Episode 149: The Introduction Formula: Finding The Confidence To Describe What You Do
In this quick tip episode, Fiona recalls the time when she was just starting her business and how she had a hard time describing what she does for a living. Through the Introduction Formula, she shares a simple phrase small business owners can use to find confidence in describing what they do.
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
On mindset
Introduction formula
Conclusion
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Resources mentioned in this episode:
Episode transcript:
Hello and welcome to Episode 149 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. My name is Fiona Killackey. I am your host and this is a quick tip episode. So really quick episode where I'm going to give you a tip, tool, or tactic that you can use in your small business immediately. So if you're new around here, thank you so much. And make sure you hit subscribe so you don't miss out on anything. And if you listen all the time, massive thank you and a huge hug, I'm sending you a virtual hug.
Because I just feel so wonderful when I hear from people that they're listening and just yet seeing all the different downloads all over the world. I love seeing like little new parts of the world kind of pop up on my analytics and be like, "Oh my goodness, people are listening all the way over there." So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Before we get stuck into today's quick tip episode, I just want to pay my respects to the traditional owners of the land on which I record this, though are the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, and I pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been seated.
So today, like I said, it's a quick tip episode. So let's be quick and get into it, shall we?
Alright, so I know I talk about mindset quite a bit. On this podcast, I talk about it on my Sunday email, if you've worked with me, we talk about it. And I wouldn't necessarily be like, "Oh, I'm a mindset coach." But mindset is 100% part of what I work through with my clients. But something that came up for me early on in my business was this sort of lack of confidence around speaking about what I did. And I think, you know, to kind of quote Donald Miller, "If you confuse, you lose.", and I think what I was doing at the start of my business, and I began at the very end of 2015 really is when I began the business probably started 2016. And I went to quite a few events, just like I wasn't going to like networking events. As such, I just had quite a few friends who work in sort of PR space, and now running events, and I was going to some events. And I realized that even my good friends didn't really understand what I was doing.
And so they would be introducing me to people and sort of saying, "Oh, this is Fiona, she runs a consulting business." And you could sort of see them sort of fumble and go, "Oh, she does everything from copywriting." Or someone would introduce me as a social media manager or you know, all sorts of things. She does brand consulting, then other people - "She does marketing strategy." Other people she's a copywriter, which I've never been a copywriter. I have done a lot of branded content. But I wouldn't necessarily say yeah.
So anyway, this is a quick episode, I'm not going to go into that too much. Suffice to say, it was quite confusing to people. And I was confused, because once someone would start talking to me, I didn't know how to talk about my business. And I guess I was still sort of figuring out what I was doing. I had gone into it thinking I was gonna go in and do brand strategy and marketing plans, which is really, you know, my background. And you know, help people set up systems and processes and all those things I still do today, I would literally say like, the four things I help people most with is brand strategy, marketing, mindset, and systems and processes. And those four things are still there. But what I didn't have was a way of talking about what I did clearly and succinctly. And that's really important that second point, especially for me, because as you can tell, I have the gift of the gab, but, you know, my Irish ancestry.
But what I figured out was, you know, I kind of went home and I was like, How do I figure out a way of talking about what I do in a succinct format, that is going to give me confidence to be able to say what I do quickly, and give other people confidence, like my friends and other people to say to other, you know, to people we meet, this is Fiona, this is what she does. And I know that we don't necessarily always want to put people in a box, but it can help. I always say to people, you know, clarity equals confidence. And I find that that's the same when you're introducing yourself to people as well.
And so what I found was this thing called the introduction formula, and I started messing around with it for my own business, just sort of figure out a sentence really, that I could say that I would feel confident with, and also would be really clear to people what I did. And so I wanted to share that today in today's quick tip episode. This tool, which is the Introduction Formula that you might decide to play around with it and see if you can come up with a sentence that you feel confident about and that is really clear and to simply says what you do.
So the introduction formula goes like this - I or we help who do you help so who's your ideal audience, plus, with what? What do you do? So that - end result.
That is it, it's super simple, I help ________, with __________, so ___________.
So I might say I help small business owners with understanding their brand strategy and creating systems around it to bring it to life so that they can get more time and energy back or I help small business owners with setting up systems and processes so that they can fall in love with their business again and get more time and energy back. Or I help small business owners who with mindset and really understanding the values and beliefs so that they can create a business that aligns with who they want to be in the world. I'm just sort of making these up. But you can see that once you start doing I help or we help who, with what do you do, so that and you can even extend it, you could say I help small business owners with understanding the value of marketing, through workshops, courses, and 1:1 coaching. So that they can speak about their business in a way that really aligns with their values and beliefs.
So you can you can use it however you want. It's almost like three pieces of the puzzle. I help who, with what so I that... And I can tell you that once I started using that framework, I just felt so much clearer firstly, in what I was doing, but also confident in being able to speak about what I was doing, whether it was at like a Christmas party with family, or whether I was speaking to, you know, an Uber driver. And they're like, so what do you do, and it's like, I help _______ with _______ so that they can, but I shouldn't say blah, that kind of keeps it negative. But if you are somebody who feels that sometimes we will don't get what it is that you do, then use the introduction formula, and you'll find a copy of it over at mydailybusiness coach.com/podcast/149, as this is Episode 149. But yeah, I just would love to hear from you. I mean, feel free to send me your introduction formula and sort of test it out.
This is one of the activities that I quite often get clients to do. I do it in marketing, for your small business course, in the Marketing For Your Small Business workshops. Always I'm working with people and one of the easiest ways that I can get them to bring all the ideas they have around their business into one succinct sentence is through the Introduction Formula. So I hope that that makes sense to you Firstly, and also that you're actually going to action if you're going to, you know, take your headphones out. If you're listening to this, and just get a piece of paper and write down. I help who, with what so that what's the end result. And if you've listened to me before, you'll know that I often talk about using emotional language, emotional and rational drivers emotional being the more persuasive and stronger reason that we connect with brands, and so at the end, so that you might use emotional words. So I often use falling in love with your business energy in time, those things often bring out an emotional response. So try to fill that in Firstly, and then look at the language and see if you've got an emotional pull there as well. So that is it for today's quick tip episode. Like I said, the full show notes including a copy of the introduction formula, in case you're listening to the sort of place where you can't take notes is over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/149.
And like I said, I work with people on mindset, marketing brand, and systems and processes. If you need help with any of those things, please get in touch because we are booking people in for 2022 for 1:1 coaching and I've had so many people contact me about creating another group coaching program. So we are considering if we're going to do that usually we run just one for 12 months. And potentially we may be bringing on another one and starting that a bit sooner than we had thought just because of the feedback. So if that is you please get in touch with us. I'm just at @mydailybusinesscoach on Instagram or you can email us hello@mydailybusinesscoach.com thanks so much for listening. See you next time. Bye
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you want to get in touch you can do that at mydailybusinesscoach.com or hit me up on Instagram at @mydailybusinesscoach.
