What’s an elevator speech?  Let’s say you’re about to speak at an important conference.  You leave your hotel room, high up on the 25th floor or so, and you punch the button for the mezzanine.  The elevator stops on the 12th floor and someone gets in.  He’s wearing golfing attire, and he looks at you with an expression both sheepish and defiant. 

"You’re the keynote speaker," he says.  "Why should I attend your speech?  They’ve got this amazing golf course out there and it’s calling me." 

You’ve got 11 floors — less than a minute — to persuade this sartorially challenged ingrate to attend your speech.  You say, "because if you attend my speech, you will learn how to have rock-hard abs and an improved sex life with less than 5 minutes a day of exercise — guaranteed."

"Oh," he says.  "Hmmm.  Maybe I could golf in the afternoon."

That’s the perfect elevator speech.  It relates to the audience members (the word "you") and their needs.  It solves a problem that they have.  And it contains emotion — in this case the emotion surrounding sex and fitness (and laziness). 

For every presentation you give, you should first craft an elevator speech that’s as compelling as this one.  If you don’t know what the elevator speech is, your audience won’t either, and they may never learn why they’re there.

As you’re preparing your presentation, put the elevator speech on a sticky note on your computer, and ruthlessly eliminate everything that doesn’t support that elevator speech.  One of the main causes of bad speeches is the urge to include too much. 

Audiences will only remember one thing you say anyway, so make sure you know what that thing will be.  Use the elevator speech to keep yourself on point.  Both you and your audiences will be glad you did.