Create your powerful story
I was measuring 7 grams of baking powder in a tiny kitchen in Tempelhof, close to the decommissioned airport, Tempelhof in the south of Berlin. The airport is now a huge park with picnic areas, communal gardens and preserved runways attracting all kinds of people spending their free time there. I've just met a bunch of new people celebrating food and cooking together on an international night when the lovely woman next to me asked me this question.
The topic, what do you do also came up in some coaching conversations with my clients recently. Sharing a title can put us into a box in the other's head and the story is already over.
Do you want to create a powerful story when responding to the question what do you do?
Here are a few tips to create a unique way of sharing about what you do:
Source: unsplash
Answer the question you want to answer. You don’t have to answer the question people are asking. Respond to the question you want to answer.
Create curiosity. Link to a theme your audience is familiar with. Have you seen this ad with Ronaldo? Have you heard about the x event? I did that. —- Then stay quiet. It’s likely that they’ll become curious and will ask you to tell more about it.
Share a success story: it can be what you’ve achieved at your last company, or an extraordinary story with a client. Build it up in the following structure:
What was it like before you worked with them (aka. company, client)? What struggles they had? Low confidence, feeling burned out, high fluctuation, failed transformation projects.
What have they tried that did not work? Programs, online courses, figuring it our by themselves, posting on social media, hiring a consultant, running a change management project.
What did you do? Be as specific as possible. I helped them reduce costs by xk EUR, get a new job, make a move etc.
What feelings your clients/customers/team had? What did they feel like when working with you?
What strengths and skills of your have you used? I connect easily with people from various background and I used it in x project. I listened to their struggles like no one before.
What’s their life like now? How did it transform? They launched a new product. They
Share what you believe. What I do is what I believe. Wholeness comes form embracing all parts of ourselves: the flaws, the successes, the beauty, and the ugly. I help women on their journey toward wholeness by guide them to explore and love every little piece of themselves and their story and rediscover their true essence.
Talk about who you work with in a way if you were describing a movie character. Make them interesting, cool, sexy. What do they feel like? What do they believe in? What are their aspirations? What are their values?
Create your own unique title. Is it a job title? Is it a profession? Is it a descriptive sentence describing what you do? Create your own. Are you helping women to transform their life? Be a transformation guide. Are you supporting leader to become superheroes? Make it a title: I turn leaders into superheroes.
Be a storyteller. Stay in the story. You’re not presenting yourself, you’re creating an engaging story and inviting the other person to be part of that story. Allow them to feel it what is it like being in this with you together.
Take it easy. It’s a conversation, you’re not selling yourself but sharing about something you feel passionate about. Share what feels right. Make it fluid and spontaneous. As always, be you. <3
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