Writing Your Elevator Speech

The American Family Business Accelerator program had an excellent presentation on writing your elevator speech. Here is the tool they provided. Even if you have an elevator speech I suggest working through this tool to see if it spotlights any fine-tuning you need to do.

In a nutshell:
     F  -  Find their pain point
     A  - Answer their problem
     R  - Reasons why you're different
     M - Make them want more

In theory, it's easy to tell someone what you do. You're asked that question all the time. But in reality, it's hard! And it is so important!  You want to wordsmith your answer so that it can be stated in 30 seconds. The words have to be clear and concise to give a total stranger the picture of what you do. It's that pivotal "first impression."

Beyond answering "What do you do?" your elevator speech plays a major part in your entire marketing plan. It is the first step, the foundation of the whole plan.

• When you create a company brochure, you would start with the elevator speech and expand to share examples and details to support the speech.
• When you are writing content for your web site, each page should support and expand upon that basic elevator speech.
• If you participate in any review sites such as Angie's List, Yelp or Kudzu, your elevator speech would be the content you fill in for their format.
• The elevator speech would be the starting point for your Summary section on your LinkedIn profile.

Take the time to write a good elevator speech. Use this excellent tool. Call Your Computer Lady for help if you need it. We'll brainstorm with you and help edit the speech until it's just what you need!