Last time I explained that as Director of Aire Serv London North West one of my duties is to meet regularly with diverse local businesses with a view to providing mutual support to enable business growth. 

During the meeting we are each given 60 seconds (yes only 60 seconds) to describe our business and identify a referral / opportunity that we are looking for. We looked at how I went about drawing out the salient points concerning Aire Serv’s business by brainstorming with the Aire Serv team, which I still remember was a very successful exercise.

However, the question remained - how do we get the key points in 60 seconds and still make an impact?

OK all very good – but how do we get the key points in 60 seconds and still make an impact?

For this part of the exercise I decided to consult Kesh Morjaria who is good at this sort of stuff. Kesh explained that that we should look at the 60 seconds as an initial commercial that should plant the all important seeds of information that will in time grow into solid referrals. We then thought about the “anatomy” of this commercial:

Part 1 – The Introduction - the easy bit should include my name, the company’s name and what we do.

Part 2 – The Description - this should be a brief description of one of our services (not necessarily all – the others can be covered in future meetings or during detailed one to one meetings). To ensure that it is not too technical, Kesh advised that I should break this down into the “lowest common denominator” or its simplest form.

Part 3 – The Why? Both Kesh and I knew that Aire Serv provide a great service, but I needed to make sure that this was articulated in such a way that listeners understood and could relate to – i.e. bring out the various points that made our service “great”.

Part 4 – The Ask – as this was my opportunity to ask for support I needed to be clear about what sort of support or referral I wanted. I suggested asking for “anyone you know that might want air conditioning” but was advised that this was too vague and likely to make little impact. We then decided to narrow this down to asking for a specific person an introduction to which could give rise to great business opportunities. I considered whether this was too narrow but then remembered that I will be attending  50 or so such meetings each year so there would be plenty of opportunities to ask for introductions to others.

Part 5 – The Conclusion – this is where I wrap up and introduce a memory hook.

Sounds easy when it’s put that way doesn’t it? Well it’s easier than starting with a blank sheet of A4 and having to write something down that will do your business justice, make an impact and last 60 seconds. To show that this is not made up, next week I will publish my 60 seconds that came about as a result of the above approach.

If you run a local business and are interested in obtaining referrals and opportunities for growth, see http://bit.ly/dblr3m for details of the next meeting.