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Elevator speech practice - 06/03/2008, Admin Comments 0

I went to a course last night on perfecting your elevator speech. Over a couple of hours I learned how to get the point across to people in about 10-15 seconds.

This is quite difficult with a technical product such as Mobile Data Now. The tendancy is to tell people about the features which risks drowning people in jargon and stuff they just dont understand. Countless times I've told my friends some of the latest stuff we're doing (and most of them are not computer types) and their eyes glaze over as I struggle to get the point across. The problem is we get absorbed in what we're doing and end up knowing it very well, of course the features are jsut great we tell ourselves. Everyone will want to know about the new features.

One thing which really gels with people is if you can show them a live demo. So, I whip out my Blackberry and send an email which 'Finds all my contacts beginning with the letter...' and enter in the letter H for example. I instantly get an email back with all my contacts who's names begin with the letter H. The light goes on in my friends head and they say wow, that was cool. Now I get it.

Of course we don't always have time for a demo and it's not always the right time and place. So, a good elevator speech attempts to get someone interested in what you're doing when they ask 'What do you do?', and then follow up with more questions which is then the right time to get in to more detail.

Ok, so a good elevator speech aparently works something like this 'I work with (target markets) who want to (what customers want)' with a focus on what the customer gets, not what we do, and to identify the target market.

So my first attempt is:

'We help mobilize businesses who want to access their business data instantly by simply sending a message from their mobile phone.'

Not quite right yet, and I'd be attempted to add 'There's no software needed and you can get mobile in 10 - 15 minutes', but I'd probably want to wait to see if they are interested by asking 'So, how do you do that?'

Anyway, still a bit more to refine and a way to go. The best thing is to practice on people to see if they get it.

Nick