Elevator Speech - My Approach
Posted 07-28-2009 at 10:39 PM by LeeDrozak
What does your elevator speech say about you? I could sit here and tell you all the ins and outs when it come to your speech. I could sit here and tell you what you should include and how you should present yourself. However, you have heard or read that all before. Being involved in a lot of face to face networking I can tell you the tips that have worked for me and what has not.
The purpose of your elevator speech is to sell your business and yourself and what better way to do that than be proud of your business and have confidence in yourself. I have found that sitting at networking events listening to the same pitches again and again can be rather tedious. So I changed up my strategy a bit and now instead of what I do, how I can save you money and what a virtual assistant is I focus on myself as a business owner.
I talk about what my latest project is for my business and how it can be applied to yours. I tell about what my obstacles of being a business owner are and how I overcome them. I talk about being a small business owner using social media to promote myself and My Office Assistant. I present questions that many entrepreneurs have and provide the answers to them.
At an event I attended today I spoke about blogging and as most of you know it is a daunting task I tend to out on the back burner. I presented the issues that I have as a blogger and what I am doing to alleviate them. I offered attendees a chance to write a guest post about their experiences in their own industry and how it can help others as well as gain exposure on another forum. I gave firm examples: the banker who can tell you why you should have a business and personal account, the travel agent who can give tips on low cost travel, and the financial adviser who can give you tips on investing for the future as a business owner. I explained that by using guest posts, I can touch on more topics to help business owners while keeping my blog articles fresh and plentiful.
So next time you have to give your speech try a different approach and tell about how you use your skills to improve your own business. This approach not only shows others that you are an expert in overcoming obstacles that many businesses face but it also shows your potential clients that you face the same challenges they do and you have the experiences to solve those issues. Engaging the attendees to think about the tasks they have for their business that you could help to overcome is the best elevator speech you can give.
All the best,
Lee Drozak ~ My Office Assistant
The purpose of your elevator speech is to sell your business and yourself and what better way to do that than be proud of your business and have confidence in yourself. I have found that sitting at networking events listening to the same pitches again and again can be rather tedious. So I changed up my strategy a bit and now instead of what I do, how I can save you money and what a virtual assistant is I focus on myself as a business owner.
I talk about what my latest project is for my business and how it can be applied to yours. I tell about what my obstacles of being a business owner are and how I overcome them. I talk about being a small business owner using social media to promote myself and My Office Assistant. I present questions that many entrepreneurs have and provide the answers to them.
At an event I attended today I spoke about blogging and as most of you know it is a daunting task I tend to out on the back burner. I presented the issues that I have as a blogger and what I am doing to alleviate them. I offered attendees a chance to write a guest post about their experiences in their own industry and how it can help others as well as gain exposure on another forum. I gave firm examples: the banker who can tell you why you should have a business and personal account, the travel agent who can give tips on low cost travel, and the financial adviser who can give you tips on investing for the future as a business owner. I explained that by using guest posts, I can touch on more topics to help business owners while keeping my blog articles fresh and plentiful.
So next time you have to give your speech try a different approach and tell about how you use your skills to improve your own business. This approach not only shows others that you are an expert in overcoming obstacles that many businesses face but it also shows your potential clients that you face the same challenges they do and you have the experiences to solve those issues. Engaging the attendees to think about the tasks they have for their business that you could help to overcome is the best elevator speech you can give.
All the best,
Lee Drozak ~ My Office Assistant
Total Comments 5
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Lee, this is so interesting to me - I'm curious about the actual event you went to... were you a presenter? Please elaborate, it sounds fascinating and actually opened up a whole idea for me for a free local mini-class for small business owners on the benefits of blogging... you got my wheels spinning!
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I love the idea of inviting people at networking events to be a guest blogger for you. That's a really creative way to combine your online and offline networking strategies, which I tend to approach very differently.
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Tess, this was a regular event where I was not a presenter. I just honed my speech to get what I need to say to 60 seconds and since this group meets regularly they already know what it is that I do but was enough information to make new attendees more curious about me.
I presented on social media a few weeks back and saw the challenges the others in the group are having. So by giving my obstacles and how I am solving them it open up discussions on how I can help them. This technique can be applied to anything from bookkeeping to email management. |
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That makes perfect sense, I love the idea of a 'flexible' elevator speech - sounds like you've had plenty of practice with the face-to-face networking. Thanks for sharing this information!
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Hi Everyone,
I know I'm extremely late on the post here, but found it and wanted to say that I thought this concept of the 'Elevator Speech' only existed in the Self Storage Industry. I just finished working with someone who's last promo involved the format of a good elevator speech, and I must say, until now, I thought it was good idea, but not great in the sense that you can form it to create inviting conversation, as opposed to just selling. I think this is great and especially when attending networking events or small gatherings. Thanks for the validation that it's beneficial in other areas too. |
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