How to Create Your Own Elevator Speech

• Jeff Eckhoff
  1. Write down what you do. Write it several different ways. Don’t edit yourself – you will edit later. This first step is for generating ideas. Don’t hold back. Ideas can be goofy, serious, wild, funny, or conservative. It doesn’t matter. The goal is to get as many ideas as possible down on paper.
  2. Write a very short story that illustrates what you do for people. If necessary, the story can be long. You will boil it down later. Paint a picture with words.
  3. Write down your objective or goal. Do you want to make a sale, gain a prospect, enlist support for an idea, earn a referral, or something else?
  4. Write action statements. This is a statement or question designed to spur the action associated with your goal.
  5. Let it sit. Come back to what you’ve written with fresh eyes the next day or later on in the same day.
  6. Highlight the good stuff. Listen and read through what you’ve written. Then either highlight or circle the phrases that hook you with clear, powerful, and visual words. Obviously not all the words will fall into these categories. You still need connector words, but you want as few as possible.
  7. Put the best pieces together. Again, you’ll want to write down several versions of this much tighter pitch. Tell what you do and why people should want to do business with you. Include elements from your story if you can fit it in.
  8. Do a final edit, cutting as many unnecessary words as possible. Rearrange words and phrases until it sounds just right. Again, the goal is 30-60 seconds maximum.
  9. Dress Rehearsal. Run it by as many people as you can get to listen to you. Get feedback from colleagues, clients you trust, friends, and family.
  10. Done for now. Take your final elevator speech and write it down. Memorize and practice it until it just slides off your tongue naturally.
  11. Continue to improve. Over time, always be on the listen for phrases that you think could make your elevator speech more clear and impactful. And then test it out. Every once in a while you will probably benefit by starting from scratch because things always change: you, your business, your goals, and your clients’ needs.