Elevator Speech

The elevator speech is an overview of your company or organization that you can deliver in the time it takes to ride up the elevator. Now, our campus elevators can be pretty slow, but. brevity is key for this short synopsis of who we are and what we do.

Below is our version of an elevator speech for K-State Research and Extension. We encourage you to personalize this message and use it any time you have the opportunity. This short speech can help us make people aware of the breadth and depth of information available through K-State Research and Extension.

"Hi. I'm ______. I'm K-State Research and Extension's ___________ agent in _______ County or District. I don't know what you know about K-State Research and Extension, but it's a partnership between local government and Kansas State University, with offices in every county. The agents in those offices distribute research-based information and advice on many topics. We cover environmental issues, health and nutrition, crops and livestock, lawns and gardens, 4-H and families, community development and much more.....giving Kansans the knowledge they need to improve their quality of life and standard of living."

More info:
Wiki's definition of elevator speech
The Perfect Elevator Speech from Business Weekly

Elevator Speech

Make the Most of Your 5 Minutes

You happen to catch a key funding source in the hallway and have, literally,five minutes to state your case on why your funding should be maintained, or at least not cut as much as other groups. What do you say and how do you say it?

Times like these are when key messages are essential. Key messages are the short 3-5 points that you want to make when given the opportunity. Whereas an elevator speech will provide the verbatim text, key messages give you the ideas to convey in your words.

K-State Research and Extension has key messages that may help you in this situation:

• K-State Research and Extension provides Knowledge for Life.
• We improve the quality of life and standard of living for all Kansans.
• We are a partnership between local government and Kansas State University.
• We have an office in every county.
• We create and distribute research-based information on topics important to Kansans.

And, when the specific topic of funding does come up, consider highlighting these points, from our 2006 statewide telephone survey:

• 80 percent of Kansas citizens surveyed said that they approve or strongly approve of spending public funds to support K-State Research and Extension.
• Of those surveyed, nearly 75 percent said it is very important to maintain our service of delivering unbiased, research-based information. An additional 23 percent consider it somewhat important.
• More than 63 percent who have participated in our programs rate their experience with K-State Research and Extension as excellent or good.
• 96 percent of those surveyed consider information from K-State Research and Extension as credible or very credible.

For more information on key messages, go to:

• How to formulate marketing messages
• Key messages in presentations
• What is a key message?

Make the Most of Your 5 Minutes

From the workbook “Branding: It’s Everybody’s Business!” created by Elizabeth Gregory North, Texas AgriLife Extension:

Branding: Making Our Mark

A fundamental element of marketing is branding, but there’s a lot more to it than just putting a logo on everything (although you do need to put the logo on everything!).

In Extension, we tend to believe what I call the Coca-Cola fallacy: marketing and branding are only for big business – we don’t have a brand and we don’t need one, because, after all, we’re not Coca-Cola!

But the reality is that we do have a brand and we do need marketing. Branding is a super-hot term in marketing circles these days, but what is called a brand can also be called reputation, and it can include organizational values, a mission, even a creed. A brand includes everything your name evokes in the minds of your customers.

It’s helpful to think of your brand as a promise you make to your customers – a promise that encourages them to enter into or to continue a relationship with
you.

Before you can work on building your brand, you need to understand what it is and what you want it to be.

We think that is one of the best descriptions of branding. It really illustrates the difference between marketing, logo-police, and true branding.

Looking for more information? Here are a few more links:

• A library of brand management articles from marketingprofs.com
• Brand marketing info from Stamats (directed toward higher education institutions)
• What is Branding? (from About.com)

Please add your own branding resources by clicking "Comments" below.