How Well Do You Know Your Business?
November 1, 2006

This is a quick one. A no brainer. You are at a local business gathering. You meet a complete stranger who has an interest in you and your business. He says, "So, what do you do?"

What is your answer?

As best you can, what did you just think or say out loud?
How long did it take you to think of what you said?
How long was the time/duration of what you said?

If your response was more than a few seconds...
If your response was a hard for you to repeat....
If your response did not turn the other person, or for that matter, yourself, on.....
If you weren't able to capture the essence of your business easily and with panache...
Then, you really don't know your business.
Or better said, you may think you know it, however, you won't be able to get other people to understand it, easily at any rate, and this often leads to....yawns, boredom, a change of subject and worst yet, lost opportunities.

So, capture your essence. Right now.

Why do it? Simple. If you can create a memorable short phrase about what you do, or what your business does, then you will be able to respond to anyone asking, or better yet, utilize this phrase when proactively opening new business opportunities.

What do I mean by that?

Joanne Black, author of the recently published, "No More Cold Calling; The Breakthrough System That Will Leave Your Competition in the Dust," has defined this initial step in creating new business through her referral system as critical in the referral development process.

For example: Ask me about what I do for a living....

"Jeff. What do you do for a living?"
"I provide shock treatment for sales organizations."

Now, I could have replied, in the same scenario...

"Jeff. What do you do for a living?"
"I work with sales organizations to address their organizational culture and historical trend lines and performance, then create metrics and behavioral change that coincides with the near term and future needs that are being imposed, perhaps unknowingly, by moribund and often backwards sales leadership."

Which reply was succinct?
Which one stimulated you to ask what I meant?

Odds are, the first response got your vote. That doesn't mean that I can capture everything about my business in the first response, but then, I don't choose to do so. If I tried, (like many of us), I would simply bore you to death, and have you thinking about the appetizers I am blocking you from, as opposed to getting you intrigued enough to say, "What do you mean?"

I'll leave it at that for now.

I want you to ask me about Joanne's "No More Cold Calling Program." I represent her content, and work with companies to create live programming and learning experiences driven from her system. I'd like you to e-mail or call me to say, "Jeff, tell me more."

Oh, if you asked me what I did, I'd say:

"I enable salespeople to see the light in the eyes of new customers."