When you walk into a situation where somebody is going to ask you what you do, you have time to plan what you are going to say. If you're smart, you'll be ready with an impactful, credible and relevant Elevator Speech (ES). Here's how.

If you're aiming at a particular target market, or know the kind of people you'll be networking with, you can fine-tune your ES to make it specialised for that particular person or company. Here are my seven top tips to help you in customising your ES for maximum word of mouth opportunities and maximum impact!

1. Determine Your Audience
Who exactly are you going to be speaking to? If you don't know, you need to ask. Will it be board level, senior management, or someone lower down the hierarchy? This affects what you say. Make your ES speak specifically to what they are primarily interested in, which might be different to what you might normally deliver. Is your first meeting with a particular department before moving on to more senior decision makers? If so, you'll need to deliver your ES twice, with two slightly different versions.

2. Discern Your Objective
What exactly do you want to get out of this interaction, meeting or phone call? It could be as simple as leaving a favourable impression, or as difficult as getting a sale on the day. Whatever it is, your content needs to be channelled in the direction of your objective.

3. Define Your Content
Once you know your audience and your objective you can decide what will work best for getting the attention of your listener. And perhaps you need to decide which service or product is going to be the best for your audience.

4. Decide on Your Hook
Once you know the basic message you can then think up a hook that is designed specifically for your listener. Remember, it must be intriguing!

5. Design Your ES
Gather together all you want to say, and keep rewriting it until you get it down to the shortest, most concise statements. As this is probably not an accidental meeting, you know you will no doubt have more than 15 seconds to deliver your ES. But you must still avoid the boredom factor! It must be short enough to be delivered without giving the impression that you are rushing to get in all you want to say.

6. Deliver with Style!
Your ES must roll off your tongue with ease. The problem with adapting your usual one is that you are not used to the new one! Practice saying it, to see if it sounds right and to get it right. You could record it and play it back to help you memorise it. Make sure you sound confident, friendly and sincere.

7. Decide on a Call to Action!
Finally, think through what you want them to do once they've heard your ES. Book you? Meet with you one-to-one? Connect you to someone? Refer you? Ask for further information. Begin with the end in mind, said a wise man!

A customised approach takes effort and preparation. That's why few people do it. And that's why few people make their networking really work for them. Are you going to go the extra mile for the extra results and referrals?