Your Elevator Speech - Have You Updated Yours Recently?

Do you have an elevator speech? Does it get people's attention? Do they want to learn more about your cleaning business when you tell them what you do? Every great elevator speech needs to answer these key questions:

1. Who am I? (Introduce yourself)
2. What business am I in?
3. What group of people do I service? (Be specific - do you have a niche?)
4. What is my USP (Unique Selling Proposition)? What makes me different from the competition?
5. What benefits do my customers gain from my services?

Have You Updated Your Elevator Speech Lately?

So how do you go about crafting the ultimate elevator speech?

Shaping an elevator speech will help you throughout your business career. It can be used during social and networking events, business introductions, and meeting customers/prospects the first time. A concise elevator speech should create interest and grab the attention of the listener.

Here are a few ideas on crafting your elevator speech.

Instead of saying this:

"Hi - I'm Jean Hanson and I own a cleaning company. Do you need someone to clean your office?"  (Yawn)

Say this:

"Hi, I'm Jean Hanson with Brainerd Lakes Cleaning and Supply.  I work with building owners and managers who have cleaning issues that they've never been able to resolve. We help them by not only providing cleaning services, but by offering troubleshooting and consultation to help them with any cleaning concerns they may have."

Here are some ways to strengthen your introduction:

A good elevator speech needs to be practiced so it rolls off your tongue and sounds natural. You may feel funny about doing this at first, but try practicing in front of a mirror. Also practice your speech in the car on the way to an event.

1. Project and speak clearly, but don't drag. Talk with confidence, pride and enthusiasm. Display your passion for what you do.
2. Use clean and simple language your audience can understand. Don't use a lot of technical jargon.
3. Have at least a couple versions of your speech. Many people belong to weekly networking groups, so having several different ways of talking about what you do helps to keep it interesting, so they don't hear the same thing every week.
4. Personalize it. Use personal stories your audience can relate to.
5. Use descriptive words; paint a picture, using hearing and sight.
6. Tell them how you solve your customers' problems. Give an example of how you recently solved a problem for one of your clients.
7. Talk about benefits, not features.
8. Answer their unspoken question - Why should I do business with you?
9. Remove the risk of doing business with you (maybe you could offer 2 free hours of service, or 100% money-back guarantee).
10. Answer this question for yourself: What exactly is the role of my business in the life of my customer?

Craft and practice your elevator speech so it comes easy to you and sounds unrehearsed. It should not sound like a sales pitch, but rather a quick over-view of what you and how you do it. It should last about as long as an elevators ride to the top floor.

EBOOK Once you have crafted and practiced the perfect elevator speech, now is the time to craft the perfect marketing and sales regiment. Marketing involves understanding topics such as introductions, communication techniques, active listening, body language and voice communication. Marketing and Sales Success for Cleaning Companies is a downloadable Ebook in PDF format that has secrets to marketing your cleaning services that gets results!