I've Given my Elevator Speech, Now What?

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(The inspiration for this article came from an engaging conversation with a COSE member and MindSpring reader. See what one phone call can do?)

You’re at a COSE networking event and you’ve just delivered a concise, engaging and listener-centric Elevator Speech to Maria. Now, what do you do? You have several options to continue the conversation, enhance a potentially new business relationship and learn more about the other person. Here are a few best practices learned from our many COSE members who are on the Varsity Networking Team.

• Respond to Maria’s follow up questions with well-prepared answers. If your Elevator Speech is engaging, it should begin a dialogue with her and generate some questions from Maria, such as ‘How do you do it?’, ‘How long have you been doing it?’ or ‘Who is your target market?’. Answer briefly – less is more.
• Pretend Maria asked a question anyway. If she doesn’t ask one, it doesn’t mean she’s not interested in you or what you do. It just means she hasn’t asked you a question … yet. So pretend she did and answer it.
• Return the courtesy.  Ask Maria what she does. Listen to her Elevator Speech and ask some good follow-up question so you get to know her better.
• Begin stronger by asking Maria what she does first. If you start the conversation by listening to her instead of talking, you make a better impression. You can also learn a few things to customize your Elevator Speech when she asks you for it.
• Segue into your networking objective. If you went to the event with an information-gathering objective, ask for some input. For instance,  ‘I’m looking for information on virtual assistants. Any suggestions?’,  ‘Who’s your accountant – I need a new one?’ or ‘Tell me more about MindShare.’
• Ask for her business card. If you learned enough about Maria to conclude that she might be able to help you – or you might be able to help her, ask for her card so you can stay in touch. This should prompt her to ask for yours. If she doesn’t, ask if you can give her yours. Nice touch.

Your post-elevator speech goals should be to gather information, share information and reinforce the initial positive first impression your Elevator Speech helped you make. If this all sounds like a lot of work to you, that’s probably why the call it net-WORK instead of net-FUN.

See you at the next COSE event …

Phil Stella

MindSpring Networking Editor & Task Team Member 

Effective Training & Communication, Inc.

440 449-0356