The dreaded ‘elevator pitch’.
A concept that involves explaining your job, or business, in the 30 second or so time span of an elevator ride. Although I’m told I do them well, I find elevator speeches to be a form of corporate torture, high on the list of workplace tasks guaranteed to induce cringing, irritation and long-lasting embarrassment. Why? They’re impossible to get right and I can’t fit everything I do in 30 seconds. Plus, I hate talking about myself. And whenever I recite an elevator pitch, I feel as if I’m reading from a script. Very artificial and spin doctored. So when I first came across the Chicago Tribune’s story about elevator pitches, I had a moment of hope that the awful things had been ousted and buried for ever in the brave new corporate world of social media. It contained promising nuggets like:
- “When I’ve referenced the elevator pitch in passing, most people made derisive comments about the whole concept”.
- “ Many had learned about it in business school, but few took it seriously”
- “For those of us behind the scenes in communications, HR and finance, the whole experience felt awkward, and our terrible pitches proved that”.
Sadly, I was wrong. Of the 13 experts surveyed by the Tribune, four were in favour of elevator speeches, five against and four inconclusive. Overall, the trend seems to be toward improving elevator speeches following general social media principles, rather than binning them.
Here are some tips from the experts interviewed by the Tribune:
- Keep them short and sharp
- Focus on how you make a difference
- Adapt one speech to various situations
- Present with increased efficiency and clarity, and
- Use your elevator speech to “pack a punch”.
So it’s back to the drawing board for me! I do feel a little better though after reading the comment attributed to Alan Weiss, organisation development consultant and executive coach – “These have always been silly. Would you listen to one? I’d stop the elevator and throw the person off”.
It’s good to know I’m not entirely alone!
What’s your attitude toward elevator speeches? Are they still relevant? Do you find them an artificial means of presenting yourself?
