Elevator Speech - Another way to increase your sales!

There are as many ways to sell as there are personalities. I once had a business associate, a very gregarious Italian gentleman, who could literally grab a complete stranger by the arm at a trade show and within a minute or two be engaged with what looked to be an old friend. He would then lead the “old” friend over to his product and tell him that it was something he absolutely had to have, and more often than not the friend would agree and sign an order.

I’ve also known more quiet and introspective types (me, for example) who considered salesmanship to be nothing more than a two-way conversation that explored whether mutual needs and interests could be met.

The moral here is that you don’t need to “put on an act” to be an effective seller of your product or service. Take your own personality and style and build your presentation around that.

An essential tool for any sales effort is the “elevator speech.” The name comes from the imagined situation in which you step into an elevator and see a very important potential client and you have about thirty seconds to make your pitch. In other words, with a very few sentences you need to clearly state what you have to offer and why it’s different from the 10,000 similar items on the market.

In fact, your product might not be substantially different at all; but a creative elevator speech, or hook, should make it seem so. This is not duplicity. It’s marketing.

Here’s an example. In my local paper, I’ve seen ads for “Swedish housecleaning” and “Brazilian housecleaning” services. I’m going to make the wild assumption that the process of cleaning a house is not substantially different no matter what country the house is in. However, there is something subtly exotic about having your house cleaned in the Swedish fashion, isn’t there? Marketing.

Give some thought to your own elevator speech. If you don’t have one, create one. If you have one, see if you can refresh it. With minor variations, you’ll be able to use it in conversation and in print. Consider it the headline for your own sales story.

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Dennis Fried has had careers ranging from physicist, to philosophy professor, to marketing director. He now assists his famous author-dog, Genevieve, with her writing career. Her newest book (Small Dog, Big Life: Memoirs of a Furry Genius) is out on May 5 from Simon & Schuster.  To contact Genevieve and Dennis, please email them at eiffelpress@comcast.net.  

Comments

[LeNesha @ My Business Adventures]

Thanks for sharing. I definitely need to nail down my elevator speech. I'm in my first 3 months of starting my business, so definitely looking forward to learning as much as I can from your experience.

Cheers,
LeNesha

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