KISS – Keep (your introductions) Simple Stupid!

DON’T OVERDO IT…

You know who you are, and what you are selling, but do we?

It’s easy to tell the biz owners and salespeople that feel they must “educate” their customers before making the purchase. This “educating” often turns what should be a 30-second commercial or introduction into a 90-second or (even worse) 5 minute explanation… the handshake becomes a hand-clasp and pretty soon the person your talking to starts sweating and looking for the door.

Don’t worry – I’ve been there too. In fact, we all have (come’on, admit it!).

Educating your customers comes after they become your customer, not when you are shaking the hands of strangers at a networking event. What we need is a quick snapshot of who your prospects are, if we are to have any hope of recommending one or two of our colleagues to you.

So keep it simple, stupid – tell me your name, your company name, and the simple-est explanation of what you do that you can possible come up with… how do you know if you’ve got it? If you can tell the neighbor’s 6th-grader what you do in 3 sentences or less and they get it – or ask you more about it – then you’ve hit the mark.

An example:

my buddy Lesley Sattin over at monkeyjoespeak introduces herself as someone who does “stuff with your logo on it”

Doesn’t get much more simple than that, does it?