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In the previous article we discussed the ideal length of a business plan and concluded that “short is good, long is bad.” One probably looks at 10 to 25 pages, depending on circumstances. We also referred to the MIT Twitter competition asking you to sell your plan in 184 characters. Lastly we referred to the ad industry – selling your product in a 30 second TV commercial. Today we will take a look at the idea of selling your business plan in 30 seconds with an elevator speech. It seems as if the origin of the term “elevator speech” is debatable. The concept, however, is simple. If someone asks you what you or your business does, can you sum it up in 30 seconds? This is about the time you may have when the question is posed to you while in an elevator or lift. In a previous article we described the essence of a business plan as follows: Essential 1 – It is all about return on investment Essential 2 – It is about “finding a need, and filling...

Speech Patterns Affect Sales Eastern accents, like those spoken by New Yorkers, are normally a very fast rate of speech. Southern drawl, like those spoken by people from the South, is a much slower rate of speech. And, when you speak with the Midwesterner, the speech pattern is totally different. How do these different accents, speech patterns, and speech rates affect sales and telemarketing efforts? There is a lot of evidence that speech rate and accents affect sales. For years, consultant have tried to analyze how accents and speech rate impact both face to face sales and tele-consulting sales. There is nothing conclusive, but leading sales authorities all agree that accents and speech rates do affect sales performance. Many companies like to hire people with radio voices, hoping that the voice quality will impact sales performance. Many companies do speech test when hiring individuals who will have constant interaction with other people. The “theatrical” voice does appear...