Opportunity often appears at the worst times and in the strangest places.\u00a0 Sometimes they are disguised and hard to recognize.\u00a0 For example, one day I got on the elevator at work to go down from the seventh floor for lunch.\u00a0 The car was empty and I thought I might have a chance for a non-stop express ride.\u00a0 Just before the doors closed the Office Chief stepped into the car.\u00a0 He said hello, and before I could respond he asked, \u201cWhat are you working on?\u201d\u00a0 It was probably just a social gesture, but I saw it as an opportunity.\u00a0 Here was a chance to leapfrog three layers of management and speak directly to the person who held the reins of power.\u00a0 I probably had less than a minute, and was totally unprepared.\u00a0 I had learned the hard way not to respond with a negative reply, such as, not much, or nothing.\u00a0 It is not smart to tell upper management that you are not doing anything productive.\u00a0\u00a0 On the other hand I was just doing routine design reviews.\u00a0 Although the work was important to our function, it was routine and there was nothing notable about it.\u00a0\u00a0 I needed to say something, and for some reason, I felt like stepping out of the box and trying something different.<\/p>\n
There was not a lot of time. I am sure that all he was expecting was to exchange greetings.\u00a0 I am sure he had no real interest in what I was working on; he was just being sociable.\u00a0 Upper management often uses questions like that as a preemptive defensive measure to deflect conversation.\u00a0 Ask a general question and by the time the answer comes back it is time to step off the elevator.\u00a0 Usually a safe answer for the employee was to mention the general category, nothing specific that would lead to more questions.\u00a0 That is the employee\u2019s defensive measure, mentioning something general that sounds good and tells nothing.\u00a0 Since I was bored with my job and really wanted to move into something new, I needed something to catch the Office Chief\u2019s interest without stepping out of bounds.<\/p>\n
The words started coming out of my mouth before I even had formed my thoughts.\u00a0 A very scary and dangerous thing to do, but I related some ideas I had on a project I was interested in, but not working on.\u00a0 There was little time so there was no time to discuss details, just an overview of what I thought.\u00a0 I know I caught him by surprise and I finished as the elevator doors opened, and we parted ways.\u00a0 I am not sure that what I said had any real effect, but I did end up working on that project a while later, which lead to a promotion.\u00a0 I think the important thing that I learned that day was to be better prepared to take advantage of opportunities and to recognize them when they occur.\u00a0 I started paying more attention to elevator conversations, and learned a lot about the art of making use of a very short amount of time.\u00a0 It actually has a name, the \u201cElevator Pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n
To use the \u201cElevator Pitch\u201d effectively you have to be prepared.\u00a0 Just like preparing for an interview, you should have the major points you want to cover.\u00a0 Then develop a clear, concise, and convincing message that you can deliver in 30 seconds or less.\u00a0 Give it a try in front of the mirror a few times. \u00a0It is more difficult than you think, but once you learn the technique it really comes in handy when an unexpected opportunity arises.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Opportunity often appears at the worst times and in the strangest places.\u00a0 Sometimes they are disguised and hard to recognize.\u00a0 For example, one day I got on the elevator at work to go down from the seventh floor for lunch.\u00a0 The car was empty and I thought I might have a chance for a non-stop […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1,6,22,18,7,19],"tags":[209,5,9,4,3,208],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abundance","category-advice","category-career-challenges","category-challenges","category-mentor-advice","category-personality","category-success","tag-abundance","tag-career-advice","tag-career-strategies","tag-interactive-career-advice","tag-practicalmentor","tag-success"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":325,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/325"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practicalmentor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}