You want to prepare your elevator speech to sell an idea you have, promote your business or market yourself.
This is an essential part of your business. You have to be able to say who you are, what you do, what you are interested in doing and how you can be a resource to the person listening to you in 2 minutes or under.
You need to make this compelling enough that you are holding their interest and getting them to want to talk with you further.
First know your audience. Make your speech clear and targeted to the person you are talking to.
Know yourself. You can’t convince someone else to be interested in what you are proposing if you aren’t clear yourself on what that is. Define what you are offering, what problems you solve, and what benefits you bring to the prospect. Know what projects or accomplishments you have completed. You can pick the best one to share depending on the person.
What are your key strengths? What words best describe you? What do you want others to know about you? And why are you interested in the person or company that you are talking to?
Draw up a rough draft outline of your speech. Write down bullet points to cover and make sure you answer who you are, what you offer, what problem you are solving, what contributions you make, and what the listener should do as a result of hearing your speech.
Now comes the finalizing part. You want to take all your notes and expand on them. Write out each sentence in full, connect them together and make them flow, make sure it has everyday language and not something that is going over the listeners head. Rework it and take out any extra or unnecessary words and make sure it is no longer than about 90 words long and that it is under 2 minutes in length.
Practice! You want to read this over and over and memorize the idea so that you can easily let it roll off your tongue next time you are in a situation that warrants it.
Have fun with it! Make sure it reflects you and that you are confident in what you are saying.
