Great business cards

Last week I received an e-mail from Dorothy Oger about some great business cards.

There are indeed some great ideas on this website. Get some inspiration for your own business cards at the Creative Bits website.

Have a great networking day !

Jan

What is important in an Elevator Story?

After the blog post of last week about the difference between an Elevator Story and an Elevator Pitch, I got some questions about it.

Here are some tips for when you have to create your Elevator Story.

– There is more than one Elevator Story. It depends on the context. But you can prepare yourself by thinking about the different “ingredients” you can use. And then use the ingredients that are suited for that conversation.

– How do you know which ingredients to use? LISTEN FIRST! Be interested in the other person and he will automatically guide you in the direction of the right “ingredients” to use.

– Focus on what is different, special and unique about you, your organisation or your products or services. Don’t talk about being better or worse, but tell what makes you other than others.

– If you are a sales person and talk about the kind of customers you have, never use the word “you”. You are not doing an Elevator Pitch, but telling an Elevator Story. When people feel that you are trying to sell something to them, they might not listen to you anymore. If you don’t use the word “you”, they will be more open and chances are much bigger that they will tell your Elevator Story to their network. And that’s where the real power of networking is.

So tell a good Elevator Story and create ambassadors for you, your organisation or your products or services !

To your success !

Jan

Difference between an Elevator Pitch and an Elevator Story

When giving networking training courses to sales teams I always include the Elevator Story. Many times I get the remark: “We already have an Elevator Pitch or Sales Pitch”. I always explain them that there is a difference between them.

For the people who have never heard of an Elevator Story or Elevator Pitch: this is the answer to the question “What do you do?” And then you have a very short time span to tell something about yourself, your company or your products/services. The name comes from the short time span you have when you enter an elevator at ground level and leave it at the fifth level for example.

For me there is a huge difference between an Elevator Story and an Elevator Pitch. You can use the Elevator Pitch when you talk to a potential customer to get his attention so he will invite you to tell him more about your offer. Or you can use the Elevator Pitch to move to the next step in the sales process.

An Elevator Story on the other hand, can be told to anyone you meet. Even to people who might never become a customer of yours. Why is is so important to have a good Elevator Story? Because the real power of networking is in the second degree.

This means that your contacts (=first degree) should be able to tell your Elevator Story to their network. There are many more opportunities in the network of your network.

By the way, an Elevator Story is for everybody, not only for sales people. Many of our training courses are for non-sales people. They also need to think about their Elevator Stories to be able to advance their carreer, get help for a task or to be chosen for the next project.

So what’s your Elevator Story?

Have a great networking day !

Jan