Personal
Branding
Your 30-Second Elevator Speech
Formulating
your personal brand
October
11, 2004
By Colleen
Sabatino
.
Refining a
30-second "elevator speech" — a statement of your professional value you can
deliver in the time it takes to complete a hypothetical elevator ride — requires
focus. Here's how to make this first impression last.
In a
30-second pitch, the biggest mistake I see is that clients try to communicate
too many points without driving home memorably a few key attributes.
Most
listeners will remember no more than three characteristics about a person in a
first meeting; determine up front the three most important traits you want to
communicate, then develop statements that effectively illustrate those
qualities. For example, let's say you want to communicate that you're:
1.
A seasoned
marketing executive;
2.
Experienced in
consumer goods;
3.
A strong leader and team player.
You would illustrate these qualities by saying something like, "I offer more
than 15 years of progressive advancement leading
marketing teams
for highly respected consumer-goods companies."
Then you would go on to substantiate this introductory statement with specifics.
"I've managed agency teams and internal marketing departments of up to 30;
handled budgets ranging between $4 million and $7 million; and overseen
brand-management, interactive-media and traditional
advertising/PR
channels."
Finally, you provide the listener information that engages him to make a
connection with you. "My current research has been focused around
Fortune 100 companies
headquartered in the Northeast that produce premium/luxury products, since
that's really my sweet spot." These three statements portray the core of your
value to a company, then substantiate the strengths with actual numbers, figures
and specifics, closing with your current actions to identify opportunities that
meet your qualifications.
Play it
right by knowing what critical assets you want to communicate about yourself
upfront and then develop three concise statements to describe how these traits
match the needs of target companies.
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From May 2010