Answering the Question: What Do You Do?

Welcome to The Spark Show! In this episode, I’m going to talk about something that happens to me and I’m sure it happens to you too - and that is, what to say when someone asks the question, “What do you do?” 

If you haven’t listened to my last episode yet with my friend, Erika De La Cruz, Episode 37 - definitely do that since I did talk to her about this and ask her what she says when this question comes up. 

If you’re like us and go to a lot of events and meet lots of people, they’re always asking us - what do you do? Especially when they hear things like - we get to travel all the time and have the freedom to work from wherever. 

So there’s a couple things you can say, but the most important thing - like I always say, know your audience. Some people are already familiar with the influencer world and some are not. So you may have to explain it in a different way depending on whom you’re talking to. 

Sometimes you can also base your answer on how much longer you want to keep talking to that person. If they find what you say interesting (which most will), then they’re going to keep asking questions and the conversation will continue. If you don’t really wanna keep talking to this person, you can just give them a vague answer like - you work in advertising or marketing. 

Now let’s say this is a person you actually want to talk to. So for starters, you can say - I work in BLANK in my corporate job and I also have a blog or a podcast or a YouTube channel. You can also say, I’m a content creator. Or I’m an influencer, or entrepreneur. There are many ways to describe what we do - so you can try on which one fits and feels best to you. 

Then what usually happens is they ask - what’s that? Or how does that work? Or for some people who are more direct, they ask - do you do that full time? How do you make money with that? Trust me - I’ve gotten all sorts of questions. 

So then I take the time to explain. For example, for me - I say, I run a media company. And they’re like - what’s that? And I say, I work with brands and they advertise on my channels. Then they ask what’s your channel and then they usually look me up on Instagram. And they're like, so how does that work? Then I explain that I work with brands who want to get in front of my audience (I use the TV channel/show analogy, something most people understand) and I say I get paid for that. 

And then I say, I also teach other influencers how to monetize their following whether that’s working with brands and getting sponsored and/or how to launch their own digital offer, like their own membership, course or program. And then sometimes they ask more questions about this if they’re interested. Some of them ask if they can hire me to do their marketing and I don’t usually do that for people. But if you’re open to consulting or offer services then this would be a great way for you to get clients. 

Some people won’t understand what you’re talking about at all and they’ll just nod and say, “That’s cool.” And that’s fine. Some people will express interest and really try to understand. This is usually because they’ve seen something online and on Instagram and they’ve been interested in it but haven’t really talked to anyone who’s doing it or doing it successfully. 

And some people will keep asking questions like, HOW did you get into that? How did you start? And you wanna be careful that it doesn’t turn into a full-on consulting session where they’re asking you things like - HOW DID YOU DO IT? Or WHAT strategies did you use? 

You can give a general answer and a little bit of background but you don’t really wanna get into it. There’s a few reasons for this. One, you don’t want to just give out free advice. Mainly because, they won’t really do anything with it. And also, you don’t want to be consulting someone for free. 

That’s just like stopping a doctor at a coffee shop and asking him to look at the bump on your back. It’s kind of inappropriate because this is someone’s profession and they had to go through years of training and get experience for it. And it’s someone’s business, this is how they make a living. 

So make sure you’re not guilty of doing this too - for anyone, regardless of what they do. 

Listen to the full episode here:

Book a call with Gwen: 

thesparksociety.org/call

Listen to Previous Episodes: 

Passion to Paycheck featuring Erika De La Cruz

How to Avoid Burnout

The CEO Mindset featuring Ali Daniel

Pick your Platform

Build Your Influence on LinkedIn featuring Brittany Krystle

Dealing with Haters

Building a Unique Brand with your Personality featuring Tyler J McCall

                      Connect with Gwen Lane

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