Your Elevator Speech

This is a topic that has been on my list for quite some time and I received an email yesterday that seems to make this an ideal time to address it.  In sales there's a concept called your elevator speech.  The point is a sales person is taught to develop a 30 second story or phrase, something short that could be a good way to answer the question "what do you do?".  The purpose is to engage that person to see if they are a potential prospect for your particular product or service.

The reason I am writing about this today is that we need to reach people for Jesus.  To do that we need opportunities to talk to people about Jesus.  And to be effective I think we need to talk to people that ask to learn about Jesus instead of trying to force our view on those that don't want to listen.  The whole pearls before swine thing.  I think we can adopt some of the ideas from this email for our purposes.

The email I am referring to came from a gentleman named Steve Lewit.  He trains sales people.  (His website is http://www.stevelewitselling.com in case you'd like to read more of his stuff.)  His email was about the 30 second elevator speech but with a new twist.  So let's walk through it together.

"The elevator speech is the speech you need to deliver when time is short -- at parties, in line at Dunkin' Donuts, on the golf course, or any other place where you bump into people who ask you what you do. It also serves as an introduction to a longer overview about what you do that might be called for when you are sitting on a sales call with a client."

"The Goal of the Speech:

Old-school selling says the goal of the elevator speech is to engage someone in a conversation. 

The Length of the Speech:

Old-school selling says less than a minute. 

Content of the Speech:

        Old-school selling says lots of features and benefits. "

Steve's new twist on it:

" I say less than 15 seconds.  I say that the goal is singular and well defined -- to elicit a question from the inquirer.  I say lots of mystery and  emotion."

Now let me comment on this first part before we move on.  Fifteen seconds fits right into the philosophy of a book called Mind Capture by Tony Rubleski.  His point is that we live in a fast paced world.  We have a very short time span to capture someone's attention and once we have done so we have to provide enough value in that short time span to get someone to alot us more of their time and attention. 

I like the well defined goal.  It's not to tell them about Jesus yet.  It's about getting them to open up by getting them to ask a question which give us the opportunity to start the conversation.  If we simply lead with "Hey let me tell you about Jesus" in many cases we just forfeited our right to ask for more of their attention and it didn't lead to our first goal which is to elicit a question from them.

Let's go back to Steve and look at how he tied this all together for himself and then we'll look at how we can use it.

Here's Steve's old elevator speech:

“I’m a financial professional who works with people who are retired or near retirement.  The kind of people I work with are typically tired or upset because of the volatility of the market; unhappy with the returns they are getting on their CDs; or worried that they might run out of income.”

Here's his new approach:

"John:    So, Steve, what do you do?

Steve:  John, that’s a pretty interesting question.  If I told you, you might run the other way (with lightness and a big smile).

John:    Really, do you run a funeral parlor (or something like that)?

Steve:  Not quite, but some people have a hard time with my profession.

John:    I’m a big boy, I think I can handle it!

Do you see how the set up works?  The delivery has to set up some magic, some mystery, and create some fun.  Now my inquirer is primed to hear what I have to say.  He’s never had this response before, and it’s all in the delivery.

“John, what I do for a living is simple.  I take people, most of them kicking and screaming, and show them how to become financially independent.”"

See the difference?

Now how can we use this concept to spread the Word of God?  Simple.  We can use these techniques to steer the conversation so that we can share what God has done in our lives AFTER the person enthusiastically asks us to do so.  Instead of beating people over the head with the Bible, we get them to ask us to share with them.

Let me give you an example. 

Standing in line at the store the person in front of me says to me:

Person: You sure seem happy today.

Me (jumping up and down and screaming as I thump them over the head with my Bible):  Hallelujah brother, I'm happy because I have Jesus.  Let me tell you about Jesus."

As you can imagine, that's not going to be too effective. 

Instead how about this approach. 

Person: You sure seem happy today.

Me:  Thanks, I found out a long time ago that it's easy to be happy when I'm not stressed out all the time, so I just found out how not to be stressed all the time, it's really quite simple.

Person: Really?  How do you do that?

Me: Aw, you wouldn't believe me if I told you.

Person:  No really try me.

Me:  Well...…(and now you have an invitation to share what God has done in your life. )

And lest you think I am contradicting what I wrote about yesterday, here is where you step out of the way and let the Holy Spirit flow through you as you share your personal faith with each person you meet.  Here is where you don't have it preplanned, you let God speak through you because God knows what's on this persons heart and what they need to hear, not you. 

Now I'm not saying we will save every person with this approach but what it does is opens more doors for us to tell about Jesus.  Our job is to plant the seed and this simply gives us a way to create more opportunities to do that under favorable circumstances.

Let me know what you think.