Of Water and Buckets
Recently, I helped one client sharpen his elevator speech and another to spruce up a letter with which she planned to introduce herself before she called a prospective client to ask for a meeting. Both were making a common mistake by pouring too much content into these tiny vessels. They did this becaue they forgot their objectives.
An elevator speech, so called because it is what you would say to a prospective client you ran into during a thirty second elevator ride, tells a busy client who you are and what you do in words that are easily undestood and memorable. In thirty seconds you can’t do much more than that. An introductory letter may spark enough curiosity for a client to take your call and talk to you for a few minutes. After all, you have about three short paragraphs, because a busy client who doesn’t know you won’t read an epistle. If the client grasps what you do or takes your phone call, you have achieved a lot for a small investment of time.
If you try to accomplish more than these bare objectives, you may not achieve even them. Niether the elevator speech of the introductory letter can differentiate you from your competitors or explain the full range of your services. They certainly can’t persuade the client to hire you. Trying to achieve these things is analogous to trying to fit three gallons of water into a one-gallon bucket; it makes a mess of the job. In every contact with a client, remember what you objective is and you will have a better chance of accomplishing it.
And now I must stop before I try to get too much content from a small, if important, point.
