I can tell you that the elevators in the Burj Khalifa carry you to the top of the tallest building in the world at over 10 metres per second...and that your ears do a little dance inside during the process! I can also tell you that, according to the US National Elevator Industry, elevators are apparently safer than cars and, indeed, are the safest of all forms of vertical transport. The others being, er...
But what I would really like to tell you is how much I enjoyed my workshop about constructing an elevator pitch with the lovely folk at LIKE last night. After a long, hard day/week at work, sometimes it can be nice to attend a networking event where you can sit back and listen to someone talk. Luckily for me, the LIKErs really do make the most of their monthly sessions and they threw themselves into everything with good grace and real gusto. There's nothing more satisfying, as a speaker/presenter, than having trouble breaking through animated conversation in the break-out sections of your workshop. Even though I had brought my own bell (*bong* Ground floor: Perfumery, stationery and leather goods, wigs and haberdashery, kitchenware and food. Going up...) and I am capable of speaking really quite loudly, I resorted to individually ushering people back to their seats. To me, the whole point of attending events such as the LIKE meetings is to talk to people, to build relationships and make connections. So to see (and hear) this happening, particularly with quite a few first timers in the room, was great.
We talked about the importance of the non-verbal elements of the carefully crafted elevator pitch, how body language really is key to successful delivery. I find that often when we have something important to say we have a tendency to speak too quickly and trip over our words so I set the LIKErs a challenge - to conquer the humble tongue twister!
The words? Oh yes, we needed to put some words together too. What you're aiming for is a carefully constructed message that grabs the attention of the pitchee (my new word) so that you can begin to build a relationship with them in real time, outside the confines of the elevator. As a starting point, check out the Harvard Business School's pitch builder tool.
So remember, believe in what you're pitching (enthusiasm is infectious), be concise and be compelling. And let me just say this, if you find yourself in a lift with someone from LIKE42, you will be impressed!
- Suzanne
I've read some other blog posts about this session - it sounded really good. Shame I missed it!
On the question of other vertical transport, one contender is the paternoster lift - great fun but could be quite dangerous! Video here of the one in the University of Sheffield Arts Tower: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zND9YlN1s3g (you'd be surprised how many views videos of these lifts have had and how many videos there are!)
Posted by: Anneli | February 14, 2013 at 01:48 PM