Elevator Speech examples are everywhere. Any networking event will have a ton of 30 second elevator speeches being delivered, some effective, others frankly not so much!
At any such event gaining attention with your elevator speech is the primarily, and overriding goal.
What is the best way to do that?
By way of illustration of the point, here is a story about my dog! Bear with me, this has relevance! My 5 year old dog has always been allowed to run free in the yard because the boundary is marked with a low voltage underground dog fence. Every time she approaches the edge of the property her collar emits a high pitched noise. Should she continue forward (which she never does) it will give her an electric shock to the neck. Her reaction suggests this is painful and so she will do anything to avoid it - this is the key point: PAIN AVOIDANCE.
This same dog is food obsessed. Always of the prowl for food and will apparently do anything to eat. Key point here: equals PLEASURE.
Guess which of these forces is the stronger?
Food drives here but it will never encourage her to cross that line.
From the point of view of your elevator speech, similar forces are at work. People are hugely more complex than dogs of course and I am not suggesting electric shock therapy. However the avoidance of pain and it's emotional associations of fear, frustration, anger, bewilderment etc. are the strongest drivers to gaining the attention of your audience.
Pleasure can work too but it is far less powerful. However this is where a lot of 30 Second Elevator speeches lose the power to grab attention - they speak to NEITHER of these things.
In other words the introduction is a list of services, awards won, length of time the business has been around, great customer service and so on. These do not connect with pleasure, or pain.
The best way to grab the attention is to make sure your elevator speech quickly connects with the pain points with which your ideal target market is dealing. You do this in the following way:
Ideal Client - take the time to define the ideal client for your business. Not just any client, the clients that you most like to serve. Those it is a joy to work with.
Define their pain points - what problems do they deal with that your business is set up to overcome or take away? If you are not sure, asking them is a good way to find out.
Make that the focus of your elevator speech - at least the first 10 seconds. Include emotion words that describe the pain you take away.
For example: "I help small business owners frustrated with their computer systems and confused as to what systems they need"
or: "We work with baby boomers who are concerned they don't have the right policies in place for retirement and are annoyed that they can never seem to get a straight answer to their questions"
or: "Scared of Spiders? Horrified when you see a mouse? We take care of household pests so you never have to worry again"
These work because you are getting to emotions and feelings and that is the most immediate way to grab attention.
0 comments:
Post a Comment