An elevator speech can literally deliver a small message which has a big impact. When you're forced to deliver a brief presentation this way, you can set off a ripple effect. Sometimes delivering an elevator speech can lead to a huge opening you can fill later on—the "Elevator Speech Effect". You still have to follow up and make the right things happen but a great elevator speech can open doors and make great things happen.

Whatever your goal, be it landing a major account, getting your dream job, becoming the top sales professional at your company, or meeting the right person to help you get to where you want to go, we hope an elevator speech can help you complete your quest and have a lot more fun on the journey.

An elevator speech is a brief presentation that introduces your product, service, philosophy or idea in figuratively the time span of an elevator ride - three minutes or less. Its purpose is to pique the listener's interest and motivate them to want to hear your more detailed presentation in the near future.

The elevator ride is a metaphor for unexpected access to someone you want to sell on some idea, project, or initiative. It is not the actual length of time it takes to ride in an elevator, but rather the spirit of the clear, brief, and persuasive messaging delivered in a short period of time that the author's talking about.

The objective of an elevator speech is never to actually close the deal or make the sale. Rather, to use football terminology, you want to advance the ball. You want to fire up the listener's interest level so you can then follow up with them in more detail.

• MAIN IDEA
• Part 1 Preparation
• Part 2 Benchmarks
• Part 3 Earn the Right
• Part 4 Elevator Speech Sample