Recently I was working with Julian, a client of mine that is in the process of starting up a sales and marketing organization to serve the spirits industry. After years of industry involvement, he had a reasonably clear view in his head about the value he wanted to deliver to clients, yet he was struggling with boiling it down to a concise elevator speech. He had put pen to paper, yet the end result was a little bit off; just enough off to confuse potential clients. He had rehashed it time and time again, but, unfortunately, he had been unable to achieve the result he was shooting for.
To accelerate his progress, I suggested that he use a technique I oftentimes use when looking to achieve clarity- 1) turn the paper over 2) visualize talking to someone 3) record what you have said.
The technique works, based on a couple of factors. First, turning the paper over frees you from what you have already written-usually deleting, pasting, and moving things around, when you’re measurably off from the mark, just increases the confusion. A fresh start, which may seem like the most time-consuming path, is usually just the opposite. Second, many of us, particularly salespeople, find it easier to collect our thoughts into a cohesive whole by visualizing a situation where we can use our strong suit, namely talking, instead of just thinking it through.
How did it work? Great. Together, we flipped over our papers to get a fresh surface, and Julian simply said what he might say to the prospect. Together we captured the words he used, made a tweak here and there, and nailed it. Within minutes, the elevator speech he had struggled with for almost an hour was complete. And Julian was one happy camper.