How to answer: "What do you do?"​

TL;DR

• Succinctly explaining the work you do can be hard. But doing it well not only helps others understand your work better, but also helps you understand your own work better too (the latter is very very NB).

• The key to that is to figure out what you do ("the guide"), for who ("the hero"), and what you help them do ("the hero's purpose").

• The other key is to know it can change, and to let it.

I'm a professional "something"

When people ask me what I do, I used to really struggle to answer without uhm-ing and uh-ing. "Basically, I'm like an X, but I also do a little Y." Sound familiar?

There are two reasons why I think we struggle to find the words for what we do:

• Work nowadays isn't as clearcut as it used to be. We straddle a few different roles, and touch a few different areas (sometime even cross-industry).

• In a world of professionals, we worry about sounding legit. Yup, good ol' performance anxiety. It gotta sound good!

Part of the work I do is to help people work through both of those, because I believe that communicating what you do is fundamental to actually getting a better grip on the work you do.

And I can't stress this enough: If you can't explain what you do in a sentence, you don't believe in the work you do yet.

⚡️ The formula for what you do

By the end of this, you'll have an idea for how to fill out your own formula like the one above. And it's going to change how you introduce yourself, BUT ALSO how you do your work.

So, what's first?

🦸 Step 1: Know your hero

Most brands think they're the hero (and you can just replace the word "brand" with "anyone who does anything").

They solve the problems. They give the solutions. They're the heroes for their customers.

Wrong. So wrong.

A good product doesn't fix things for people; it enables people to fix things for themselves.

Think about Amazon (not a huge fan, but they make a good example here): Amazon doesn't do your shopping for you. At the end of the day, it makes it possible for people to feel like absolute shopping GODS: This person just got everything they needed in 10 minutes because they're an online shopping wizard, and it's being delivered the next day. What a win. They're amazing.

So, you have to answer two things:

1. Who is the hero of your brand? Who are you helping take down Darth Vader? Who are you helping defeat Sauron?

2. What "villain" are they trying to defeat? Is it Darth Vader, or is it the death of the Jedi way? Is it Sauron, or is it destroying the ring?

I'll do me to show you how this might look:

• Who do I help? My hero is probably someone who's starting a thing — a company, a product, a passion project, a book — and they need some help getting it out there.

• What "villain" are they fighting? This person probably struggles with creative block, as well as the feeling that everyone out there looks and sounds more pro than they do.

Woah! Now I have a hero in my story, and a villain I need to help them defeat! 😍

Great stuff. Now we can move on to...

🗺️ Step 2: Be a guide

This is the hardest part by far. Trust me when I say I know that all I want to do is swoop in and help people and fix things for them and make everyone happy.

But a fixer does not a hero make.

Think Luke would've had the spiritual journey he did if Yoda made him tea and then told him to nap while he took down Vader and the Death Star on his own? NOPE.

Being a guide is the single most valuable thing you can do for your customers. And knowing what that looks like requires being able to say it.

Here, you have to answer:

1. What "thing" does my hero lack?

2. What wisdom / skills / resources can I impart?

Again, I'll do me:

• What does my hero lack? My hero lacks an idea of where to start. They don't have a framework for how to think about the way their product looks, sounds, comes across...

• What can I impart? I know when things sound "meh" and when they ring true. I have design skills to make things look pretty, and I have people skills to help this person feel more confident in their own story and how they tell it.

Note: The tricky thing to wrap you head around here is that although I'm "fixing things" for my client by creating a website for them, I'm not doing the work of communicating their product, per se. Part of the journey I take with people is to work alongside them to figure out the words to use that feel right, the things they care about saying to their customers, and the way they want their customers to feel. I merely help them get there, but I don't tell them where to go.

So, now that I have clearer idea of my hero, their villain, and my role as guide, we can start fleshing out our formula.

💪 Step 3: Build your formula

Alrighty!

This is where you just have to play around! 😃 Here's the formula again:

The three parts we're going to need to fill are:

• I do something

• for someone

• to help them do something

And the idea is to draw from the work you did on your hero, and your role as a guide, to craft something succinct that captures what it is you do.

Some important dos and don'ts before we get started:

• ❌ Don't use buzzwords ("I enable people to reach their full potential")

• ❌ Don't cram ("I help teachers and tutors and professors to improve their teaching materials and connect with their students while also pushing the boundaries of the education system")

• ✅ Do use language a toddler could understand ("I support people to stick to their goals")

• ✅ Do cycle through a few different words to see how they feel ("I help / train / guide / bridge...?")

Here's an example that I wrote for myself, that I quite like:

Notice, it's not "I help people build brands that last" — that's buzzword-y, but also that's not what I do. That's what they do. My job as the guide to the hero is to help them get whatever lets them do that part on their own.

• Challenge: Communicating your story can be difficult, and that discomfort is part of the process. I like that I can push people beyond what they normally would do, because that's where I see them come alive.

• People: I don't serve a particular niche, like doctors or lawyers. I just work with human beings, so this one isn't particularly interesting on that front. But what I might do at some point is say "entrepreneurs" or "innovators" or "creatives", because I realise that those minds are more aligned with the work I love doing.

• To clarify their story for themselves: This is fun, because it often is the first step to truly building a good product. Heck, look at this article! It's helping you clarify your own story for yourself first and foremost! If you can't clarify it for yourself, how on earth do you hope to make sense to other people?

🧘 BONUS! Step 4: Let it go

Attachment is the root of all suffering. And that's no different here!

The power of this formula is to let it change. And to work on it every quarter, every year, every month... you pick the cadence that suits you.

But keeping it fluid means you're also actively thinking about who your hero is, and what you're actually helping them achieve.

So, let me know if you try this and what your formula ends up being! Curious to read your work 🫶