It might help to start with a little history
➔ A colleague said recently that the term “elevator speech” is about 50 years old. The original concept was that you prepare a speech about yourself (or your company) that you could deliver during a short elevator ride – about 30 seconds.
While that is a laudable concept, it may have outlived its usefulness. Most people will agree that, in today’s world, everything happens at a much faster pace. Time has become compressed. The time we spend to complete many everyday tasks has shortened. The 30-second elevator speech needs to be shortened as well.
Our friend’s imagery is similar but somewhat different and it makes a good point.
Coming and going
Instead of the elevator, think instead of the escalator. Typically the up and down escalators are side-by-side. As you’re riding up the escalator, your counterparts are riding down and you pass for a brief period of time – about eight seconds.
Time marches on. Nowadays, it’s out with the elevator speech, and enter the updated term, the “escalator speech.” Whereas in the past you may have had up to 30 seconds to describe yourself, that’s been compressed to about eight seconds.
As you ride up the escalator, opposite you riding down, you see someone with whom you would like to connect (as you would at a networking event.) Because the two of you are moving in opposite directions, you have a about eight seconds to get your message across before that person passes out of earshot. So too, when you meet someone. You’ve got about eight seconds to state your case.
Therefore, your escalator speech needs to be about eight seconds. How long is that? There is a general rule of thumb about writing for the spoken word that says you get about 25 words for every ten seconds. It would follow then, that your escalator speech needs to be less than 25 words. That’s not a lot of time. Circumstances are forcing you to be very frugal with your words so that you can make the greatest impact in the shortest period of time.
It’s a new day. As technology has shortened time for most everything thing we do, it’s not surprising to learn that the long-venerated “elevator speech” has been shortened as well.
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