In any social situation there always comes a point in the conversation where you are asked, “What do you do for a living” or something along those lines.
Most of the time you would respond with a generic answer of “I’m in financial services” or “I own a retail shop”
Now this isn't a bad response, but whether someone is asking to be nice or asking because they are genuinely interested, it’s always best to have a good one liner or sentence that defines what you do for any situation you are in.
For SME businesses promoting your business is always a challenge because you face a common problem. Obscurity!
Taking the opportunities when they arise to sell your business is a must.
But taking advantage of a situation and being able to sell your business to anyone in one sentence can give you an edge over the next person, and makes it sound more interesting.
What I am talking about here is what makes your business unique? Some people call it a value proposition, or a USP (unique selling point), but it really is just a few key sentences that define your business and will gain some interest when you deliver it.
So how do you build this little package to make it work?
Let’s take an example of a financial planner. What are some of the valuable things that planners do?
Assist people in achieving their financial goals.
Take the time to listen to people and build relationships with clients.
Provide ongoing support to clients through regular catch ups and phone calls
Expert advice that can increase clients wealth through their own experience gained over their career.
So I know there are a heap more but for my example we can use the above.
Now let's pull a couple of key things from here.
Financial goals
Building relationships
Ongoing support
Expert Advice to build wealth
Great, now we have four key points that defines the business in a very short amount of time.
So let’s put it together in a sentence.
“So Neil, what do you do for a living?”
“John, I own a financial planning firm that provides expert wealth advice for my clients through building sound relationships with ongoing support. This helps people achieve their financial goals.”
So there is a quick example of how you can take a very mundane “What do you do” conversation and turn it into a unique way to sell your company using its value each time you discuss it with people.
Lets just recap on that:
Previous response:
“I'm in financial services”
New Response:
“I own a financial planning firm that provides expert wealth advice for my clients through building sound relationships with ongoing support. This helps people achieve their financial goals”
You have just created a unique sentence that defines the value you offer in your business.
Now I know this sounds a bit cheesy to some creating a sentence that offers up a different view point when speaking to people. Trust me, the next time you are in that situation and have gone through this exercise it will sound much better by differentiating yourself from the next person.
It only takes a few minutes to come up with some of the valuable things you do in the business and i'm sure you have a lot more than the example I have given, so I encourage you to create an easy selling piece for conversations.
You never know who you will be speaking to in the future, they could just possibly turn into your biggest client so always be prepared.