Imagine you are riding in an elevator. The doors open and one of your top prospects steps into the elevator. You have a very brief (thirty to sixty seconds) opportunity to introduce yourself and convince your prospect that they need to have a longer conversation with you. What are you going to say?

Think outside the box.  Who are your target prospects? What job titles do they hold? What markets are they in that could expand your professional referral sources (those associated businesses to yours).  Take time to outline, ON PAPER, the answers to the proceeding questions. Consider how your products and services will help your prospects and how working with you will be different than every other sales person out there in the same business as you.

Take a look at Starbucks. There are coffee shops and bistros on every corner.  What makes Starbucks different?  The coffee is such that either you like it or you don’t, price really isn’t a factor as most designer coffee is pricey.  Starbucks is international, it is a homey atmosphere where people love to meet and talk, conduct business and enjoy that favorite coffee or tea drink.  So what does the elevator speech become?  “I serve up your favorite drink, quickly, with flare and flavor!” Or how about, “I manage the world’s favorite coffee empire right here in Hometown”.  Or “I own the local meeting place for coffee, business and friendships”.

Elevator speeches must be simple in context, and verbally catch the prospect’s attention.  The idea is to open the door to further conversation, and ultimately set up an appointment for further exploration of business concepts between your two businesses.

What if you are in a business that is not quite as stimulating as coffee?  Many business products are crucial to every day life but are not something that people willingly seek out.  Like insurance. Or mortgages and real estate. Or even finanical planning.  All of these ventures are critical for people to have or know about, yet sometimes is difficult to capture the propect’s attention. 

Insurance, whether it’s life, property or car insurance  is challenging to capture a prospects’s interest.  The elevator speech can open the door.  An insurance salesperson may say “I offer peace of mind to your family in life’s most difficult moments”.  A mortgage professional might say, “I help people get into their dream home, while developing some financial stability to their overall lives”. Finanical Planners might offer, “I offer diversity in financial well-being”. The idea is to get the door open for further conversation.

Once that door opens and your prospect shows interest you still have a very limited amount of time to continue to draw in your prospect.  Measure the quantified impacts of your company's products and services, and collect some quantified impact information as part of your marketing.  Outline the business problems that your company is especially good at solving. How has your company increased revenue, reduced expenses, and provided exceptional customer service.  Break these ideas down into succinct sentences. Nothing breaks through a prospect's mental clutter like a quantified impact!

Elevator speeches are designed to capture attention.  A brief 30 second time frame is all that you have to introduce yourself and what you do.  Pump up your sales prospecting success rate by developing a truly compelling elevator pitch. Make sure your elevator pitch identifies your target prospects, how they will benefit from using your company's products and services, and one or more examples of quality satisfaction that you (or your company) have actually produced for other customers.

A properly designed elevator pitch will help you stand out from other salespeople, break through your prospects' mental clutter, and hold their attention. These are the crucial first steps to convincing prospects to schedule time for more in-depth conversations and ultimately to choose your company over all the others.

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