A while back, we participated in a great business expo hosted by the local chamber.
At The Selling Agency booth, we asked people to “Give us their best pitch” about their business.
And . . . we offered to record it for them and email them the sound bites.
There was a specific point to asking and recording their elevator speech.
Only a handful of people were willing to go on the record to talk about their business. Of those that did share with us—whether recorded or not—there was much—
“Oh, well, wait, let me start over” and
“Sorry, I’m usually better at this” or
“Oh shoot, I forgot, I usually say this”.
Unconventional, yes. Effective, very.
The point in asking wasn’t to judge or make any one self-conscious but we were at an Expo and that’s kind of the point—to talk about your business with the expectations of developing potential customers, right?
However, when people knew we were going to be listening closely, they got very nervous and once people started, they realized they were really “winging it” when talking about their business and not making great first impressions.
We all walk around knowing what we do and what that looks like to other people—IN OUR HEADS.
However, the average human attention span is down to just 8 seconds {Squirrel!} so it’s tough to nail that first impression if you haven’t written down and practiced what you’re going to say, what questions you should ask other people and how you’re going to engage them to carry the conversation forward.
These are your Talk Tracks – your Selling Messages that form the basis of all your business relationships and communication.
Talk Tracks communicate what you do, how you do it, what results you deliver and with whom you work. The goal is to begin a relationship through conversation that turns prospects into customers or even advocates.
People connect with how you make them feel, what you make them think and they connect with what you say that is relevant to them.
It’s more than just an Elevator Pitch; investing the time here gives you a foundation for every piece of collateral, presentation, email or phone call to introduce your business. And, the better you nail the first impression, the quicker you build a relationship and that makes it easier to do business with you.
This is a Professional Imperative here at The Selling Agency. Our clients MUST go through the Talk Tracks exercises so that relating the results and core offerings of their business in an effective and relevant way is organic and second nature. There is no “Winging It” at The Selling Agency.
Here are two ways you can start your Talk Tracks today:
1. Write down your Talk Track and practice it. Then refine and practice. Then practice it in front of other people, get feedback and refine again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
2. Please, please, PLEASE, expunge the following words from your professional vocabulary. These are credibility and confidence killers: “just, basically, like, well, what we do is, our company does/is, little, you know, well, um, let’s see.”
Start there and then keep going. If you need more help, get us on board with our Talk Tracks session.
Your business, your relationships, your potential clients are worth investing the time and energy into building relevant and effective communication.
Until next time, keep kickin’ butt!
—sks
