Business
Is There Room For ‘We’ In Your Elevator?
Arnie Herz at Legal Sanity recently wrote a post referencing some familiar advice for crafting an effective elevator speech. The latest conventional wisdom would have us believe that the best elevator pitch is not about us, but about the other individual. The principal strategy is to set our needs to the side and focus exclusively on the needs of the potential customer, member, or client. After all, the reason we’re in business to service them, isn’t it?
Well, yes and no. Arnie writes that this strategy misses a greater point:
Business relationships are as much about valuing and evincing our selves as they are about reaching and helping others. Both aspects (self and other) need to be expressed and honored to foster lasting connections for business success and satisfaction.
There seems to be this tacit understanding that relationships in business are different from those elsewhere in life. Perhaps it’s okay to screw over a vendor in your business, but it’s clearly not acceptable to do the same to a friend. Or maybe it’s fine to do everything to make a member happy but necessary to put conditions on making our spouses equally happy. It’s as if we are two individuals merely sharing the same skin, which might explain why we’re so damned unhappy at times.
Like Arnie, I believe there’s a different way…one that accepts that our core values define our relationships regardless if they are business or personal. There is no need for this artificial schism. What if, instead of making the elevator pitch primarily (or solely) about the other person or even selfishly about ourselves, we use the AND proposition and make it about us. The pitch then becomes one for a mutually respectful relationship where the needs of both sides have equal importance.
Not realistic? Think a customer or member is too self-interested, focused too much on what they gain? Maybe, but then, that’s the message they’ve been trained well to absorb. This is an invitation to propose a new type of relationship, one that addresses the client’s needs, but also honors our own goals, dreams, and possibilities. There’s no way to do any of this when the relationship becomes imbalanced and the customer’s needs are always put first. Actually, that’s not a relationship…it’s servitude.
And we have a choice.
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Intriguing idea, Chris. Would love to see an example of an elevator speech incorporating a more mutual approach, as you describe in this post. Perhaps you, or another blogger, could contribute a “for instance?” Thanks!
lawyering as soulful work…
Since starting this blog almost two years ago, I’ve regularly read and pointed to the insightful posts at Chris Bailey’s The Alchemy of Soulful Work. Well, Chris has been hard at work revamping his site. It’s now called Bailey WorkPlay……
Deb, you ask what would an effective elevator speech be from this approach? Ah…you caught me
It’s a great idea, but one that I hadn’t really put into the frame of reality. And so, the challenge is on. Let’s see what we can create.
I’m so glad to read that someone has at last tackled this issue. So many elevator speeches, and the likes (e.g. audio logos) come across as trite, manipulative and focused only on ‘gaining the client.’ And the point about servitude resonates with me: after all, it’s really about service, not subservience. It’s about partnering.
So, start by ask a person what keeps them awake at night, and they will tell you. Give them some advice to help them get a better night’s sleep, and most will thank you. After that, if they want to develop the relationship further, it is appropriate for you to explain what YOU want from the relationship, and to ask what they want, and see if you are on the same wavelength. If not, shake hands and wish them luck. It’s about attracting to you, those people who are interested in developing a strong, beneficial-to-both-parties relationship.
Here’s a rough draft of a potential elevator discussion or dialogue (note I did not say speech), focused on ‘pain’:
When asked “What do you do?”
Reply: “I help people, mostly (insert here the types of people you help, e.g. middle managers), get a good nights sleep by solving problems!”
Possible Response: “What type of problems?”
Reply: “Well, in one case, a manager I worked with actually was losing sleep, and as a result was drained of energy, because…(insert problem). So what we did was…(insert solution). Now she sleeps a whole lot better, and has a lot more energy! What keeps you awake at night?”
You can of course also develop a dialogue that focuses on ‘gain’.
Brian, you’ve offered a great example. And you’ve hit on what I think is a central component of soulful work and the soulful business: helping others solve problems…it’s not about solving them for them. In particular, I like how you’ve framed the dialogue around the phrase of “So what we did was (insert solution). It’s not based on look how great I am, but look how great we can be.