What Do You Do For a Living?

You are at a party or in an elevator, and someone asks you a simple question, the answer to which may have a huge impact on your personal success. It’s a question you’ve been asked a thousand times and most likely answered without much thought.

“What do you do for a living?”

Now you may think this is a really easy question to answer, especially if you’ve been in business for a number of years. But at seminars, you’d be amazed at the different responses I get to that simple question, even from a group of people all in the same profession, such as accountants, car dealers, or Realtors.

A Kia dealer and a Rolls Royce dealer may both sell cars, but they are hardly in the same business. A Kia dealer sells affordable transportation; a Rolls dealer sells luxury.

A Timex dealer sells watches; a Rolex dealer sells jewelry.

Let’s take Realtors as a simple everyday example. I typically get these responses when I ask what business they are in at a seminar.

• I’m a Realtor, I sell homes.
• I’m in the service business.
• I’m in the people business.
• I’m a relocation specialist.

If you met these four people casually at a party, based on those statements, who would you use?

Well, that might depend on what you wanted to do. If you wanted to relocate, you would most certainly choose the relocation specialist. Even though all the others may have offered this service, only one positioned himself as an expert on the issue.

However, you might not have picked him had you just wanted to sell your home.

If a fifth Realtor entered the picture with a statement that she was in the business of maximizing profits for people with real estate to sell, it would be a no-brainer. You would select her at once. Her message is focused, it’s specific, and it’s exactly what you and everyone else looking to sell a house needs — a maximum return on their real estate investments.

All things being equal, three of the other Realtors lose out because of their positioning statements. Saying that you are in the service business is nebulous, the people business is nebulous, and selling homes is obvious, leaving only two answers out of five that actually offer some kind of competitive advantage in the marketplace.

You might argue that a specific positioning statement limits your market, but that, my friends, is the very idea. You limit your market to the one thing you can do best. This gives you an advantage. Then you harp on it for all you are worth and develop your own niche market within a much broader category.

The question “What do you do?” should be answered memorably in 10 seconds or less, positioning you in the right place for future business no matter what your product or service happens to be.