Posted by Louise Pritchard on October 14, 2016
At one time in my career, I had a complicated job which involved a great deal of travel and interfacing with several agencies and ministries. When people would ask my what I did I fumbled around for an understandable explanation. To avoid that embarrassment, My supervisor at the time encouraged me to have my elevator speech at the ready. An elevator speech is a clear, brief message or “commercial” about you. It communicates who you are, what you’re looking for and how you can benefit a company or organization. It’s typically about 30 seconds, the time it takes people to ride from the top to the bottom of a building in an elevator.
It was a great exercise which really helped me put together all the salient points about my position.
I took the elevator speech idea to heart when I started talking to people about Reiki. I realized that there are many people who do not have the faintest idea about Reiki and how it can benefit them. I created an elevator speech about the basic concepts of Reiki: history, healing, and application. Then a few months ago, I had a perfect opportunity to practise my speech in earnest.
I was helping a friend at her Reiki booth at a Seniors’ Expo. My friend was offering free fifteen minute Reiki treatments to people and I was the “front man”. As the seniors walked past the booth I would talk to them and try to engage them in a conversation about Reiki and then offer them the opportunity of a free treatment. Some people were already aware of Reiki and readily accepted the offer; some really were not interested in what I had to say; and some became intrigued, listened to my elevator speech which I supplemented with illustrations and examples and then agreed to a treatment. (It was a wonderful experience and I kept my friend very busy.)
I recall as I spoke to one gentleman of the later persuasion, I started to listen to myself and wondered how strange my spiel must sound to the uninitiated. In spite of his attentiveness, I started to laugh at the strangeness of the situation. I remarked that maybe it seemed a bit “out there”, but trust me, Reiki really does work. He laughed in response and said, “Miss, you are so sincere in your explanation, how can I not give it a try!
And that is the key to a good elevator speech – enthusiasm and sincerity.
So get your Reiki speech ready and get out there and spread the word. People want to know about you and your practice. Top floor, please!
