What do you really do? Are you Confused or just confusing? by Paul Johnstone

I met a man yesterday who told me he did everything. 

He was a handyman builder type person who claimed to be the answer to everyone’s prayers. Is he a jack of all trades and master of none? The way he introduced himself to me I got the impression he was the master of non.

The chance meeting reminded me of a woman I used to work with. She could not stand BS and would cut people down quickly if she suspected it. When we were in a networking event and a man came over to talk to us.

My friend asked the man what he did. I am a project manager for (the bigest Airline in the UK), came the quick reply.  

Her next comment floored the poor chap, she said.

“I didn’t ask what you were, I asked what you did?”

She got the same startled look from a finance director of one of the countries largest plc’s with that phrase.

This got me thinking about how we answer questions, after all the words we use set the scene for the next phase of the conversation. In fact you are setting out your position from which to propose a course of action.

With some people it was not immediately clear what they are or what they can do for you. Remember the handy man builder we began with. Being understood is key to our success, but how many people just ‘dump on you’ whatever is top of their current agenda?

How many of you have done this? I know I have in the past, so I’m not pointing fingers here.

How often do you know that your message is clearly understood?

Maybe you can find someone to have a one to one with who will feed back to you before you next go networking. You could play the ‘so what’ game where you give your presentation the edge. Or just evaluate what it is we are saying.

I have a couple of questions that might just help you get to the nub of the issue. The following is a variation on a questionnaire that I have a paper copy of which was given to me before the Internet began, OK so I've been around that long..

Check out these and see how you can improve your meeting first impression and avoid any confusion. Some questions you might want to think about:

When asked What do you do? Think about the answer which means what to your audience.

• Where do you do It?
• Who do you do this for?
• Who do you do this for specifically?
• Why should anyone choose you?
• What examples do you have?

So you’re not going to get all those in a simple answer, but they are pointers to help you construct a simple answer to an innocent question and avoid any confusion


I use the following fro my Utility Broking work

"What do you do?"

I'm a utility broker and I save people money".

I know the person I am talking to is not confused.

Paul
and remember to put the work into network