Blog / Leadership
Brian White, 2am Club Hot Topics Issue 10
Have you ever thought about how you answer the question “what do you do”?
A simple throw away question requiring only a similar type response in return? Or a question with loads of positive potential responses and outcomes?
And how to advise all the up and coming performers within one’s Group? Answer the question any old way or grab onto it, virtually saying “thank you God for the brilliant opportunity to promote myself!”?
All too often the response goes “I’m in real estate” - finis. The end. I did a straw poll recently and asked this question purposely to about twenty people representing a wide cross-section of industries. Almost all answered the question simple - straightforward reply - “I’m in advertising”. “I’m in cars” etc etc.
Nothing more. Nothing extra that might have startled one to say/think “Hmmm. That’s a person I should keep in mind. That’s someone I’d like to get to know.”
Guess. Generally women have the intuition better than we men! Some were strong (over strong?) with a return such as “I’m in cars - are you looking to acquire one?”. At least that is more memorable than the straight bat response.
But the responses that impressed me most went along the lines “I’m in insurance. It’s a fabulous industry. Really believe in its offer.”
Bit wordy? Why? Only if we accept, assume, the person asking has absolutely no interest whatsoever in the answer I might give.
Sure - lots of those, but so what? Is it not better to assume that that person is actually interested in my response than not?
And what about adding - “I’m in........ - how about you?” Only rarely was the reverse question asked. Why? As we seek to build our individual careers why not seize upon every opportunity to create interest to the people around us? And what about our recorded phone messages? On the average - truly awful. Often just plain rude. Expressions of indifference are common. Why oh why? What are we thinking - something like “I’ll get back to you if it suits me”!!
All questions to ponder at 2am - or do we ourselves enjoy being talked down to? i.e. feeding insecurity complexes? Be that as it may! One plays a risk-ridden game based on that hypothesis. The best recorded phone message? “Hi. I’m Bill Smith (not it’s!). So sorry to have missed you, I will call you back”.
And pondering at 2am the best reply to what do you do? “I’m in real estate. A fabulous profession. What’s yours?”
Good Night.
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