One Last Coda: Your Networking “Positioning Statement”

hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and I’ve got one last tip about the the
art of networking if you will when you
go to meetups or when you go to
networking events or if you go to
workshops or places where you’re gonna
meet people that maybe would be
interesting to know would be useful to
know would be people you could sell to
or people that could help you with your
business or people that you just want to
get to know better and we went through a
whole bunch of things in that move our
tackle that I that I linked to in some
previous videos but there’s one last
thing I got an email from somebody going
what do you say when somebody says what
do you do and you’re at one of those
events where everybody knows what you do
or not and I have two answers for that
and maybe they’d be helpful to you we
have sort of this built in conversation
starter because we’re performers right
if somebody says what do you do and I
say I’m an actor you know that that
starts a conversation now if you’re at
an event where everybody’s an actor
instead of that what I might say is I’m
an actor but I help vo performers become
vo heroes and resist the urge to say
anything else after that just let it
hang there it’s called an open loop
people want to know what what do you
mean vo heroes what does that mean right
and you can adapt this to what you do it
sparks the conversation if you don’t
blow all of your information onto
somebody all at once just start with a
very simple one-sentence statement that
says what you do as a vo performer you
could say I’m a voice-over talent and I
solved my clients problems still that’s
a massively cool statement but it
doesn’t over detail the answer because
oh really how do you do that that’s the
next natural question is what happens to
me when I say I helped turn vo
performers into vo heroes how do you do
that and then
get to talk about vo heroes and but but
the other thing is I get to talk about
them especially if I’m an event at an
event where we’re all in the business
right so no matter what you do what you
want to do is come up not with an
elevator pitch that’s what a lot of
people talk about how do you describe
what you do in the amount of time it
takes to go from the third floor to the
fourth floor in an elevator which is
only you know thirty seconds or so it’s
not even that in some cases but you got
to be even quicker than that you want to
be even quicker than that you want to be
respectful of the time of the person
that you’re talking to and you also want
to make it just a tiny bit provocative
you know you want to make it something
that sparks interest that piques
curiosity that says really you’re wow
we’re just saying something as simple as
I narrate audiobooks again if you’re not
at an event where everybody is an
audiobook narrator right if I was in an
event where everybody was an audiobook
narrator I might say I turn audio book
narrators into audiobook narrator heroes
just again the kind of thing that
doesn’t say too much it’s very clear
about what it is I’m a coach and if it’s
not clear it generates a question or a
comment or a what wow that’s really cool
how does that work nobody is going to
say to you really seriously that’s what
you do okay
thanks and then move on to somebody else
that’s not gonna happen so don’t worry
about that but I wanted to talk to you
about this whole idea of what do you
what do you offer when somebody does say
what do you do I wanted you to have
something in your back pocket and it’s
something that’s worth practicing
rehearsing doing it to the mirror and
doing it in a way where you don’t feel
kind of embarrassed to say it because
the first time you say it it’s gonna
take some gumption it’s gonna take some
effort it really is because we have this
natural self effacing thing words I go
gosh I’m an actor you know or whatever
it is but to be able to say something
even above that to say like what I used
to say was I’m a creepy evil villain and
that took me a while to do
but when I was on heroes and when I was
playing villains on when I do play
villains on other shows and people asked
me that that pops into my head you know
I’m a creepy evil villain that’s the
kind of thing that wait wait what you’re
what you know and then that sparks
conversation it’s not about trying to be
the center of attention it’s simply
about saying what you do with pride and
doing so in a way that generates
conversation doesn’t stop conversation
in the middle of its progress I hope
that makes sense let me know in the
comments below if this is confusing or
if this is crystal clear or somewhere in
between maybe you’ve got some great
positioning statements that you could
share with people I would love to hear
them what do you say when people ask
what do you do I want to know I want to
know if you want to be on my list so you
know when these videos come out please
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watching on V o heroes com and again I’d
love your comments I’d love to know what
you think about these videos and what
we’re doing and this one in particular
below the video alright I’m David H
Lawrence 217th I thank you so much for
watching and I will talk to you tomorrow.