October Contest - Elevator Speech

October Contest - Elevator Speech
New month - new game

Recently I wrote an article asking the question What makes you special?  As Realtors and related professions, we all have similar credentials, similar jobs, similar experiences, similar marketing tools, similar markets.  But what sets you apart from your competition?

Here is your opportunity to share with others your Elevator Speech.  If you don't have one yet, this is a great opportunity to develop one.  There are going to be times in your life where you have a captive audience (like in an elevator from the first to the fifth floor?).  The idea of an Elevator Speech (also known as an Elevator Pitch) is for you to be prepared with a 30-to-60-second presentation of what you do, what makes you unique, and expressing the passion of your profession in a few words, but one that grabs attention.  You want to know your Elevator Speech and present it in such a way that people would want to know more about you, and that they might want to do business with you in the future.

Several decades ago I helped to start a young upstart company called TeleCheck.  As I hired and trained new employees, we developed their Elevator Speech, made it unique to them and their personality, and perfected it until it was interesting, concise, and thorough.  I then made them memorize it until they could say it in their sleep.  They knew it as well as they knew their own name, and they were comfortable enough with it that there was nothing 'canned' about it - their passion and their personality and their perspective came thru whenever they conveyed it.  The more they presented it, the better they became, and in that profession, the more sales they made.

Your Elevator Speech can be used anywhere you meet people ~ at the grocery store, at a conference, at church, standing in line at a movie, ANYWHERE that you are in a situation that someone might ask you, "What do you do?"  The whole idea here is to NOT say, "I'm a Realtor" or "I'm a Mortgage Lender" or "I'm a Stager."  The idea is to answer that question with YOUR unique SOLUTION that you offer to people, not the TITLE of your profession.  The more you use it, the better you will become, the more people will respond positively to you, the more you will not think about the words that you are saying but you will know the words so well that your passion will start coming thru.  People will REMEMBER you and want to do business with you.  At the very least, they will want to know you better.

To develop your Elevator Speech, you should:

• Write down your niche market (that does NOT mean a specific area, but WHO is your clientele?)
• What problems do they have that you can solve ~ as many things as you can think of.  You will edit later.
• What makes you unique ~ as many things as you can think of.  You will edit later.
  
• Write down what you do - as many things as you can think of.  Good, bad, funny, sad, tedious, interesting ~ everything you can think of.  You will edit later.
• Write a story, long or short, of what you do for people, someone you have helped, or someone who didn't fare well for not using your services.  You will edit later.
  
• What is your desired outcome (make a sale? get a prospect? get a referral?) With that answer,  
  
• Write as many action statements as you can think of that would spur someone to want to work with you, or what you want to accomplish.  Use visual words. You will edit later. 
  

Now begin to take the best of what you have written and edit it.  Find the best ideas from all that you have written down.  Pare it down until you have the best of the best in 60 seconds or less (you will be surprised how much you can say in 30 to 60 seconds).  An Elevator Speech might start with problems that your clientele might have that you can solve, what makes you unique, a short story.  Edit, perfect, edit some more ~ and then learn it.  Learn it until you could say it in the middle of the night asleep. While you DO NOT have to do video for this contest, you MAY do a video for extra points.

The Rules of the Contest

Rebekah Radice has posted the Rules and Requirements.  When you have completed your Elevator Speech, it must be posted to Rebekah's link.  Rebekah, Mimi Foster, and Pamela St. Peter will be the judges.  Contest ends October 31 at Midnight ET.

HAVE FUN!