A primary reason that many service professionals fail to build thriving businesses is that they struggle to articulate in a clear and compelling way exactly what solutions and benefits they offer. They don't know how to talk about what they do without sounding confusing or bland or like everyone else—and without using an elevator speech. Yes, you heard me, without using an elevator speech.

The elevator speech (aka: The elevator pitch or 30-second commercial) reflects the idea that it should be possible to wow someone with what you do in the time it takes an elevator to go from the first to the fifth floor.

I've been polling audiences of thousands for years on this issue. During each speech I ask, “How many of you love, love, love listening to someone else's elevator speech?” Maybe two out of two thousand hands go up. I then ask, “How many of you love, love, love giving your elevator speech?”

Same thing. Only a few hands. So what gives? If we don't like listening to or giving the speech, why is it still being taught? Because, of course, we need to be able to talk about what we do—I get the concept. However, in this case, I think that the elevator speech has been inappropriately appropriated by the service professional. Not only does it not work well, it makes us look foolish, or, worse yet, obnoxious.

The elevator pitch was born so that the inventor could pitch a product idea to a retailer or manufacturer or the entrepreneur could pitch a business idea to a venture capitalist or angel investor in the hopes of receiving funding, not for the service professional to try to build a relationship of trust with a potential client over time. Venture capitalists often judge the quality of an idea on the basis of the quality of its elevator pitch. It makes perfect sense, in that situation. But this is not how a relationship develops between a client and a service professional. You're trying to earn the status of a trusted advisor, not trying to raise money to create some new product like metal-detecting sandals. Totally different context. Totally different dynamic.

I'm on a mission to kill the elevator speech, to remove it from the business vernacular—for the service professional. I hope you'll join me on this mission and learn how to talk about what you do without ever resorting to an elevator speech. So, what do you do instead?

By using this crazy concept that I call a conversation. Weird, I know. Over the course of this chapter, I'm going to teach you a Book Yourself Solid Dialogue, a creative—but not scripted—conversation that will spark interest when appropriate about you and your services, products, and programs. The Book Yourself Solid Dialogue will allow you to have a meaningful conversation (conversation being the operative word) with a potential client or referral source. The dialogue is a dynamic, lively description of the people you help, what challenges they face, how you help them, and the results and benefits they get from your services. It is also intended to replace the static, boring, and usual response to the question, “What do you do?” “I'm a business consultant,” “I'm a massage therapist,” or “I'm a graphic designer”; answers that often elicit nothing more than a polite nod, comment, or awkward silence and a blank stare. Once you get that response, anything more you say about yourself or your services will sound pushy. Worse yet, you could supplement the rote answer with an overblown, high-highfalutin, hyperbole-laden elevator speech that's supposed to make you look like a rock star in 30 seconds. Unfortunately, I doubt the one-two punch of boring answer, followed by excessively exuberant elevator pitch is going to compel the listener to whip out his credit card right then and there.

Instead, how about a meaningful, connected dialogue with a potential client or referral source? Think of it as a conversation between two people, each of whom actually cares about what the other has to say. The beautiful thing is that the interchange is based on successfully understanding why people buy what you're selling. And because of the work we did together in Chapter 2, you already know why people buy what you're selling.

You previously created your who and do what statement. That's a fantastic first step and an excellent tool for starting a conversation about what you do. Now you must be sure that you can captivate and actively engage the person you're talking to in a conversation that elicits questions rather than just polite acknowledgment. You must talk with people, not at them, which means listening to them, too, and really hearing what they're interested in, and what their needs are. After all, their needs may be exactly what you serve. Avoid giving a prepared script. Doing so is generally a train wreck waiting to happen. You'll see that you can have long, medium, or short conversations based on your Book Yourself Solid Dialogue that will allow you to connect with different people in different situations. You tell them about the people you work with and then you listen to their response. You build on their response, and before you know it, you are having a conversation that is informative and inspiring—and that's the key to talking about what you do without being bland or confusing or, worse yet, obnoxious, albeit unintended.

You are so much more than just your professional title: teacher, doctor, designer, accountant, acupuncturist, personal fitness trainer, yoga teacher, consultant, coach, or other dictionary description that defines you as one of the masses.

