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Shannon Stone:
Welcome to the podcast, super excited to jump into this episode today. Today we are helping you if people don't understand what you do. Well, the flip side of this. There's so many angles. We could go with headlines, but if you want to help people to know what you do quicker and faster and more powerfully, that would be another great headline for this episode too. But my promise, with this episode, we will be jumping straight in, but it's to help people to understand what you do in under 60 seconds, and I know that is a really big claim. But I'm even going to time it here for you as well when I share some examples of how you can do this too. So it will be under 60 seconds.
Shannon Stone:
But when you have a small amount of time to capture someone's attention and for them to understand what you do, you have to do it fast. You have to get to the point, and I don't just think it's because of fleeting attention spans, I think it's because we actually have more attention than people realize, or that a lot of those stats give us credit for. And you know, if you're, you know, talking to someone, or you're at a networking event, for example, they have your attention, they want to hear from you what it is that you do, they want to understand, and that's the problem that is missing. They have your attention, but they're lacking the understanding of what you do. So it's not that you need any more time, you just need to know what you actually should be saying to them so they understand it. And I think the shorter the better. In some kind of ways, it's got to be the right conversation, you know. Right time, right conversation. So we'll jump into it.
Shannon Stone:
So I want to help you to, you know, convey that more clearly, with a lot of clarity and more concisely as well. So what I'll do? First in this episode, I'm going to run you through how I would do this for myself, almost share a bit of a pitch, and we're going to use that as a reference so you can do that too as well. And at the end, the action steps, which I always include. But the action step is almost like an action activity. You really want to pay attention to this one because it's really going to help you. That's all I can say. All right, so I'm going to put my timer on and I'm going to share how I would do this, and then we can tease it out, we can dissect it a little bit together so you can do the same for you. Alrighty, hitting go.
Shannon Stone:
So I would say I'm Shannon. I'm a business and marketing consultant. I specialize in helping service-based businesses strengthen their sales, enhance their team and better manage their business. But what does any of this mean? Well, with one of my clients at the moment, she wants to make more sales, so we're diving into what already produces sales for her and we're putting systems around it and we've already started making progress on this. And, lo and behold, she's already landed a great sale just yesterday from doing this and doing it on purpose. So I'm really great at helping people to make sales, but how I do that is specific to that particular business.
Shannon Stone:
Now, pausing there, that took me 38 seconds to say out loud, and I wanna just run you through what we shared there. So I said I'm Shannon, I'm a business and marketing consultant, and I told you a bit of what I do. I specialize in helping service-based businesses strengthen their sales, enhance their team and better manage their business. We all have a little pitch like that. You know this is what I do.
Shannon Stone:
What is often missing is, well, tell me what that actually means. And so what I always suggest people to do is to share examples. When you share an example of what it is that you do working with one of my clients here's some of the things we worked on, here's some of the things that we achieved, here's some of the things that we overcame that kind of thing people can say, oh okay, well, I can take your pitch, your elevator pitch, in a way of I specialize in XYZ and now I can connect it to something tangible because you've explained it in an example. So I shared one example. In that scenario. It took me 38 seconds. If I shared another example, it would probably take me up to the 60 seconds, so let me add one in here for us. So I'm gonna hit start on the stopwatch. So we were at 38.
Shannon Stone:
So another client of mine has a large online following, which is amazing, but a lot of people find if you've got a big audience, it automatically means a lot of sales, which is definitely not the case. So this client in particular has a great business, but she's not where she wants to be. So I reviewed her business and she made 20 grand in three weeks and then she did it again in month two and then again in month three all without any new campaigns or marketing, just looking at what is already going on in her business. Alrighty, that took us to well one minute and 11 seconds. So forgive me for the extra 11 seconds, but I wanted to throw in another example for you, and maybe I did waffle a little bit there with that one, but what you can do is share examples. It makes it so much easier for people to see what it is that you do, so it's almost like people will have the beginning really good and the end really good, but what is missing, where people are lacking that understanding, is like a sandwich. In a way, it's like the filling, what's in the middle.
Shannon Stone:
And for us in this conversation, what I suggest is having one or two examples. They can be shorter than the ones I had. You could just go with one if you wanted to. It's completely up to you. So I'll run you through next what this whole framework, in a way, really is.
Shannon Stone:
So number one who are you? So I'm Shannon. Number two what's your business or your title? So I run under my name. So I don't have a business name other than Shannon Stone. So I always say I'm Shannon, I'm a business and marketing consultant. So, depending on your business, you may introduce it like that in your equivalent, or you might introduce your business name.
