Introduce Yourself with Excellence
A forty-five minute interactive session for conferences, associations, and teams, in person or remote. Everyone walks out with one sentence that makes people want to keep talking to them.
Find your sentenceTwo Ways to Work It Out in a Room
Strategy Sessions on the Water
Two hours on the Hood Canal with a small group of business owners, talking marketing strategy, business development, and year-round revenue. Sailing June through August out of Quilcene.
Set sailWorkshop one
Introduce Yourself with Excellence
Most people introduce themselves with a title. In forty-five minutes, this workshop replaces it with one sentence that tells a stranger who you help, what changes for them, and how you do it.
Every person in the room writes their own introduction, says it out loud, and tests it on the person next to them before the session ends. Then they carry it into every hallway conversation for the rest of the event.
I delivered it at Social Pacific 2026 at the Vancouver Convention Centre, to a room of marketers from agencies, in-house brand teams, nonprofits, and government.
How the forty-five minutes run
01
Introduce yourself, cold.
The room pairs up with someone they haven't met and introduces themselves the way they always do. Name, what you do, who you do it for. Then everyone writes down exactly what they just said, before they forget it.
02
Four seats in the car.
Almost nobody says who they help. Everyone leads with what they are. We rebuild the introduction one seat at a time, with a worked example that grows on screen until it's a full sentence anyone in the room could say.
03
Write yours, then say it.
Nine minutes, pen on paper, a fill-in worksheet with the template on it. Then two volunteers read their first version and their new one back to back, and the whole room reads theirs to the partner they met at the start.
The four seats
Every introduction in the workshop is built from the same parts, in the same order. The order is the point. Most people lead with the last seat and lose the listener before they get to the part that matters.
- The driver: the person you're actually for, specific enough to rule people out.
- The destination: where they end up, and what arriving makes possible.
- The vehicle: the thing you sell. It goes last, every time.
- The copilot: the seat most marketers sit in, building the pitch for someone else. Today the car is yours.
The example from the workshop
Before and after
Before
"Hi, I'm Dana. I'm a Senior Marketing Manager at a regional credit union."
True. Accurate. Zero seats filled. The conversation is already over.
After
"You know how small credit union branches are really good at knowing every member by name, but when it comes to reaching anyone under forty they're starting from scratch? I help them grow their member base without running a campaign every quarter so they can stop doing two jobs. I do that through a member program the branches run themselves."
Who books it
Conference and summit organizers who want a session people talk about in the hallway afterward. Associations, chambers, and networking groups whose members spend their time meeting each other. Marketing and business development teams who all describe the organization a little differently.
The room doesn't need to be business owners. A driver can be a board, a member base, a client roster, or a region. Different driver, same four seats.
The format
Forty-five minutes, in person or remote.
In person: theater or table seating, a handheld mic, and a worksheet for every attendee. Remote: the same session over video, with breakout rooms for the partner introductions and an interactive workbook provided for every attendee. Either way, the room is talking from the first minute, before I say a word about myself.
Fees depend on the event, the size of the room, and travel for in-person sessions. Tell me about your event and I'll send a proposal.
Workshop two
Strategy Sessions on the Water
An intimate, exclusive setting with a small group of focus-driven, committed entrepreneurs and local business owners from across the Olympic Peninsula.
Two hours on the Hood Canal spent on marketing strategy, business development, and building revenue that holds up all year rather than only in season.
An onboarding form goes out before we sail. You tell me what you want to work out, and I read every response before anyone boards, so the two hours go to your business by name instead of a general talk about marketing.
Join me on the water
as we work on:
- Who your buyer actually is
- Why someone chooses you
- Where your next customers come from
- The referral engine you already have
- What to stop giving attention to
How sailings are booked
The season
June through August.
Sessions run in summer only, sailing out of Quilcene, Washington, on the Hood Canal.
As needed
Request a seat.
Sailings are scheduled through the season as requests come in. Fill out the request form and I'll find you a spot on a sailing that fits.
For groups
Pre-book your own.
Have your own group of business owners, a team, or a mastermind? Reach out ahead of the season to pre-book a sailing for the summer.
"In a market this small, ten referrers beat ten thousand impressions."
Alex Toombs
Meet your Strategist
I'm Alex Toombs, marketing strategist and business advisor, and the founder of Marketing Mapped Out. I live and work in Port Townsend.
More than $7M raised for organizations through major gifts, corporate sponsorships, and grant programs. An MBA in Sustainable Innovation. I know what a small market does to a business, because I'm running one here too.
Two hours, a handful of owners, and your business by name. You leave with what you decided written down and one thing to do that week.
Fifteen years in marketing, thirty-plus industries, and a standing preference for doing the work on a boat.
She steered me in
the right direction.
Alex is a pleasure to work with. Her work was timely and well-coordinated. She asked good questions and steered me in the right direction with her seasoned expertise. I'd highly recommend her to any company in need of customized digital marketing.
Kelsey Banfield
Based in Port Townsend, Washington. Summer sailings out of Quilcene, workshops wherever your event is.