We all get asked the question, "What do you do?"  People typically respond with a brief description of their job.

Think deeper.  This question is really asking one or two more significant questions:

1. What do you have for me?

2. Why are you significant?

The first question is seeking a point of relationship.  Do we have something in common?  What type of person are you?  Are you someone I would enjoy speaking with?

The second question is trying to justify why the person should spend time getting to know you.  Everyone only has so much time, so often they focus on relationship or significance - in business or personal life.

In business it is important to respond in a way that engages the other person.  Geoffrey James, a sales consultant, wrote a BNET column on how to create an opportunity in ten seconds.  I suggest you give this some thought.

What if you had a great response?

For instance, someone asks me about what I do in my consulting.  First I give them our mission statement:  We help leaders systematically engage people to be more productive, profitable and personally fulfilled in their careers.

Then I stop.  Geoffrey makes a great point.  I need one more sentence that begins with "Our customers..."

So maybe I should add, "Our customers often earn $10,000 for every $1,000 they invest in our consulting to help them become better leaders."

Try it.  I think mine can be better. The more specific you can quantify the impact on your customers, the better.  Try not to give a lot of specifics on you or your products.  Just focus on the results for them or people they know. 

Be an intentional leader.

MEETING IDEAS

What Do You Do? is meant to stimulate conversation among your team to focus your message on the value you bring to others.

Here are some ideas for discussion during your next staff meeting to consider how to shorten and strengthen your answer to the question, what do you do?

First decide whether you want to test your people's answers before working on a better answer.  If this is your approach, then do not let your people know this topic will be discussed.  Be encouraging as your people answer less strongly than you would like.  REMEMBER:  They learned their answer from their boss (you?).

Or you can let people know this is a discussion topic of the meeting.  Challenge them to prepare in advance and offer prizes for the top three answers, top answer per division of your company and/or maybe participation prizes for everyone who offers a suggested response.

1.  Go around the room asking the question, "What do you do?"

2.  Explain what you are trying to achieve;  the importance of starting with "Our customers..." (or an alternative of your own);  and the importance of focusing on the results of your work on others.

3.  Let your people discuss or politely debate the suggestions.  Organize the list of responses.  Identify the parts of responses that seem to have the most impact.  Encourage respect for all suggestions.

4.  Role play to test the responses.  Encourage people to politely question the facts or claims.

5.  Ask your people to test the winning response for 1-2 weeks and then reconvene to agree upon a final version.  There is power internally at your company and externally to prospects, clients, vendors and your community when everyone passionately, convincingly answers this question.