Exactly what do you do?

So you are probably out there, doing some networking, and getting to know people. How do you respond when people ask you what you do? I have seen this handled many ways, but mostly this is the response that VAs come up with:

I am a Virtual Assistant. And then you sit back and wait for them to ask you what that means. You have already confused your prospect.

Being a Virtual Assistant is what you do, but it doesn't tell anyone what you actually can do for them, which is really what their question is all about.

So what you need to do is to craft a more succinct message that explains what you do without being the dreaded Elevator Speech. While the idea of shrinking down the explanation of what you do is a very good idea, I don't like the idea of only having 30 seconds to communicate this to people. I don't think for the most part that sales happen in 30 seconds, and so of course I don't see the need to cram the whole description in there in that time frame.

However, it's important to be able to accurately describe what you do, so I suggest that you put together a couple of sentences that are easy to communicate, that people can then ask proper questions from, and it develops into a conversation.

So, you want to pass along four things in those sentences.

Tell them:

• who you help (ie I help authors) - what you help them with (get their books self-published) - how you help them (by taking care of their administrative details) - and what they get to do as a result (so they can concentrate on writing)

Of course you can get much more detailed depending on who you serve and what they do, but you get the idea from this example. You want to be able to provide this information in a conversational tone, and this model really helps you to do that.

And of course - if you are at a networking event with female authors, you would want to edit your introduction to speak directly to them. It's easy to edit this format to suit your audience.

Try it - see what you come up with, and then try it out at your next networking event. You'll find that it's more of a conversation starter than starting with something that might confuse them. Have fun!