How to Write Your Elevator Speech

I again reflected this week on how you haven’t learnt anything until you have put that learning into action.  This came to me, as I sat in a Marketing Workshop and heard the valuable outline of an elevator speech.  I have heard this before but……..  So, I am sharing it with you in the hope that you will find it useful and will take action on developing or perfecting your own.  An “elevator speech” is the speech you would give if you were in the elevator (i.e. lift for the British) with a  potential customer and you only had until they got out at the tenth floor to impress them with details about you and your services.  In summary, a relatively short description of what you do and the benefits you deliver.  A helpful, but by no means the only recommended structure, is to develop your sentences as follows:-

We/I work with …….(insert a description of customers)

Who have a problem with………….. (insert description)…………

What we do is…………………. (insert description)…………

So that……………………………………. (insert results)…………

Which means that…………………………………………….. (insert benefits)…………

Research shows that people respond more readily to problems than potential benefits, hence the focus on the second line. 

The Week:  I attended a 3 day Marketing Boot Camp for two reasons.  Firstly, I might actually learn something and secondly it gave me 3 days to focus on my business.  It was useful, enjoyable and I met some really great business people there.  Very often just attending an event and talking to people in similar situations is both inspiring and comforting in the challenge of getting a fledgling business off the ground.  The one I attended was NABO, http://www.nabo.biz.  They run free one day seminars for you to work out if it is right for you, and then offer a number of packages.  Wasn’t for me, however, I know others have found it useful.  Thursday morning was another business breakfast with the Institute of Directors.  As a member I get a discount, however non-members are allowed as guests.  We went to the Musket Club to hear about Leadership in complex situations.  Good networking and presentations. www.iod.com.  In the evening I went to London to attend the Women-in-Technology event co-hosted with BP.  Sally Gunnell gave an awesome presentation on what it takes to get a “Gold Medal Career”.  Extremely well-attended.  www.womenintechnology.com.  On Friday, I recovered! 

Now getting close to the next Highflyingdivas Forum on the 23rd November in Chelmsford.  See http://hfd1.eventbrite.com.  I also have some good response for the The Leadership Forum event on the 10th December in Colchester.  See http://lmf.eventbrite.com for more details.  Finally, I have now booked another Highflyingdivas Forum in London on the 18th January at the Pitcher & Piano in Cornhill.  So, get the year off to a good start and make a start on making a difference in your career and business.  Details at http://hfd2.eventbrite.com.

Reading for the week:  Good leaders are hard to find.  Everyone can cite a number of poor leaders but generally only talk about one or two they have met in their career.  In “Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter,” authors Liz Wiseman and Greg McKeown explain how these bosses are able to get the most and the very best from their employees. It is rated as one of the 10 best business books this year.

Lighter Reflections:  Why is it that when you are in a hurry or have a deadline, everything conspires against you?  I always empathise with those TV adverts that show the woman ripping her tights and getting drenched.  I’m sure she is on her way to the interview of her life and is already late.  Probably because the cat was sick and she had to rush it to the vet or the car wouldn’t start or the pesky neighbour decided to stand on her doorstep and complain about her children playing in the garden.  How dare they – don’t they have computer games? I had to get to Chesham, from Essex.  Google assured me that it was a 1 hour 33 min drive whichever route I took.  Being wise, I decided to give it an extra hour – I mean an hour – is that not a sensible and wise amount of time?  Two and a half hours later I was still stuck in a traffic jam with 50 miles to go.  My phone rings and its a friend who decided to try the A12, M25 route and is also stuck.  “Oh good, I thought, it wouldn’t have mattered if I had decided not to go A120, Mll”.  Now, why did I smile to myself?  Why had I been beating myself up for taking this route and not going on the M25?  Even feeling a little guilty at the obvious wrong decision I had taken?  The delight in finding out that you aren’t the only idiot who was going to turn up late is somewhat shameful I admit.  Three days later I struggle early out of bed for my business breakfast.  It is blustery, I am tottering down the gravel path in my high-heeled boots to be grabbed by the rose-bush at the garden gate.  It waited there, tendrils deceptively lurking in the undergrowth, ready to spring out and fasten around my long wavy skirt.  Hands full, I ineffectually try to prise the brambles away, whilst other stems take delight in catching hold of my circling torso.  Then of course, it starts to rain.  I look up to see my husband’s bemused face looking out of the window at his wife dancing a jig in the rain which involves complicated arm-swinging and skirt-plucking actions.  I’m sure he thought I was just limbering up ready for my drive.  “Just wait”, I promised myself  “until I get back and tell him what I think of our “natural wild garden”.  Needless to say, I was in such a good mood after the breakfast that it was all forgotten.  Until next time…….!!

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