Think about it for a moment. Let's say you're a yoga teacher and you meet someone who really needs your help who would also be an ideal client. The only problem is that she has a preconceived notion of what yoga is all about and what a yoga teacher is like, and it's not a preconceived notion that sets you up for success.

Imagine this scenario: the potential client asks you what you do. You say, “I'm a yoga teacher.” Before you know what's happened, you see the potential client's face contort, her left eyebrow lifts along with the left side of her upper lip, and her nostrils begin to flare. The potential client says, “Oh, yeah…I had a yoga teacher as a neighbor once. She was really weird and made my life miserable. In fact, I had to move out of that apartment because of her and I loved that apartment! She had scores of people coming in and out at all hours of the day, blasting strange music and chanting like the world was about to end—I think they must have been members of a cult. Oh, and you wouldn't believe the awful smell that I was subjected to from the perpetual cloud of incense that invaded my home.”

Uh-oh.

Would you like to get that kind of response when you tell someone what you do? And this can happen to any service professional, not just to a yoga teacher. Say a stockbroker meets someone whose only introduction to stockbrokers has been the movie Boiler Room, a movie about stockbrokers who try to swindle innocent people out of their life's savings. Not a pretty picture.

How much more are you than your professional title? Your Book Yourself Solid Dialogue will allow you to set yourself apart from everyone else whose professional title is the same as yours. It provides you with the opportunity to highlight the ways in which you and your services, products, and programs are unique—and do so with passion.

If your Book Yourself Solid Dialogue reads like your resume, you'll bore people to tears, and although they may not say it, they'll be thinking, “Who cares? So what? What has any of that got to do with me?” Your potential client wants to know: “What's in it for me?”

Developing Your Book Yourself Solid Dialogue

We're going to break this down into its smallest components and gather all the information we've worked hard to compile in the previous pages. You've chosen your target market and you've begun to develop your personal brand by crafting your who and do what statement, your why I do it statement, and your tagline. Now we're going to go back through all the exercises you've done and clean up your core message. If you've kept up on the exercises, mastering the ability to have a meaningful Book Yourself Solid Dialogue will be a relatively simple process, and yet this powerful piece will make all the difference in your business and your message.

Five-Part Book Yourself Solid Dialogue Formula

Let's put it all together and create a few different versions of your dialogue: short, medium, and long. Please, please, bear in mind that we are not crafting a speech. I am just giving you some structure so that you can begin to imagine the possible content of the Book Yourself Solid Dialogue that is a conversation.

You now have an outline that will help you clearly articulate what you do without sounding confusing and bland. In fact, you'll sound like a superstar because you can use this outline or framework to have a meaningful conversation with another human being. I know I'm being redundant here, but it's so important that I'm willing to. This is not an unchangeable script. Don't stay married to the format. Be sure to improvise. Using the structure can be helpful, but you may not need to go through every element of this framework in every conversation. The person you're engaged with might end up doing all the talking and even supply your side of the dialogue accurately. Then you can just sit back and listen. The point is, if you're prepared with these five elements, you have the required ingredients for talking about what you do so you can cook up a sweet and tasty business, booked solid with high-paying, high-value clients. (Make note of how each part of the exercises you've just done fits into the conversations that follow, and note also how each part flows as the result of a natural conversation.)

Getting into a Book Yourself Solid Dialogue with Ease

Start in the comfortable confines of your home. It may take some time for your Book Yourself Solid Dialogue to feel natural. While you don't want your dialogue to sound stiff and rehearsed, you do want to practice it. The more you practice it, the more comfortable you'll get with it, the less rehearsed it will sound, and the more improvisational you will be. You get only one chance to make a first impression. Present yourself and your business in a powerful and compelling way.

Practicing in this way will help you to become comfortable with the multitude of ways in which your Book Yourself Dialogue will unfold when you're speaking with a variety of people. It is truly a dialogue, not a speech or a script, so every time you have a dialogue with someone about what you do, it will be unique. Since the people you'll be speaking with won't be reading a script, they may or may not respond in similar ways to what I outlined here, but you'll soon discover that when you know your Book Yourself Solid Dialogue well, it won't matter. You'll easily and effortlessly respond in the most appropriate way.