Elevator Speech Training, 5 Years Later

With some concern, I clutched three glass marbles in my pants’ right pocket on a recent Wednesday morning. I stood before my computer with 30 people on the Zoom call. They were professionals designated “top talents” by their HR leaders from the US, France, England, and Poland. They worked at Politico and eight other subsidiaries of their parent company, the global media conglomerate Axel Springer. I hoped the marbles would help my Zoom-based training approach go beyond one-on-one and include groups of various sizes.

From “Rehearsify” to “Elevator Speech Training”

Rewind five years. It was January 2019, a year before COVID-19, when I pivoted my communications consulting work to what I call Elevator Speech Training. I had to explain to its early participants what Zoom was and why they should download and install it. My clients seek Elevator Speech Training to learn how to speak more persuasively, whether for making a presentation, pitching a project to a potential donor, or simply making your point effectively. I started doing this kind of coaching in the early 2010s when the Knight Foundation asked me to help some winners of its Knight News Challenge contest with the 3-minute lightning presentations they were supposed to give at a conference. They said it helped them a lot. They appreciated that it took just one hour by phone or Skype.

However, my initial attempts to make this line of work my focus were unsuccessful. First, I called it “Rehearsify.” I created a website and even an explainer video. It went nowhere. A year or so later, I considered naming the endeavor “Joyful Speaking” (because there was a lot of mutual joy in the training sessions). Again, there was no traction.

I don’t remember what inspired me to call it “Elevator Speech Training.” This third attempt resonated. Early clients included my former employer, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, then the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and, notably, the JPB Foundation.

A Key Milestone: JPB Foundation’s Involvement

In 2020, the pandemic began disrupting life as we knew it. The JPB Foundation asked me to provide 50 training sessions to its environmental justice and antipoverty portfolio grantees. The sessions would be one-on-one, Zoom-based, with four slots per organization. To make the invitational logistics easy for the foundation, I devised a system that only required sending one group email to all grantees. The first paragraph of the email read: “We are pleased to offer you a unique training opportunity focused on sharpening your communication about the importance of your work. We have 50 slots and are making them available on a first-come, first-served basis.”

Real Feedback from Real Participants

The sessions were taken up quickly, and as the post-session feedback rolled in, it became clear that the clients found their experience very helpful. I remember excitedly sharing the first incoming feedback (from a racial justice organization) with Betsy Krebs and Dana Bourland, the two senior vice presidents at the JPB Foundation. It read:

"I found it most useful that Marc did his research on my organization in advance; this helped him tailor his instruction to me and the messaging I needed to include. […] Finally, and probably THE most useful was Marc's recording and playback - two times - of my elevator pitch. The live feedback, the ability to see what his evaluation really applied to, and the opportunity to do it a second time AND review it once more was invaluable.”

67% of survey respondents rated their experience “exceptionally useful” and 33% “very useful” on a five-point scale of not at all, somewhat, moderately, very, and exceptionally useful. Over the next three years, JPB expanded the offering to 300 slots annually for its grantees. The foundation also gave the training to almost all its in-house staff.

Five years and 2,300+ participants later, the positive feedback regarding the usefulness of the training remains strong. More than 500 participants have given testimonials. Here are three of them:

"Working with Marc helped improve how I formulate and communicate ideas with funders!"

Stephanie Kalele, Development Manager for Movement Building, National Domestic Workers Alliance

"In just an hour I left with concrete ways I can be more effective."

Rachel Micah-Jones, Executive Director, Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc.

"I highly recommend this training."

Jojo Annobil, Executive Director, Immigrant Justice Corps

You can browse all 500+ testimonials at est.io/t.

Beginning in 2021, the Ford and MacArthur Foundations also began giving the training to their staff and grantee partners.

The Role of NEO Philanthropy

I want to highlight the crucial role of my fiscal sponsor, NEO Philanthropy of New York. A fiscal sponsor allows small entities like mine (I’m basically a one-man show) without 501(c)(3) status to receive foundation support. By becoming a fiscally sponsored project of NEO Philanthropy, JPB, and other foundation clients of mine can make grants to NEO as an intermediary. NEO then passes funds to Elevator Speech Training and handles all the paperwork and legal requirements. NEO focuses on supporting projects that build strong social justice movements. It acts as a true partner. The bottom line is that it makes an incredibly positive difference that Elevator Speech Training is a project of NEO Philanthropy.

I recently spoke with Amy Minter, Senior Program Officer at the JPB Foundation. Amy has been my ever-present, ever-supportive connection point at the JPB Foundation. She was the one to greenlight extra sessions for grantees who requested them. She was also the first person at JPB to test-drive my AI-driven Elevator Speech Training assistant coach, Elvay.

Amy told me that the in-house training at JPB “crystallized how our staff talked about their work and also helped build confidence.” Regarding the impact on grantees, she said, “I would just encourage other funders to ensure ways that they can have their grantees participate in this training. I think it's helped our grantees talk to other funders and partners.”

Surprising Demand for Training

One thing Amy says was surprising to JPB is the level of interest by their grantee partners. “I was just really surprised and continue to be surprised by how much our grantees still request this, that the minute you send out an email, everyone wants to sign up. The demand hasn't gone down at all. I think the word spreads.”

“I was just really surprised and continue to be surprised by how much our grantees still request this, that the minute you send out an email, everyone wants to sign up. The demand hasn't gone down at all. I think the word spreads.” Amy Minter, Senior Program Officer at the JPB Foundation

Back to the marbles in my pocket and the Zoom call with the 30 top talents from Axel Springer. The moment would begin a new chapter in my Elevator Speech Training journey: Group sessions that make it possible to extend the benefits by going beyond the one-on-one Elevator Speech Training sessions. I was nervous.

A New Chapter: Group Sessions Begin

Frankly, despite frequent requests, I had been resisting group sessions. Transferring the elements that made the one-on-one setting effective to larger groups would not work. These elements include extensive research about the participant's professional background, listening at the beginning of the session to find out what matters most to them, and customizing the training. So, how was I going to format the training? Should I present a "best of" list of tips and tricks my clients find most useful? Work with a single individual before everyone else as if the audience didn't exist? I spent two weeks considering different possibilities and asking colleagues, friends, and loved ones for their opinions.

Long story short, the solution was to focus the Axel Springer session on one central idea: the importance of "showing" a sufficient number of concrete pieces of evidence as proof of a claim. The marbles served as a visual metaphor for these pieces of evidence. "When you claim you have marbles," I said, "it helps tremendously to pull some out of your pocket and show them to your audience." I did exactly that on the Zoom call, cradling the three marbles in the palm of my hand and holding it in front of the camera, saying, "Pretty convincing, right?" The marbles gave the training a "show" rather than "tell" character, imprinting the central idea with the "stickiness" of visual memory. They popped up repeatedly during the session, and the concept they illustrated was the key takeaway mentioned repeatedly in post-session feedback.

I’m confident this approach will work for groups of all sizes. I am excited to apply it to entire organizations and movements. It will be a highly efficient way to elevate their persuasion power across the board.

Getting to this point was only possible with the early support of my foundation partners, especially the JPB Foundation, and my fiscal sponsor, NEO Philanthropy. I want to express my heartfelt thanks to them.

Learn more at https://elevatorspeechtraining.com