I went on a free course recently, organised by the local council
Amongst the 99% of useless stuff was this gem:
'The Elevator Pitch'
The idea is you get into an elevator (lift, if you prefer :
- most of these ideas seem to come from the States) with a person whom you know to be the one you need to impress with your idea/sales pitch or whatever. You have maybe 20 seconds before he reaches his floor to get your message across so that when he gets out of the lift you give him your card and he will be interested enough to call you.
What are you going to say?
This scenario is the same as the prospective custy opening the door - 20 seconds is about as much as you've got before he/she loses interest and shuts the door.
To 'soften up' the situation, I always leaflet before I knock.
I came up with:
Hello,
My name is XXXX of Ian Lancaster Window Cleaner. We put one of these leaflets in your door a few days ago.
Our method cleans everything: frames, sills, doors, plastic panels and even conservatory gutters all as part of our standard service. It keeps your windows looking like new and probably for a lot less than you might expect.
Can I give you a quote? It only takes a couple of minutes and it’s a professional written quotation so you can see exactly why our service is such good value for money.Let's see what some of you would say