The Team Lunch Series: Unlock Your Best Pitch + Sriracha Soba Noodles

If you're anything like us, great conversation and delicious food are always a recipe for inspiration. Carolyn Sams and Isis Krause of First Seating know the power of a great breakfast or lunch to transform a team meeting into a fun social gathering – especially if everyone gets to play in the kitchen! First Seating helps teams of all shapes and sizes (especially non-profits and purpose-driven businesses) tackle their most important initiatives and issues through engaging, collaborative, creative round-tables helping to drive rich conversations, collaborative decisions, and stronger connections among teams. All summer long, we’ve been bringing you a series of team lunch concepts from this creative strategy duo to help you and your team connect and create business solutions in a fun, practical, personal way - plus office-kitchen-friendly dishes to go along with the discussion (like this Breakfast Salad!). So far, the ladies have shared their perfect conversation starters for your team pow-wow and ways to define your company culture to get everyone on the same page (and amped up about the work they're doing!). Today, Carolyn and Isis are helping you refine your core message so you can create your best pitch ever… In a world driven by storytelling, one of the greatest skills you can have is the ability to give a great pitch. We’re not talking tweetable taglines, but instead the unique ability to share a clear and enticing message of what your company, product or idea is, and why it’s so special. But getting there is tough, especially taking the time to step back and see your key value proposition. Inspired by the great Business Model Canvas, we’ve created the Messaging Canvas - a series of key questions for your team to find clarity in your pitch. Each section will help you and your team build up a prioritized list of ideas and phrases that will help you speak with authenticity and passion, instead of a script. Work through the Messaging Canvas over a long team lunch – we’ve found that a healthy meal will give you the time and energy to take on these big discussions in a way that’s invigorating and inspiring. Our soba noodle salad is a perfect lunch for this conversation: It’s easy to prep, and has a wonderfully-addictive combo of fresh ginger, scallions and sesame oil. (Two of our favorite soba noodle dressings are Momofuku’s Ginger Scallion Sauce and Heidi Swanson’s Otsu Soba Salad. We combined them into one and made a few tweaks to get the flavor just right.) [olists num=1] [olists num=2]

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