Every Young Professional Needs an Elevator Intro Speech
You find yourself in the following position. You’re at a networking event and a hiring manager from a company you’d love to work for is making his way around the room. If you play your cards right, you’ll have a chance to shake his hand and try to wow him. But what do you say? How do you make a great impression and stand out from the crowd?
This is where your elevator intro speech comes into play. You may have heard of an elevator speech – it’s a 15 to 30 second pitch you give to someone that doesn’t have a lot of time for BS. Elevator speeches are common in the venture capital world, where entrepreneurs must package their next big idea into a brief, consumable pitch in the hopes that they find a few seconds of time with potential funders. However, elevator speeches are also common in other settings, such as when you first meet someone at a networking event, at a job interview, or really anyone that asks that all too famous question, “What do you do?”
It’s important for young professionals to craft a compelling elevator speech, practice it, and then be able to execute it flawlessly when prompted. Here are five steps for crafting a solid elevator speech:
1. The Basics. State your name along with your current role, title, company, and/or industry. Use whatever combination of these items that makes sense for your specific situation. If you don’t already have a job and are trying to land one, state the role or industry you’d like to get into.
2. Your target audience. This is who you work with or for; think about your target audience as the people, clients, company, or manager that consumes your work. If you work in client service, your target audience is the actual company or companies that you work with. If you’re an intern, it’s likely that your target audience is the department that you’re assigned to or the manager that’s benefiting from the projects you’re completing.
3. What you do for your target audience that provides value. This is the meat and potatoes of your job; it’s why you’re being paid to come to work every day. You might consult on new product launches, revamp data entry systems, provide coaching, or save lives (this is for all of you doctors out there).
4. Be memorable if possible. This step is optional, but it can be a great way to help you stand out from the crowd, especially when you’re at an event where lots of people are networking. Within the first three steps listed above, find some sort of hook that makes you memorable. It might be that you work for a prestigious company (this is typically interesting enough!), or you do something really compelling (manage the largest non-profit in your city). But for most of us, we may need to be a little more creative and play off of our name, job title, or some other fun fact related to what we do.
5. Stop talking! That’s it. Don’t discuss your daily responsibilities in detail, talk about previous roles, or share anything else that isn’t relevant to your basic information, target audience, and the value you provide to that target.
Here’s an example of an elevator intro speech:
Hi, my name is Gale Bowman. I manage WhatCollegeForgot.com [basic info], a company I started that helps young professionals [target] navigate life after college through workshops and online content on topics such as personal finance, career development, and the rent vs buy decision [value].
This intro takes about 16 seconds to deliver, and the name WhatCollegeForgot.com tends to be an interesting hook that prompts more questions from people that I meet.
The most difficult parts of an elevator intro speech tend to be conveying the value you provide and figuring out how to be memorable. For tips on how to convey the value you provide, talk to people that you work directly with and ask them what the greatest benefit is that you’re providing them (you may be surprised at the impact you’re making!) And don’t be discouraged if you can’t think of something that you consider memorable. Try a few different things in low key networking settings until you find something that elicits a hearty chuckle or two. Then you’ll know you’ve got it!
By: Gale Bowman
7-22-2010
After graduating from Notre Dame several years ago, Gale realized that young professionals need a source of reliable information as they face “real world” challenges. Gale manages WhatCollegeForgot.com and presents workshops to college students and recent grads.
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