First impressions can last forever. That’s why they hold such importance. “Elevator speeches” or their equivalent are often part of that first impression. It’s your way of giving someone else a quick and memorable depiction of who you are and what you do.
So why are so many people’s elevator speeches so…underwhelming? Probably because the people giving them consider the way people absorb information.
FIRST THINGS FIRST…DON’T GO FIRST
In the situation of meeting someone who doesn’t know you, the person may have no connection to you other than you are competing for the same oxygen in the room. He may well be thinking about his own speech and impatiently waiting his turn.
So start by introducing yourself by name and without another word about yourself, asking who he is. Then ask him what HE does, using his name. “Bob, what do YOU do?” Then actively listen to the answer.
The very first impression is now that you cared enough to ask what he does. When you finally give YOUR intro, he isn’t distracted thinking about his speech. And YOU get the benefit of being able to spontaneously use his background to create a tie to who you are.
That tie might be a spontaneous introductory sentence, something like “What a coincidence, Bob. I’ve worked with a lot of people in the engineering industry. I’m….”
You accomplished all of this by inviting someone else to speak first.
YOUR ELEVATOR SPEECH STRUCTURE
The structure of your elevator speech is important. Even if someone is fully engaged, you can still quickly lose them in your words. One reason is because spoken communications is linear. They can’t skip forward in time…they are forced to listen to the words in order as they are spoken. If they get too much information at once or are confused by the way something is presented, there’s a bottleneck. They either throw away the confusing information or spend extra time processing the previous words.
In either case, you’ve continued speaking and your current words are often lost. Unless your speech consists of single-sentence unrelated ideas, you’ve lost them. The lasting impression you created is that you were confusing or that person who did something or other with sales or whatever.
HOW PEOPLE ABSORB INFORMATION
Your audience has an existing structure in which they categorize and file information in their heads. For most people, it starts with broad categories or “buckets.” Once they place it into the broader category, they can append more detail. But the broad category is still the easy, fast AND FIRST reference point.
So start your description of yourself with your general business category. “I’m a lawyer… or “I’m a writer…” followed by the detail of your specialty. It seems nit-picky to say you shouldn’t place the specialty first, because the time difference is all of a few seconds. But following this order helps people understand better and faster.
The next element is critical and the key element missed by many elevator speeches: the benefit people receive from what you do. That’s the thing that transforms it from a boring monologue on you, by you to a memorable and relevant conversation with your skills as the subject.
I like to start this part by stating it this way:
“Entrepreneurs and businesses come to me for achieve three core objectives:
- Improve the profitability on existing customers
- Identify and target the most profitable prospects, converting them to customers; and
- Speed up their sales cycle”
Presented in this way, I’ve given the listener a concise summary of who I am but stated it from the recipient’s viewpoint. “Entrepreneurs and businesses come to me” places right up front who I work with, allowing my audience to identify with them. I’ve also said “come to me” which implies I am in demand. By following that with stating “three core objectives”, the listener understands and prepares to accept three short benefit descriptions they will receive. I keep them short to ensure they can be understood easily.
And as a bonus, use of the word ‘I’ is minimized throughout the speech. Yes, the elevator speech is still about me, but stated in a way that I don’t sound like an egomaniac.
Now that they understand who I am and the benefits I offer, the best finish is to offer some of the specific ways I do it:
“I accomplish this through creating strategic marketing plans and managing the tactical implementations. That includes web sites, advertising in all media including online advertising, copy writing and other marketing tactics.”
If I placed that at the beginning, they might call me ‘web guy’. By placing that information at the end, I am branded quite differently in their eyes.
Okay, let’s look at the elevator speech as a whole now:
“Hi, I’m Gary Zenker. I am a marketing strategy expert and implementor.
Entrepreneurs and businesses come to me for achieve three core objectives:
- Improve the profitability on existing customers
- Identify and target the most profitable prospects, converting them to customers; and
- Speed up their sales cycle
I accomplish this through creating strategic marketing plans and managing the tactical implementations. That includes web sites, advertising in all media including online advertising, copy writing and other marketing tactics
It’s just enough that if any element there interests the other person, we can speak further. If not, they have a good idea of what I do and even better, understand the value proposition I offer. Then we can talk about anything that really ties us together.
Gary Zenker is a marketing and communications expert with over 25 years of experience. He annoyingly attempts to apply marketing to nearly everything in his life…and yours. Check out some of his work at www.ZenkerMarketing.com or his other blog posts at www.TheBigAha.wordpress.com.