What Not to Say When Someone Asks You What You Do…

I attend lots of networking meetings and groups and there is always this cringe time when we are supposed to share what we do. You know – that dreaded elevator pitch and the 30 second commercial. If I had wanted to be in a commercial, I would have moved to Hollywood and auditioned and landed one and made a boat load of money. But alas… that was not my journey… The crazy thing is that most of these ‘introductions’ we are trained to do is prospect and client repelling!

I’ve been listening and this is what I’ve heard over the last month:

—> You give them your title – “I’m a Business Coach”. (And they say. ‘Cool’ and walk away from you.)

—> I’m a coach, but I used to be a teacher and before that I dabbled in accounting and… and I have a Ph.D. from Harvard. (You’ve completely overwhelmed them and because you aren’t trusting yourself, you are backing up your current career with all the things you did in the past that were… in your mind respectable, worthy, traditional ways of making a living.) Hey, you aren’t sounding confident in the least and the person you are talking with cannot wait to get away from you.

—> You FREEEEEEZE (that’s when nothing comes out of your mouth at all – you basically stare at the other person and all you want to do is disappear into the floor, evaporate or die…)

—> Robotic words come out of your mouth while the person standing in front of you is scratching their head, squinting and trying to figure out exactly what you do. (I help women reach their full potential, by helping create abundance in their lives…) Whaaaaat??? Peel me off-a the ceiling… please!

Or…

—> You go into full non-stop bulldozer and you talk at that person for way, way too long…and kick yourself all the way home in the car. (I’m a business coach and I help people with their businesses, and we work on everything from soup to nuts and even their work life balance and I offer energy work and it really helps you clear out all that childhood trauma and get to what really matters and I’d love to work with you – hey- you can sign up right here and right now and I’ll even give it to you for no money…)

Hey, I know you are doing one or even all of these. And these really aren’t effective. In fact they boring, eye rolling, over-used, over-played and there is no ROI. AT ALL. NADA.

And…

I was just like you. I was taught all of those at networking events I attended, in all the how to books I read. AND I always felt like crap after I opened my mouth.

So please stop doing that. Now. Be human. Be you. Let go of the jargon. Make people smile.