Your elevator speech is that 30-second spiel you have memorized that you can quickly and easily recite any time that you have at least a minute to interact with anyone, like sharing a ride in an elevator, hence the term elevator speech. Skillful businesspeople know how to create and maximize your elevator speech, and here is how it is done.
What is Your Purpose?
Before you start your script you need to know what your purpose is so that you know what you want to be included in your speech. Make a list. No need to think it through too much, just get an idea of what you want other people to know about you and what you do. Chances are you will have enough ideas that you could never condense them all down to 30-seconds, and that is good.
Now that you have your list, go through and cut it down to things you want to say,
1. About You
2. What You Offer
3. Why You?
4. How You Do It
5. What They Can Do
Not an easy task to whittle everything down to 8 to 10 sentences that you can speak definitively in 25 to 30 seconds, right?
About You
You want to detail information about you, your business or company. It is good to tell them something about you that they are not likely to hear from anyone else, something that makes you and/or your company stand out.
What You Offer
Give an example of what you do, resulting in an outcome that most anyone could find agreeable or even desirable.
Why You?
This is where you disclose the benefits enjoyed by your clients, include problems your clients faced and solutions that you provided (that couldn’t be found otherwise).
How You Do It
Give an example of the steps you would go through to help someone with your solution to their problem.
What They Can Do
This is the part that is normally left out, a call to action. Tell them what they can do right now. Take your business card and call for an appointment? Whatever it is, tell them to take an action of some kind, and check back with you after they have done it. Then end your elevator speech with a quick question.
Something like,
“If you could have it any way you wanted it, what would that look like?”
What’s in it for me?
Remember, there is only one thing that anyone is listening to when you are talking to them in your 30-second elevator speech (and almost any other time you are speaking) and it is, “What’s in it for me?”
Know that you know this, don’t waste your breath unless you are conveying something that interests or deeply-connects to something that your listener wants.
Make the most of this precious, possibly one-time, 30-second interaction.
Even if your elevator speech doesn’t have anything of substance that interests the person you are talking to, if it is powerful enough, they will refer your offer to someone who is in need of what you have to offer.