Issue Number 4 focuses on communication.

Table of Contents

• How to Generate Quality Prospects

  • Where do you find them?

• Question: “What Do You Do?”

  • This is Your Elevator Speech.

  • Hooks take one of three forms.

  • Your Hook Is a Magnet.

  • Practice its Delivery.

• BarKey Motion

• Hear Ye, Hear Ye

  • Improve the Delivery of Your Elevator Speech

    • How to use inflection.

    • The Power of Pausing.

How to Generate Quality Prospects

Finding quality leads is a skill you must master to ensure a successful business.

If you are like most professionals in private practice, one of your biggest challenges is generating prospects. Let’s outline the steps to take to fill your pipeline.

First, announce your enterprise to your family, friends, and colleagues. Make sure that your warm market knows what you do.

Second, schedule meetings with colleagues who could refer business to you.

These include other people in your practice area and allied occupations who serve the same clients.

Where do you find them?

Community and professional directories are good places to start. This is especially true if your business is geographically centered.

Another source is LinkedIn with over 1.5 billion members. Use its search tool to generate multiple lists of people who meet your criteria.

A third way to generate prospects is to build your expert reputation.

You do this by sharing valuable information. Social media posts, articles, books, lectures, podcasts, and panel discussions are some ways you can create visibility and credibility.

Last, be strategic about attending networking events.

In choosing which groups to join, consider their members’ occupational designations and orientation. How does this group encourage people to do business with each other?

Your best results come from investing time regularly to develop partnerships.

Whether you’ve just launched your practice or it’s well-established, select and implement one method at a time. Over time, strive to use a combination.

Question: “What Do You Do?”

This simple question usually sends shivers down your spine, UNLESS, you have a prepared answer.

Since you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, develop and practice a response.

This is Your Elevator Speech.

An elevator speech is a short introduction from 10 to 30 seconds, which contains your name and answer to the question, “What do you do?”

It’s NOT a sales pitch.

A good elevator speech begins the process of building relationships.

It starts with a hook to capture people’s attention.

Hooks take one of three forms.

They:

• Make a bold statement,

• Ask a provocative question, or

• Provide a startling statistic.

You can also combine these approaches into a single hook.

Your Hook Is a Magnet.

It attracts potential clients and referral partners.

How do you know when you’ve developed a good hook?

By people’s reactions. They engage with you.

Each time you deliver your elevator speech, note your results.

Did it stimulate interest? Did the receivers ask questions? Were they curious to hear more?

If not, edit it to fit your audience.

Think of it as a test where you strive for a high score engaging participation.

Whenever you begin a conversation with someone new or leave a voice message, it’s an opportunity to use your elevator speech.

Practice its Delivery.

To respond smoothly to that ubiquitous question, “What do you do?” requires practice.

Like actors who seem authentic because they have repeatedly rehearsed their lines, the more you practice giving your introduction, the more conversational you sound.  

One way to do this is to write down your speech and record yourself reading it.

Then listen multiple times to your recording in a relaxed frame of mind.

Doing this allows your brain to soak up the words like a sponge, so they go directly into your subconscious mind as speech, rather than as a written script.  

Think of what you’re trying to communicate, not just your words.

Make them mean something. 

Much of the meaning is conveyed by the sound of your voice.

Good tonality, moderate speed, and proper volume contribute to a good first impression.

BarKey Motion

Crafting “BarKey Motion” was a delight, using repetition and subtle shifts to breathe new life into each piece.

It’s intriguing to see the varied interpretations—like a baseball player mid-swing, a woman draped in a robe, or two figures locked in an argument.

These diverse views remind us of the power of perspective in our daily lives.

What do you see in the artwork?

What does it evoke for you?

Isn’t it fascinating how art mirrors life?

Hear Ye, Hear Ye

Improve the Delivery of Your Elevator Speech

While content is important, so is the delivery of your elevator speech and other communications.

An often-cited study by Mehrabian reports that 7% of the meaning of a message is determined by the words used, 38% by how they are spoken, and 55% by body language and facial expressions.

In the absence of being face-to-face, the impact of your voice takes on a larger proportion of what people hear. 

Let’s examine two elements of speech, inflection and pausing.

How to use inflection.

The upward and downward movement of the voice is known as inflection.  

Think of inflection as music. Your voice is the instrument.

When you ask a question, your voice naturally goes up at the end.

By moving your voice up for the first few words of a question and then down for the last few words, the brain receives the communication as a sentence rather than a question.

As a result, when you ask a question using downward inflection, the receiver is more likely to respond “Yes.”

Conversely, if you ask the same question with the usual upward inflection, it increases the likelihood of receiving a “No.”  

Practice asking questions with down-ward inflection. This technique alone will greatly increase your success in communication.

The Power of Pausing.

Another way to enhance the effectiveness of your delivery is by pausing.

Pausing helps people hear better. They tend to lean forward, open their ears, and strain to listen.

Pauses capture and hold people’s attention.

They force the other person to respond.

When you ask a question, stop.

Pause.

Go silent.

Many people habitually ask a question, explain and elaborate on it, and even ask an additional question.

Make it a rule of thumb to ask one question and then pause.  

The combination of downward inflection followed by a pause will result in people responding positively to you.  

Content plus delivery is a winning combination.

How to Speak Conversationally

You’re about to start a conversation with a new person

Do you know what to say?

So many people text rather than talk in real time. They’re “out of practice” when they begin a chat.

They have not learned the subtle art of speaking conversationally.

Conversations are a dialogue in which you exchange news and views.

Good conversationalists provide bits of information to stimulate responses. They engage the listener.

Use this formula for starting conversations with new people.

Begin by introducing yourself. Give a short version of your elevator speech.

Conclude by asking a question.

If you’re at a networking event, the most obvious inquiry is, “What do you do?”

However, you will set yourself apart when you ask a different question such as:

• Who would you like to meet?

• What are you hoping to get from this event?

• What do you like most about what you do?

• What project are you currently working on?

Pay attention to the person’s answer.

Respond with an Interest Comment.

An Interest Comment can be as short as “yes” or several sentences. “That’s fascinating. I had the same experience. Tell me more.”

Notice that the extended Interest Comment also shared something personal (“I had the same experience”).

Adding your own thoughts gives the listener something to respond to.

Conversations fall flat until you offer content and direction.

Notice that the initial reply gently guided the other person to “tell me more.” It could also have ended with a question.

To summarize, the steps of a good conversation are:

1. Introduce yourself

2. Ask a question

3. Listen

4. Make an Interest Comment

5. Share something personal

6. Ask another question

After several exchanges like this, you have succeeded in starting a conversation and are on the road to developing a relationship.