Grey Matters: Blog
In a nutshell. A plain English challenge.
Friday 18th March 2016
Have you ever tried to succinctly explain your job to a child in a way that they understand, and find interesting?
It shouldn't be difficult for me. I've spent 20+ years in B2B account selling.
I pride myself on being able to clearly articulate offers to my clients.
And I have passion for my work too. It has motivated me each day with fresh challenges & constant learning; I've worked in great teams, and secured some great deals; and my career has allowed me to meet many inspiring people.
So, surely conveying my job to my 10-year-old daughter with clarity and enthusiasm would be as easy as falling off a log?
Its Enterprise Week at her school next week. Children have to talk about what their parents do for a living. My daughter asks me to explain.
Here's my attempt at explaining my job last year:
"Well, I'm accountable for securing and growing the services we deliver to my customer, which is a big global bank, and I help them to address new opportunities and problems with our tech....."
Game Over. I lost her right there. Her eyes just glazed over before I got to the double whammy of reducing TCO and enhancing service.
I've now learned that my daughter is equipped with an innate bullshit radar. She will not tolerate the industry buzzwords I've picked up along the way. "Strategic relationships", "Value Propositions", "Execution Capabilities" or "Corporate Governance" mean nothing to her.
This year, after a change in direction and much reflection, I was ready when she challenged me "So what exactly is it that you do Dad? Don't you just sit on the phone and go "blah blah blah" all the time?"
My Answer:
"I help my customers to protect and grow their most important clients. I do this by by helping them:
- to become great at managing the services they provide, and their most important client relationships,
- to sell better, and
- to sell more.
That's it in a nutshell."
It nearly worked. Her response - "Why is it in a nutshell?"
Try it yourself. Plain English. No Gobbledegook.