When you meet someone for the first time, either in a business or social setting, the question of what you do for a living is guaranteed to come up. You can make strong, lasting impressions by answering that question just a little differently.
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First impressions are important, and there are a lot of things that can hurt you. Name dropping, rambling or spending too much time on your phone are big no-nos. As Bernard Marr suggests at his LinkedIn blog, however, saying who you help instead of what you do can be a very effective way to stand out:
Instead of leading with what you do, lead with who you help. As in, “Hi, my name is Bernard, and I help companies identify and make the best use of their key performance indicators and big data.”
Done. You know who I am, what I do, and more importantly, whether or not I can help you or someone you know.
Saying who you help gives your job value and can lead you to meeting other people that might help your career. So before your next networking opportunity, ask yourself, who do you help?
How NOT to Introduce Yourself [LinkedIn]
Comments
3 responses to “Make A Good First Impression By Saying Who You Help, Not What You Do”
If someone introduced themselves to me like this I would immediately assume they work in HR.
PERSON: “Hi Transientmind! So what do you do?”
ME: “It’s one of those jobs that takes fifteen minutes to describe and when I’m done, we both wish I hadn’t.”
PERSON: “Oh. That’s… nice.”
ME: *sip whisky*
I am great at parties.
I feel ya. The worst part is running out of whiskey.
If you introduce yourself like this to me you’re either a pretentious twat or a boring prick who is prone to droning.
‘I’m Davis, I work in [INSERT DEPARTMENT] as the [INSERT JOBTITLE]’ if you wanted anymore than this, you would have asked for it.
Sidenote: the people above me have few friends.
Whisky is the only friend you need.