Explaining Yourself: What to say when people ask you what you are doing.
Have you ever had someone ask you what you are up to,
or what you do for a living?
Have you ever struggled to simply explain your virtual business efforts in a way that your 9-5 minded friends can understand?
Lets be real an entrepreneur can at times struggle to explain themselves. After all there is a lot that goes into developing and running your own business.
Have you ever won yourself some persecution for your goals, and your desired career path,...simply because whomever you were talking to just didn't get it? Or they took it the wrong way?
I know that at times telling people what I do, and what I work on has won me weird looks.
People naturally look at me and say a kid my age should be going to university and working a part time job not trying to create a million dollar business out of nothing. I know in many ways some of my peers think I'm crazy.
The other day My Grizzly Mentor shared with me what I should say when people ask me what I do. Rather than try and explain the minor details and the overall strategy of what I'm doing simple share the overall concept.
He told me to simple say: "I'm working toward trading products and services for money rather than trading hours." (something along those lines.) He explained that most people simply trade their hours for money, and most are fine with that trade off. I'm not, so I can simply explain that rather than trade my hours for money, I'm working to trade products and services for money. This way (in the long term) I keep more of my time. This is a quick and simple way to explain virtual entrepreneurship.
So instead of doing this every time some asks you what you do:
(Don't waste everyone's time by trying to explain everything you are doing in every detail. People will get lost, and become disinterested. If you feel like you need a white board to explain yourself to people, then this just might be a very helpful post for you.)
Do simply say this:
(Always keep your explanation quick and simple. Keep it conceptual. Keep the conversation as condensed as possible. Telling people that you don't want to trade your time for an income can still come across as bold and arrogant, but quite frankly its the best way to put it in as little words as possible.)
How have you explained yourself to your family, friends, and acquaintances?
Have you struggled to know just what to say?
Try out the explanation My Grizzly Mentor gave me.
What do you think? Does the explanation make sense?
I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Keep trudging through the forest. Don't give up. Always remember to take things one paw at a time. Be patient.
All the best in all your online business and self improvement efforts.
Regards,
Evan
Recent Comments
11
Excellent points. I usually avoid the conversation and figure until my business is doing well enough there's no need for me to try and explain details, or even after really. If someone thinks it's ridiculous for anyone to want their own successful business, that's their problem not mine!
" I failed in some subjects in exam, but my friend passed in all. Now he is an engineer in Microsoft and I am the owner of Microsoft."-Bill Gates
Thank for your comment, and thanks for the follow this morning! I'm glad you enjoyed the post! Sometimes I think it will be easier to wait to explain my business once it is recognized for its accomplishments. I can imagine the news coverage, the talk show interviews, the forbes articles and say to myself once I get to that point I could say you've probably heard of us"....
When your business gets going all you need to see is, "I have an Internet business that is making me a million dollars a year."
lol...you're totally right. You just made me smile!!!! Its when they ask doing what that it can become complicated.
LOL when I read the title, I thought you were going to do one of those "this is what my mom thinks I do" "this is what my friends think I do" "this is what I think I do" "this is what I actually do" memes.
To be fair, in the start for me it didn't feel like I had a business, it just felt weird. We get so caught up in everything being physical that we think unless we're handling products and selling them to physical people then we don't have a business, but the digital revolution makes it possible for you never to have to talk to a customer, or handle any product, or complaint or anything, you only need to do the bits you like and never do the bits you don't. It's perfect.
Thanks for your great comment! I totally agree with you. It at times to be hard to know just how to feel about our efforts, and whether or not we are making progress. This is one of many reasons I am grateful to have My Grizzly Mentor because he helps me to realize how far I come when I feel it is hardly an inch.
It is hard to make a transition from the physical business world to the virtual business world. I can easily miss the face to face interaction myself as well feeling and seeing products in front of my. Yet like yourself I have come to realize that although a lot of work is involved an online business is worth the effort because in the long run it is easier.
Very true.
Possibly the best thing about online business is you can drastically change your business model, products, marketing, look of your "store" etc in a heart beat without comprimising anything, new "store front" might cause concern if its not done tactfully and upsets your existing customers but as long as its easy to navigate and much clearer than before you will not have a problem, plus you can link your different "stores" together via backlinks so people that are on your website for "weight loss" might also enjoy your website on "hiking" as its a form of exercise, this way we can build a network of interconnecting businesses kind of super a supermarket, take one big sector (in their case food) and provide it all in one place (lots of little businesses connected within one building e.g butcher, baker, tinned foods, frozen foods, chilled foods, liquor) it really does make sense and this expansion costs us nothing, if it were a physical store it could cost millions.
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Thanks for sharing, this will be helpful to most of newbies, you have done well, God bless.