Shannon Stone:
So who you are, your business or title. I specialize in XYZ. So what do you specialize in? You've probably got some of this already down pat, and I know these things are just a forever work in progress, so that is okay too. So I specialize in is number three. Then number four is the result or the example. So what's one or two stories that you could tell in 20, 30, 40 seconds into your pitch, in your 60 second segment, or whatever it might be, and then we have the close. So the close that I shared was just bringing it all together. So I said I'm really great at helping people to strengthen their sales, but how I do that is specific to that particular business so who you are, your business or title, what you specialize in, the result or examples, and then a close to bring it all together. So that is really going to help you to show to people, or help them to understand what it is that you actually do, because people have your attention.
Shannon Stone:
I think we take it for granted how much attention people are actually giving us, and this is in different formats as well. You know, there's in-person, there's networking, there's also online, there's videos, there's in all your collateral as well. There's so many different ways that we do actually get the attention of people. We just have to help them to understand what it is that we do, and the best way hands down, in my opinion, is always going to be with examples. Okay, so let's get into the action step for this one and remember there is a transcript that goes with all of these episodes as well. So wherever you are listening, it should have a link to a transcript there, or the episode website or webpage, and that should take you to the transcript. Any questions, just reach out to me and I can send it across to you. So the action step like I said, definitely pay attention to this one.
Shannon Stone:
It's more like an action activity and I want you to come up with two or three results or examples. So in mine I shared one about a client who we just looked at what was already producing sales in her business and put systems around it. So that was one example. Another example was the client who had the big following and made 20k in three weeks and then again in month two and then again in month three. So what are a couple of examples that you have from your clients I'm sure you can go beyond two or three, but let's start with two or three to begin with and what you can do with this as well.
Shannon Stone:
So for each client you can tell or you can share the results in lots of different ways. So you know, one client is going to have multiple wins, multiple results, multiple overcoming of obstacles from working with you. So you can really transform one client into multiple stories and into multiple examples that you can use in this situation. So what I would do is think about well, what are the parts of the story or the part of the client results that I would really like to share. For the client who made the 20k month on month, there's so many other results that I could be sharing or so many other angles to her story that I could be sharing along with it as well. Or just taking away from the 20k, I could even say she made more in three months than she had the whole year prior.
Shannon Stone:
I could say almost like a tactical approach, you know something around. A big reason that she achieved those results was because I listened to her sales calls and XYZ. I could go into what it was there that I picked up on and just like so you can think about this from your potential client's point of view. Or people listening. It's when they hear those specific things, that's when they say, oh, that's right. Like maybe I should get someone to listen to my sales calls. That does feel like an area that I am falling off. Or yeah, I do have a big following, which I know is more rare. But someone could say, yes, I've got a big following and I'm not making anywhere near as many sales as I would like to or as many as people think that I actually am, so same client will have multiple wins, multiple results and multiple angles. You can decide which of those and you can kind of cycle through them as well. You don't have to have one story per client. You could yeah, you could cycle through them and really get a lot out of it.
Shannon Stone:
The last thing I'll say on this action step here is you do want to update these client results or examples from time to time. So depending how often and where you are sharing these would probably dictate how often you would update these results. So if you go to a regular networking event, for example, you don't want to be saying the exact same thing, the exact same story, verbatim. Maybe it's great to reiterate it to people, but you've got so many results that you could be sharing, so definitely change it up.
Shannon Stone:
The other thing you can do as well if you do go to or if you're in environments networking or maybe introduce yourself when you jump onto, like a Facebook Live or whatever it might be, you could share the progression. So you could say remember that client I told you who reached XYZ? She hit 20k three months in a row. Well, this is where she's at now. So you could share the progression and I think that could be really fun, especially in a almost like a networking environment or an intimate type setting. It's like they're kind of going on the journey with you week to week, or each time they see you or hear from you, it's like, oh, now I'm like captivated by the journey of this client that they're working with and I think that would be great content as well. So that is the action activity for you.
Shannon Stone:
So hopefully you found this really useful. I find it comes up so much where people they do such great things but they just don't know how to explain it to people. And the quickest and best and easiest and I think honestly the most effective way is to just share examples. We don't have to, like make up the examples, we don't have to figure out the words to say we just share, we just kind of pinpoint what are some of those results, what are some of those real wins and transformations they experience that are relevant to more people just like them, and they're the ones you want to share. So we don't have to over complicate this by any kind of way.
Shannon Stone:
I hope you found this useful. Any questions definitely reach out. And, yeah, go hunting for the transcript as well. I think you'll find it very, very helpful. I hope you have an amazing week and I'll chat to you very, very soon.