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March 4, 2005/Adar I 23 5765, Volume 57, No. 27
Make elevator speeches engaging
DAVE SHERMAN
Creating Connections
Last month, I started talking about the importance of always having a good elevator speech ready to go when someone asks you what you do for a living. For the next few months, I'm going to present a series of tips, techniques and tricks on how to develop a great way to let people know exactly what you do. Let's start with two very important tips.
1. Only focus on the benefits. When you ask most people what they do for a living, they have a tendency to ramble on and on about all the things their company does. Unfortunately, what they are normally rambling about is all the features that their company provides. The challenge you face is that no one really cares about the features of your business yet. They typically don't know anything about you and don't want to know that much about your business.
What people say when talking about their business is:
- Our company does four-color brochures.
- We provide financial services for small business.
- I buy and sell homes.
If you really want to grab people's attention, you must completely focus on what benefit you are bringing to them. Using the above examples, here is how to focus on the benefits instead of the features:
- Our company specializes in four-color brochures, so your company will always look great in print.
- We provide financial services for small businesses like yours so that someday you'll be a big business.
- I buy and sell homes so you can get the home of your dreams and not have to do all the work.
2. Being different is good. I've heard more elevator speeches in the past five years than most people will hear in a lifetime. Out of all of those pitches, more than 90 percent of them have started with name, title and company name. Here are a few examples:
- Hi, my name is John Williamson. I'm a CPA for Williamson and Associates.
- I'm Joanne and I work for Ballentine Motors.
- My name is Pete and I'm an account executive for the XYZ Group.
Are these people wrong to start their elevator speech that way? Not at all. However, if everyone starts their commercials the same way, people will stop listening after a while - and that's the worst thing that can happen to you.
The other challenge you face is that by giving your name and your company name in the beginning, most people will forget what your name is by the end of your introduction. If your elevator speech is truly engaging and people become interested in your product or service, many people are going to say, "Wow, I should talk to her. By the way, what was her name?"
Try to come up with something clever to really grab people's attention in the beginning of your elevator speech. You can ask a rhetorical question. You can start with a quote or a statistic or maybe a particular situation that you can solve. Whatever you start with, always remember that if you don't grab people's attention right away, you've lost them.
Dave Sherman is the owner of Connection Pros, a speaking, training and consulting organization. Contact him at 480-860-6100, dave@connectionpros.com or www.connectionpros.com.
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