The benefit of having a personal elevator speech
Paul White's nationally distributed syndicated column, “The benefit of having a personal elevator speech” is published in 22 publications across seven states. This includes the following newspapers and digital publications: Midland Daily News (MI), SFGate (CA), Seattle PI (WA), Connecticut Post (CT), Laredo Morning Times (TX), Huron Daily Tribune (MI), The Telegraph (IL), and more. In this week's article, Paul offers guidance on developing a 60-second elevator speech that would allow others to gain some knowledge about who you truly are — a speech that defines what's most important in your life and your belief system.
Part of the professional development I’ve had the privilege to participate in included some pretty intense sales training. It has always amazed me how the lessons designed to advance my career always contained “transferables” that could have a positive impact on my personal life.
I’ve come to acknowledge that all of us are “selling” every day whether it’s a baby selling its parents that it needs a diaper changed, a middle-schooler selling the desperation they have for a cell phone, a spouse selling their significant other which restaurant they prefer for dinner, or a worker selling themselves for a raise or promotion.
It’s ALL selling and some people seem to be better at it than others. The better ones have come to understand the power of effective selling and the role it can play in every aspect of life.
Activities that include role-playing can have a vital role in anchoring a thought process in our life that allows instant retrieval whenever we want to utilize it. This occurred for me when a sales training instructor had the entire class go through the task of creating an “elevator speech” for the product or service that we were selling, for the company we worked for. He referred to it as an elevator speech because he wanted us to be able to effectively pitch what we were selling in 60 seconds or less. He also reminded us that you never get a second chance to make a first impression and that it was critical for our success to be able to efficiently communicate the features, benefits, and advantages of our service or product in the average amount of time we might share an elevator ride with someone.
The underlying mentality was this may be the only chance you have to make the sale, so you need to refine your message and then practice it until you can communicate it forwards, backwards, and sideways.
So, all of us in the class sat down and worked on paring down all that we wanted to say in our elevator speech to 60 seconds or less. This was SO HARD. There’s a reason salespeople are thought of as someone who likes to talk more than they like to listen. We had the advantage of helping each other when we’d hit a mental blockade, and we all worked together until we had accomplished the task we were given. At this point, we began to pair off and practice “live” with each other until we refined our pitch to the best of our ability. Since this was a class that met weekly, we kept track of our sales over the following four weeks and every single participant recorded an increase in the number of sales they closed utilizing the thought process initiated by the elevator speech.
Embracing Keep It Short & Simple (KISS) and utilizing the Elevator Speech system created more success for all of us because we had focused on being able to communicate the facts, benefits, and advantages of our products or services much more effectively in a shorter period of time.
One day, while in deep thought, I realized that an elevator speech could be utilized for more than just selling products and services. I started to explore the impact it could have on a persons personal life. I framed it by asking myself the questions: What if I only had 60 seconds or less to convince another person that I was a good and contributing member of the community? A caring and compassionate individual? A good neighbor? A trusted co-worker? A person willing to help others? An unselfish individual? A potential friend? Now, this was getting really interesting.
My next step was to write down the character traits that I would most admire if someone was attempting to sell themselves to me. I thought long and hard about how many of those traits I saw in myself. I was temporarily distracted when I realized that I could use some improvement in some of the character traits I admired in others (but that’s another story). I ended up deciding that I needed to come up with a 60 second response to be able to positively respond to someone’s request: Tell me about yourself.
As I pondered this further, I came to realize that if I asked someone to tell me about themselves, I’d want to know the role family plays in their life, how they define success, what brings them the most joy in life, whether they have a servants heart, how they define leadership, whether some type of faith plays a role in their life, who they admire and why, along with sharing with me what their favorite character trait is in themselves. The trick became being able to communicate all those self-descriptors in a few sentences that would take less than 60 seconds to share. Next is what I came up with for myself.
Each day I strive to be a loving, caring, and compassionate individual with everyone I cross paths with. I embrace servant leadership, strengthened through my faith, to be the best husband, father, neighbor, co-worker, and community member possible given my unique set of skills that I continue to grow. I find inspiration in historical figures that dedicated their lives to helping others, and seek out people in my community that have a proven-track record of making a positive difference. Success for me is waking up each morning excited about the day ahead and going to sleep at night believing I made a positive difference in the world, and with all the people I encountered that day.
Is everything I said completely true in describing myself? Not necessarily…BUT I WANT IT TO BE! And if I keep repeating my personal elevator speech over and over, research suggests I’ll move closer and closer to all of it being true. In other words, I get better with every time I say it.
So, what about YOU? If you’ve already dismissed the idea that you could create your own Personal Elevator Speech ... You’re missing out on a great opportunity. One that doesn't come up very often in life. It's a chance to define who you are, what you stand for, and what’s most important in your life. You may discover things about yourself that you’ve been previously unwilling to admit, and parts of your life that you wouldn’t mind improving. This can be a great self-analysis tool that can inspire positive change in your life and the relationships you hold dear to your heart. I’m just asking you to TRY.
Sit down right now and write down the character traits that you would most admire if someone else was trying to sell themselves to you. Think about how many of those traits you already possess. Come up with a 60 second elevator speech that would allow others to gain some knowledge as to who you really are.
EVEN IF YOU NEVER USE IT, there are great benefits to completing your own, 60 second, personal elevator speech. So, get busy and GiddyUp!
In addition to being a nationally syndicated columnist, Paul White is an author, motivational and inspirational speaker, entrepreneur, podcaster, and life coach located in Midland, Michigan. He offers self-help and culture development to start your journey towards consistent growth and joy. If you’re interested in getting in touch with Paul, please submit an inquiry via our Contact Page.