YouTube reach. /Google
Figma’s Chief Customer Officer: good design inspires customer loyalty. /Econsultancy
it’s not easy running a geeky business, but it can be. /Wired
Lessons in longevity is an 88-year old zipper company. /HBR
Disney is using its audience data and Hulu’s ad-tech to compete with Google, Meta & Amazon. /Digiday
Stay curious!
Aliyar