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Your Elevator Speech: The Most Important Few Words in Your Business Life
Written by: Anne FreedmanArticle Overview: When opportunity presents itself, those with a well-crafted "elevator speech" are in the best position to seize the moment.
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Free Download - 5 things NOT to say to yourself for successful persuasive speaking By Anne Freedman |
Your Elevator Speech: The Most Important Few Words in Your Business Life
Despite the growing importance of the Internet, many people still depend on successful face-to-face communication for their business and advancement, in both the for-profit and nonprofit arenas.
One of the most talked-about – and challenging – aspects of daily business life is the ability to be able to say what you do in just a few words. Popularly called “the elevator speech” or “the elevator pitch,” this mini-commercial enables others to quickly understand your specialty and decide whether or not it’s worthwhile to pursue a conversation with you.
The reality is there is much more that you could say than you’ll ever have to time to recite. Further, the teenage mantra, “nobody cares,” applies. With the exception of your mother, your significant other and perhaps your best friend, no one else really wants to hear everything you could tell them about your product, service or company.
That said, a strategy that has worked for our clients over the years is to first write out a 200-word description of your company or product. Then, cut it down to 100 words. It is painful, but you’ll find yourself weeding out the lesser important details. Finally, cut it even further to 50 words – about a typical 30-second elevator speech.
To appear confident and an expert when you deliver your elevator message, be sure to practice it aloud at least nine times until it rolls off your tongue naturally. Try it out in front of a close friend. Eliminate any words you can not say easily or that sound stilted.
Smile and look the person in the eye. Remember, you have something important to share! They just don’t know it yet.
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About the Author: Anne Freedman RSS for Anne's articles - Visit Anne's website  Click here to visit Anne's website   Your Elevator Speech The Most Important Few Words in Your Business Life How to Say It Quickly and Still Make Your Point Four of the Most Common Mistakes in Persuasive Speaking 5 things NOT to say to yourself for successful persuasive speaking |
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Ad words
- And I forgot... you could give Google Ad Words a try.
I've used that in the past and was never able to get my click rate below 20 cents, but perhaps you'll have better luck.
With Google Ad Words, your ad (which you must make sure you write properly) will send people to your website, so it's a must have.
The Second Life Platform
- Greetings! I'm not sure how many of you have heard of or are sensitive to Second Life and its related entities. However, Second Life is a fantastic platform to mimmick real life business operations in a real currency based economy. There are plenty of successful stories for creative individuals, but I'd highly suggest doing your research and appreciating Second Life for what it is, and what it isn't.
Facebook and Business
- While on the Elevator today I read that MySpace and Facebook are surpassing adult-sites in traffic volumes - just thought that was interesting fact.
As far as your business is concerned I think that having a Facebook account is viable as long as you keep it business and the most important thing to increase your traffic would be to link up with people well-known in your business-circle. e.g. if your were in the Marketing Business Circle I would link up with people like Dan Kennedy, Mike Filsame, Yanik Silver etc.
People linked up with them will now start pouring into your content.
Re: What works for you?
- Hi Yinka,
I work better under pressure of deadlines when I am doing something for other people. However, I like to have the leisure to develop my own projects. The first case is what Stephen Covey calls a "Quadrant 1" activity ("Important and urgent") whereas the second case is a "Quadrant 2" activity ("Important, not urgent").
We should aim to make as much time as possible for Q2 activities so that we can develop our own projects. Easier said than done!
My entry
- 1. The Best Business Books Ever: The 100 Most Influential Business Books You'll Never Have Time to Read
- this is a fascinating book about the history of Business theory, and I'd recommend it to anybody.
2. The Big Book of Small Business: You Don't Have to Run Your Business by the Seat of Your Pants, by Tom Gegax. Ditto.
3. PADI: The Business of Diving Book
Okay, so this book won't be of use to anyone who doesn't want to start a scuba store, but I did, and this book was of course invaluable to me in reaching that goal.
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