5 minutes to build an easy introduction for yourself

When you hear the sentence "We're going to start off with introductions", what is your response?

If you're anything like me, you groan internally. If that resonates, this is for you.

Most if not everyone I have coached (first or second language speakers) hates introducing themselves. However, introductions are one of the most common things we are asked for in almost all meetings (unless they're regular meetings with colleagues we already know).

I think that's where the problem lies because we're asked for them so often and they're such a small part of a meeting, we neglect them. But actually, by neglecting them we never get fully comfortable with what we want our introduction to be. We therefore always start meetings on the back foot.

The beauty is that because introductions are so short, it doesn't take long to get them in better shape and prepare ourselves better.

I've spent time with lots of clients working on introductions to empower them to start their meetings in a more confident and assured way. Not only does it mean they don't need to think of their introduction every time, it also means they are starting meetings with their nervous system in a more settled state and they have the capacity to think about more important things than how they're going to introduce themselves.

Sidenote: There are many different ways of introducing yourself. I'm going to take you through a 5-10 minute exercise that shows you one method I used with clients. If this doesn't work for you, that's okay, you can find other processes out there to follow.

3 questions + 3 answers = 1 introduction

We're going to come up with a full introduction but I will give you some tips at the end for ways you can decrease or increase the length depending on your circumstances.

I want you to answer these three questions, just free-write for now and we can condense the answers in the next steps.

1. Who are you and what's your role? Here we want your name on your job role, as simple as that. "I'm Julia Pardoe and I'm a communication coach"
2. What do you do and who with whom? The who with part might be internal or external. "I deliver 1:1 and group coaching for professionals who speak English as their second language. I work with individuals and organisations"
3. What is your impact? Now this is the one people find most tricky but I would argue is the most important. Yes what you do is important but what happens as a result of what you do is what people are really interested in. "My work enables individual clients to perform their roles with more confidence and authenticity and supports international organisations and teams to communicate more effectively with all employees and team members"

After answering those 3 questions I end up with something that looks like this:

"I'm Julia Pardoe and I'm a communication coach. I deliver 1:1 and group coaching for professionals who speak English as their second language and work with individuals and organisations. My work enables individual clients to perform their roles more confidently and authentically and supports international organisations and teams to communicate more effectively with all employees and team members."

Note: There is much more I could say, I could go into more detail for every question but the trick with introductions is to keep them succinct and streamlined. An introduction is not an elevator pitch (at least for the kind of introduction I am talking about).

Is that introduction too short or too long for what you need?

If you need shorter, stick to questions 1 and/or 2. "I'm Julia Pardoe and I'm a communication coach. I deliver 1:1 and group coaching for professionals who speak English as their second language."

If you need it to be longer. Before lengthening it, I want you to consider why. You would rarely need more information than that unless you have specifically been asked for more detail. Here are a couple of reasons you may want to add more:

1. If it's for a client it may be that you add in some relevant experience that is linked to the meeting.
2. If you work for a company and that company is unknown in this context, it may be worth giving a line regarding the company specifically. "I work for X who works in the..."

It is sometimes helpful to have different versions of your introduction, a short, medium and longer length so you can use whichever one fits the situation best.

What next?

Spending 5-10 minutes to solidify what you want to say during your introduction can help you feel more confident when it comes to meetings in your second language. Giving yourself the tools and strategies to be as prepared as possible can go a long way to improving your confidence and effectiveness when it comes to communicating.

And remember, refining your introduction is part of the process. You might write your introduction based on this article and then you might try it out and there may be a certain part which doesn't feel quite right. So you can tweak that bit. Then you can try it out again. Think of it as each time you have the change to introduce yourself your testing out your intro and building and improving on it. It will never truly be done and there will always be improvements that can be made, but at least you have a solid idea of what you want to say.