elevator speech

elevator speech

The Power of a Persuasive Elevator Speech

1. Crafting an Impactful Elevator Speech

General Outline: An elevator speech serves as an introduction to you. It should answer who you are, what you do, and what you want to do. This is the simpler approach. And while you should prepare for your first introduction, there’s honestly no telling when you’ll be asked to significantly introduce yourself, whether it be as a lead-in to an interview or simply meeting someone while out and about. At the same time, your speech can also serve as your own personal commercial. Whenever you talk to people about yourself, they are essentially exposed to your thoughts and ideas. And no doubt, you’re trying to convince someone that you’re successful and possibly enlighten them to your methodology. The personal commercial is the more advanced scenario for those who are very confident in their abilities and have a clear idea of what they want to do. In this case, you’ll certainly want to sell them before they ask about you.

Beginning: Let’s get ready to rumble!! An elevator speech is a clear, brief message or “commercial” about you. It communicates who you are, what you’re looking for, and how you can benefit a company or organization. It’s typically about 30 seconds, the time it takes people to ride from the top to the bottom of a building in an elevator. You don’t have to be looking for a job to have an elevator speech. In fact, every professional should have one ready, whether you’re in the job market or not. Because you only have a short amount of time, the speech has to be short and the message needs to be clear.

An elevator speech is a brief, persuasive speech that you can use to spark interest in what your organization does. A good elevator speech should last no longer than a short elevator ride of 20 to 30 seconds, hence the name. Elevator speeches should be persuasive and memorable and include your “unique selling proposition,” the thing that makes you or your organization special.

Crafting an impactful elevator speech

2. Understanding Your Audience

Without the understanding of what a persuasive elevator speech truly is, one wouldn’t understand the strong link there is between the audience and the product. By using communication skills someone can figure out what it is that someone needs, then they can provide it. This is the most effective way of selling a product. So the speech is not just about selling a product it is about selling yourself. The speech must be made making a good impression about the person and you hope to talk again. And it cannot just be effective for its first objective either. A persuasive elevator speech almost closes the sale before the product has even been mentioned. This is because if someone feels appreciative to a salesperson and feels that the person has got just what they need, they will be looking to buy only from him at another time. This is of course beneficial and the most effective way of selling for the salesperson. An effective speech will act as a dual sale, selling both yourself and the product. With a good understanding of what the needs of the audience are, and this method of dual selling, this can be achieved.

Shift the focus to the other person. The elevator speech is your pitch to give you the opportunity to begin a conversation with a prospect, it is not a presentation. Its primary goal is to engage the listener in a meaningful conversation about the prospect’s true needs and how you can help fulfill them. It is not just a way to talk about your product or service, rather, it is a way to uncover an issue that the other person may need resolved but hasn’t yet addressed. Once an issue has been identified, the conversation then becomes a dialogue on how to address this issue and determine if your offering is a good fit for the prospect. By discovering needs and making a connection between your offering and a solution you have created an opportunity to make a sale. This in contrast to the salesman who delivers an inflexible presentation detailing features and benefits of a product.

3. Delivering a Compelling Message

When crafting your elevator speech, you should be asking yourself what the goal is of the speech. Is it to get an interview? An informational meeting? A sales presentation? A decision from your boss or colleague? Once you have determined the goal, you will be able to focus the message on the desired result. Oftentimes, people find it difficult to be specific with what they want. Your elevator speech should make it perfectly clear to the listener what you are asking for. A great way to end your elevator speech is to request what you want and offer the best way to follow-up. For example, if you are up for a promotion, you might say, “I know that the sales and customer base for product X are important for the success of our product line. I have a lot of experience in this area and I am convinced that a meeting to discuss what I could do to further success of this project would be worthwhile. Can we schedule something in the next week or two?” This creates a clear objective for the promotion of your own career within the company. Having a focused message is often not enough to drive people to act. How you perceive what you are saying is often not how people will interpret it. It is crucial to think about how the listener will interpret what you are saying and what the message means to them. This requires careful thought about the word choice and the emphasis placed on different areas of the message. Often times, you will have to change the message depending on who is the listener. The goal here is to know your audience so well that you can change your elevator speech to suit the needs of the listener while still conveying the same general message. This will enable you to persuade a wider array of people to act in the way you desire.

4. Overcoming Objections and Building Trust

Try asking questions stated as objections rather than mini-presentations of your solution to a problem. For example, if you are offering a vacation package and the objection is price, avoid the temptation to explain what a great value your vacation is. Instead, ask a leading question such as, “Now we both know that if this vacation is going to work for you, it has to make good financial sense, so tell me more about the kinds of results you have seen people get from a vacation like this?” The customer may toughen his position and at that point you can say, “I understand; it’s no good explaining results to your friends and family if it appears irresponsible from a financial standpoint.” This approach will divert his attention to a new objection, and by continuing to ask questions you should be able to lead him to see the value of changing his mind about the original objection. As one of the four-year sales representatives for Southwestern Company, Doug Arnold, currently a sales manager and recruiter for the company, used an amusing and illustrative method to teach his sales people to overcome objections. Arnold referred to obstacles as “dragons”, and had all of his sales people practice a process of asking questions to lead the “dragon” away from the general vicinity of the sales transaction. Unfortunately, the Southwestern Company sales people are trained to market educational reference books to families in need, rather than slay fire-breathing mythical creatures. Bargainers and those who love to negotiate are perhaps the most dangerous to sales people counterproductively sapping the value out of the work they do. The technique of asking questions to divert attention from the objection is also effective for this kind of customer. Leading people to think that they are getting a better deal on something if they are willing to stop asking for wholehearted agreement on the relevancy of the product, is action frequently caused by motives such as saving money. By asking a negotiating customer if an agreement on a substandard alternative would render similar results to a decision on the better product, a sales person can often change this type of customer’s objection to the price of the better product an explainable one to himself.

5. Maximizing the Benefits of Your Elevator Speech

Sean B. is a cartoonist and illustrator focusing on RPG, fantasy, and video game art. A graduate of the Joe Kubert School, he’s seeking work for RPGs, book covers, video game art, and trading card games. Now that we’ve led into the speech and hopefully asked them for contact information, there’s the issue of giving a phone number or email and the possibility of receiving work later. Avoid giving contact information or a real commitment. If the listener is interested in the pitch, their curiosity will make them ask what the contact information is.

An elevator speech is meant to be short, so Sean suggested a “List of 5” saying “During the conversation, the person might only give you a few moments before an appointment to speak more, so don’t lose the opportunity. Make sure you plan the request to deliver the message and at least obtain a business card or contact information.” Next is the transition into the actual speech.

In other words, we want to gently lead the listener into giving us permission to tell them more. For example, a photographer might say “Ever had trouble finding a quality photographer that’s affordable?” This is a good way to target potential clients and viewers, but what usually happens is a hit or miss on the answer.

Getting more comfortable with elevator speeches, besides enhancing your delivery, can be making them more effective by persuading clients to look at your portfolio. In her article on Fine Art Views, Carolyn Henderson suggests we can ask a question that leads into our elevator speech.