A lot of work conversations seem casual but are important. They will often start something like: ‘ How’s the project going?’
How do you usually answer? – ‘Oh, fine thanks’? This response could waste a good opportunity. With a bit of planning, you could use the question to raise your profile with the questioner, or gain their useful insight into a problem.
Claudyne Wilder’s latest newsletter in Wilder Presentations covers using the elevator speech to handle these situations.
In the low-key New Zealand environment, if the elevator speech seems a bit forced, think about planning a soundbite. The system is similar.
For your important projects, you could adapt Claudyne’s suggestion to:
1. Progress: We have surveyed the range of best software solutions
2. Results: It looks like the most applicable one was developed in South Korea
3. Interesting fact: It costs way less than any of the competing systems and looks really good, but for some reason it hasn’t been taken up in any other New Zealand organisations before.
4. Next step: We’re being careful to check that out further
5. Question for the listener: Have you any past experience of this type of gap in adoption of a good software solution?
I am always surprised how challenging it is to work out an elevator speech. If you need some help, there is a very practical open thread on developing an elevator speech at: Freelance Folder
In case you’re wondering, the guy in the picture is racing from your brilliant elevator speech to organise you a promotion.
