The Elevator Speech or the Me in 30 Seconds

It’s called an elevator speech, but your personal commercial that describes your career assets can happen on an escalator, at a ballgame or in a place of worship. The idea is that when someone asks you what you do, you often have less than a minute to answer (before the elevator door opens).

According to Karin Combs, career coach and owner of Source One Career Coaching (www.sourceonehr.com/), the elevator speech has four basic components:

* Your name and title (a title everyone will understand)
* Who you serve (e.g. internal customers)
* What you do (the skills you have to help a company make money, save money and/or solve problems)
* Your target market (i.e., target companies, geographic areas, company size, area of interest)

“As you begin to say your elevator speech out loud, it will sound like a script,” says Combs. “Practice your elevator speech with everyone! Begin to own it and believe it and it will start to sound more natural. Make it your own words and practice, practice, practice!” (Combs has an elevator-speech template on her website at www.sourceonehr.com/images/Perfecting_Your_Elevator_Speech_Exercise.doc.)

In role-playing with networking colleagues, Interactive Marketing Leader Ray Smith (raysmithweb@gmail.com) would pretend to be the hiring manager. Before hearing an elevator speech, Smith would say “I have 10 people out in the hallway who say they do what you do. I'll give you 30 seconds. If you convince me that you're the one I should hire, I'll tell the rest to go home right now. But if you sound just like the rest, I'm going to yell ‘next!’ Go ahead and tell me what makes you different."

Smith says that to test the effectiveness of your elevator speech, ask your networking contact to repeat what you do. “If what they're repeating isn't what you want communicated, keep shortening the elevator speech and revising it until they do.”

To make his elevator speech memorable, Scott Wittich begins with “My name is Scott Wittich, and I’m out of control,” using a slightly depressed voice and pausing for effect. With a more upbeat and enthusiastic tone, Wittich continues with “Actually, I'm a Financial Controller who is out of a job…”

“If you are going to use humor in an elevator speech, it has to feel and sound natural,” says Wittich. “The bigger point to be made is that no matter what the content of your elevator speech or how you say it, it has to sound natural and be true to who you are or you will sound phony.”

In its entirety, Scott’s elevator speech is:

My name is Scott Wittich, and I'm out of control... Actually, I'm a Financial Controller who is out of a job. But I am looking for a Controller or Accounting Management position that will allow me to get back in control to help a company control its costs and assets.

Many people think accounting is boring, but when I worked with operating departments to develop a $125 million annual budget, and worked with those same departments to reduce budgeted costs by $16 million in 5 years, which enabled our operation to be the lowest cost producer of 12 branches, I found that very exciting, especially when it provided job security for the plant's employees. I am looking for the opportunity to again work with managers to develop and achieve similar goals.

(In this section, Wittich tailors his target market according to his audience, including industry type, company size and geographic location.)

Again, my name is Scott Wittich, and I would appreciate it if you would let me know about any companies searching for a Controller or Accounting Manager.

“I think it is important to emphasize each point of your speech and change the tone of your voice so you don't speak in a monotone,” says Wittich. “If you forget to say something or say it in the wrong order, no one will know, as long as your body language doesn't indicate you made a mistake. Just recover and keep on going.”

An elevator speech does not tell your entire life story, says Combs. "The goal for the elevator speech is for people to want to know more! Then you can arrange for a phone discussion or meeting later.”
James Sanford