The idea behind an elevator speech is that if you are stepping onto an elevator and someone asks what you do for a living what do you say? You’ve got 10 floors to convice this person you are someone to get to know – someone to do business with. It is an opportunity to sell yourself or if you don’t have one, you might answer in a way where the person yawns and never gives you a second thought.
Ann Convery‘s article Speak Your Business in 30 Seconds or Less gives some great tips on how you can create a 30 second compelling speech designed to get and keep the other person’s attention. Since communicating is one of the ways to get other people to help you achieve your goals, you should read it over and create your own speech.
I have listed her points below and my interpretation of each one:
BROADEN YOUR MARKET – This sort of surprised me considering most marketing advice tells you to avoid the broad market and narrow in on your ‘target’. However, when you think about this, an elevator or first introduction can often be a chance meeting. You can’t really go too far into "targeting" when meeting someone in this way.
POWER VERBS -
Here she indicates you need to alter how you define what you do to what
you do for others. Saying "I am a database administrator" is boring.
Saying "I design databases that save companies on average $75,000 per
year." Gets attention. Takes a little bit of cahones to present
yourself in that way tho..
NUMBERS HOOK – Hey, I got this one right in the example above. Would you rather save $75,000 per year or would you rather save more money per year? Enough said.
SOLVE A DEEP NEED -
Where my example above won’t appeal to everyone who hears it, it solves
a deep need of just about any CIO or IT manager. So in other words,
what problems can you solve? How can you solve them?
Feel free to post your elevator speech here if you’d like a critique or suggestions.
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I was reading The New Job Security, by Pam Lassiter this morning where she details a do-able activity to make your elevator speech.
1.Intro — “I have over xxx years of experience in xxx.”
2. Three skills — “What I particularly enjoy doing is xxx.”
3. Two results — “As a result, I have been able to xxx.”
4. Question — “Are you aware of any xxx.”
Mathuri, Good 4 step list to hone and memorize for when a recruiter calls you out of the blue.
Thanks for stopping by and taking time to comment.
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