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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"I thought I was a good pitch but Marc made me better."

Robert Hammond, Executive Director, The High Line

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
“In a short hour I went from a decent pitch to a targeted, clear, well-focused ask.”

Joshua Ginsberg, President Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
“This one hour was more impactful for me than days I spent in other communications trainings.”

Dan Nissenbaum, CEO, Low Income Investment Fund

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
“In one hour, I was able to see more clearly how we can better illustrate the need for our work.”

Diane McCloskey, Executive Director, CLEARCorps Detroit

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"Marc zeroed in on exactly what I needed to do to improve my speaking. "

Ashley Lowe, CEO, Lakeshore Legal Aid

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"If only all my one-hour meetings were so productive!"

Priya Jayachandran, CEO, National Housing Trust

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"I wish every community organizer in America could have this one-hour training.”

Madeline Janis, Executive Director, Jobs to Move America

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"I had no idea so much could be done in just one hour. Total game-changing work!"

Heather Ferguson, Executive Director, Common Cause New Mexico

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"It was refreshing to come away with new ideas in such a short amount of time."

Suzanne Graham, President, Downtown Akron Partnership

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"This is seriously one of the best trainings I have ever received."

Marielena Hincapie, Executive Director, National Immigration Law Center

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"I have never experienced a more streamlined and helpful one-hour training session."

Ben Strauss, CEO and Chief Scientist, Climate Central

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"Marc’s insights are exceptionally productive in a very short amount of time. "

Kevin Cadette, Executive Director, Black Angels Miami

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"Marc's training was like hitting a re-start button on our usual framing."

Gladys Limon, Executive Director, California Environmental Justice Alliance (CEJA)

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
"Miraculous improvements… in one fast-paced hour."

Roz Savage, Author, Environmentalist, First woman to row solo across three oceans

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Leaders never stop perfecting their elevator pitches:
“An approachable, interactive and energetic coaching style made the training easy to apply!”

Nicole Melaku, Executive Director, National Partnership for New Americans

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We specialize in efficiency: Just one Elevator Speech Training session will enhance your persuasiveness, boost your confidence, and simplify communicating complex subjects. Curious? Let’s talk.

What You Get

Have a framework for any speaking situation.

Our training offers you the 10-step Elevator Speech Framework that you can use as a skeleton structure to master any speaking situation, including one-on-one conversations. It makes preparing for or even winging a speaking challenge as easy as painting by numbers.

Increase confidence and gravitas.

Anxiety about public speaking is natural because our brains are hard-wired to fear rejection. The training offers a systematic approach to managing your fear not by trying to vanquish it but by befriending it. In the process, you will also learn tools to “prime your brain” before entering a speaking situation.

Discover how to be most interesting.

When making a first impression, being interesting is far more critical than being informative. The unique way we go about our work is often more interesting than what we do. The training offers a framework to identify what is most interesting about your work and for communicating it effectively.

Get your listeners to trust you.

In all situations, mutual trust is crucial for people to realize the full potential of collaboration and connection. The training gives you an easy, surprising, and highly effective step-by-step approach for getting your listeners to experience a “trust boost” towards you.

Solve the challenge of having too much to say.

A common challenge our clients experience is having to convey to listeners the complexity and sheer volume of their work. The training offers a solution to this problem. It leaves your listeners looking forward to continuing the conversation with you. It even turns them into messengers to others about your work.

Create a frame of relevance and purpose.

Everyone focuses on their day-to-day work. That focus often becomes the first thing we discuss when explaining what we do. The Elevator Speech Framework helps ensure that you step back at the beginning of speaking situations to answer the question, “why does it all matter?”

How We Work, Step by Step

#1: We learn about you.

We do research about your work and your professional background to customize the training to your specific needs and context.

#2: You prepare a bit.

Preparing is as quick as answering these three short questions. If you want to prepare more deeply, simply use our preparation worksheet.

#3: We do the training.

The training comprises one or two Zoom calls. Each requires one hour and is one-on-one. Expect a fun workshop atmosphere where trial and error is OK.

#4: We follow up.

After the session, we’ll send you an email with a summary of your specific key take-aways. We’ll touch base a couple times a year to reinforce what you’ve learned.

Success Metrics

1500
clients trained

 Client list

99.99
"Exceptionally" and "very useful" ratings

 About the ratings

100
Endorsements from CEOs

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500
Testimonials

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Employing a hybrid training approach, our AI chatbot Elvay (www.elvay.ai) preps you before your face-to-face with Marc. Elvay can even lead standalone, one-on-one training sessions for larger organizations that want to train their entire staff – regardless of scale.

Work with Elvay now

Elevator Speech Training by Marc Fest distills insights from thousands of Elevator Speech Training sessions into a 60-minute read. Clients receive a complimentary copy.

Buy now

“If only all my one-hour meetings were so productive!”

Priya Jayachandran, CEO, National Housing Trust

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“Elevator Speech Training helped us translate our successes more clearly to crucial investors like Morgan Stanley.”

Julia Kumari Drapkin, CEO, ISeeChange

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“This one hour was more impactful than days I have spent in other communications trainings.”

Dan Nissenbaum, CEO, Low Income Investment Fund

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“Marc’s Elevator Speech Training was, quite simply, transformational.”

Heidi Binko, Executive Director & Co-founder, Just Transition Fund

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“I have never experienced a more streamlined, to-the-point, and helpful one-hour training session.”

Ben Strauss, CEO and Chief Scientist, Climate Central

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“Marc’s training was like hitting a re-start button.”

Gladys Limon, Executive Director, California Environmental Justice Alliance

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Click here to browse more testimonials and here for a client list.

Marc Fest

About Marc Fest

Marc Fest helps his clients excel in fundraising, partnership building, idea pitching, and other goals. Marc is the founder of ElevatorSpeechTraining.com, a communications consultancy, MessageHouse.org, a messaging toolkit, and Elvay, an eager-beaver chatbot on a mission to help you reach your goals. He is a former vice president of communications for the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the New World Symphony. Previously, he created Quickbrowse, a web-based subscription service that enabled users to browse multiple web pages more quickly by combining them vertically into a single web page. He created Elvay despite his mediocre coding skills and without any external funding thanks to code-writing assistance from ChatGPT. Marc stood atop the Berlin Wall on the night it fell in 1989. When not coaching clients, he enjoys posting occasional short stories at www.mf.ly. He is the author of several books, including “Elevator Speech Training,” “The Message House Method,” and “Farm Stories.” As a side project, he’s trying to save the world with inthesameboat.org.