Networking & Sales – what to answer when someone asks 'what do you do?'
1 Sep 2008
You have honed your ‘elevator pitch’ to perfection. You’ve practised delivering it in front of the mirror, with your colleagues, with your partner - even the dog. You are word perfect and ready to go.
You have just arrived at your next networking event. If you are like most people I know, you simply cannot wait for a total stranger to ask you – “so what do you do?” so you can deliver your pitch. And you do – right? No – WRONG – that’s what everyone expects you to do and it’s actually the last thing you should do! Here’s what you should say instead…
“It’s rather boring. Please tell me what YOU do.”
Understand that most people much prefer and indeed often love talking about themselves and what they do. This gives you the opportunity to listen and ask questions. Questions like:
- So who are the type of customers or clients you deal with?
- What is the biggest project you are working on at the moment?
- What type of help and support might you need to get that to happen?
Etc. etc.
Once you have listened to what they have to say, you now know:
- Whether or not what you do might be of interest to them and how best to introduce your product or service to them in a relevant way
- Whether or not they have the type of customers that you might like them to introduce you to in the future.
So you now have all the information you need to decide whether or not you wish to continue the conversation, either that evening or some time in the future, or if you should extricate yourself gracefully and move on to network with others in the room. And you may have saved yourself a lot of time explaining what you do to someone who only asked - just to be polite.