What is your L&D Elevator Speech?
There's a phrase called an Elevator Speech. You might have heard of it. It's often used in sales to get sales people thinking about what they would say, in a very short succinct way to explain what their organisation does. A quick search on Google and you'll soon find all kinds of advise on how to craft an elevator speech.
The term "Elevator Speech" comes from the idea that you're in a lift, and you meet a potential dream client. In the few short moments you have travelling from one floor to the next, what would you say to introduce someone to what you do, trying to convey the killer words that will get a prospective client in the bag.
So how does this relate to L&D? I don't know about you, but sometimes, I find people seem to struggle to understand what L&D, Training, HRD, call it what you will, actually does.
So here's the challenge. In just one or two sentences and no more than 20 seconds, what would you say to the question:
"What do you do?"
Looking forward to hearing some great L&D Elevator Speeches below.....
Ady
Replies
Great to see some responses to this question. I think this is really important and totally agree with Mike - we need to be better at marketing and selling our services within both HR and L&D.
There's some great points in these elevator pitches. Keep these in mind when introducing people (internally and externally) to what you do.
Thanks for your responses Alison, Mike, Richard and Toni.
Now, on to writing mine! Er, where to start. Probably plagiarising your great words!
I think I've got something. How does this sound...?
The performance of any business is reliant on how equipped the people in the organisation are to deliver great results. I work in organisations to ensure that people have the right opportunities to develop to help them be the best at what they do. Examples of how this is done include short training courses, programmes over several events, programmes to equip managers and leaders with coaching and mentoring skills or developing ways for people to share knowledge and experiences to name a few.
I support staff with their personal and professional development and doing this encourages and ensures growth, positive change and development of an organisation. My job is to keep staff fulfilled within their jobs and provide them with challenging and thought provoking training.
Okay, my elevator pitch/speech needs some work.
Help individuals understand that Learning can be fun and does not have to be the same as the experince they had in school. By doing this I can help to ensure organisations have an engaged and excited workforce that wants to deliver the best they can.
We stimulate growth, both on an individual level and as an organisation. that growth happens through people becoming more self-aware and more positively influential within their teams, as well as connected to the business as a whole. the personal and business benefit of this is huge.
Love this Ady and will take some time to think of my pitch...in the meantime L&D MUST get better at marketing themselves and speaking the right language. Check out this short 5 min video from Dan Pink...
Great link Mike, well found.
I must admit I did think my elevator pitch was terminably boring! You could sum it up more succinctly:- help managers, develop staff, business wins.
I wonder if a colourful little diagram on the back of a small card might just be better - hand it over, job done.
Cor that's quite a challenge but a really worthwhile exercise Ady. My pitch might be along the following lines:
I help managers across the company to identify their team members' development needs and provide a fair, transparent approach to prioritising L&D opportunities. This means that our staff feel valued and able to pursue their career within the company, fulfilling their potential, and that our future business requirements will always be met.
My team organise a wide range of learning opportunities carefully designed to deliver specific outcomes and, key to our business, and this is the bit that is really quite special, we ensure the value from these is recognised and embedded, and that we can prove this.
Having given my spiel I would follow up with something along the lines of:
How do you make sure staff at your place are working at the top of their game and that your future business needs will always be met?
Hopefully I have met the elevator speech guideline requirements to:
-make clear something that is unique in what you offer and
-pull it together with an open question to engage the listener and so as not to monopolise the conversation.
What do you think overall?