Idea of the Week - Total Selling Systems

Warren Wechsler's
Idea of the Week

The Elevator Speech

Warren Wechsler, bestselling author and national sales and motivational speaker, provides many valuable resources free of charge to sales trainers and sales managers. Some restrictions apply to the use and distribution of this information. For more valuable materials, visit Warren's web site www.totalselling.com. All materials and content © Warren Wechsler, 2001 – All rights reserved.

We were talking about networking and how to work a room, and I had said that you have the other person talk about himself first. Eventually the conversation will come around to you. They're going to ask you who you are and what you do. This is your opportunity to do what's called positioning yourself.

A lot of people go about this the wrong way. They start talking about their title, or they start defining themselves by their topic or what they do or their position in the company. That's all a bunch of nonsense. The best way to position yourself is to think about what you would say to someone if you had a chance to be with him in an elevator. It's what I call your elevator speech. From the time the doors close until the time you get off at your floor, how much time do you usually have? Well, it's not that much. It's ten, fifteen, maybe twenty seconds.

What we're looking for is some simple statement that's easy to tell, that would be easy for them to tell somebody else about if they heard it. It's not based on title or subject matter. It's something that provokes a "how do you do that?" response.

Let me give you an example. If someone asks me, "What do you do?" I say, "I work with salespeople who want to maintain and grow their businesses, and I work with sales executives who want to help their salespeople be their best." So what I've defined is something that's very easy. It's repeatable. If somebody says, "What does that Warren guy do?" they say, "Oh, he's the guy that works with salespeople to help them grow and maintain their business, and he works with sales executives to help their salespeople to become better at what they do."

Notice how it's really simple eighth grade language, and it's something that someone can take and repeat to someone else. Every time I say that, the response is, "Well, how do you do that?" And that's exactly what I want them to say. I follow up by saying, "Based on a best-selling book I wrote called The Six Steps to Excellence in Selling, I lead seminars, I advise people, and I have a line-up of educational materials that I can share with people as well."

So now they know that as far as what my benefits are, I can help by advising people, by speaking, and by offering educational materials that are there even when I'm not there.

I've given you one version of what I usually do. That's the Sales Idea of the Week, to think about what type of positioning statement you could make so that when you have that chance during formal or informal networking, you can nail it so people know who you are and what you do without having them say, "Huh? What?"

This was a partial transcript from Warren Wechsler's weekly radio show. Warren Wechsler, bestselling author and national sales and motivational speaker, provides many valuable resources free of charge to sales trainers and sales managers. Visit Warren's web site www.totalselling.com Also, listen to Warren's weekly radio broadcast Wednesday's at 4:05 - 5:00 pm Central time, on KMCD-AM 1570AM. Shows are broadcast live on the internet at http://www.warpradio.com/asx/KMCD-AM.asx