THIS MIGHT HURT: "Who are you and Why are you here?" - THE NEED TO STATE YOUR MISSION

“Words are Tools; Words are Weapons.” – Douglas Castle

This Article written and © by Douglas Castle and originally published in THE NATIONAL NETWORKER™ Newsletter. All rights reserved. This article may be reproduced only in its complete form, inclusive of all hyperlinks, with full attribution to both the author and to the publication. For information about the author, go to Linked In/ Douglas Castle or to Douglas Castle’s Blog ; for information about the publication, go to THE NATIONAL NETWORKER™ Newsletter.

"Who are you and Why are you here?" - THE NEED TO STATE YOUR MISSION.

Stand at any gathering long enough and someone (the hostess, the Secret Service, a River City Chamber of Commerce meeting, the guard posted outside of the star's dressing room) will approach and ask you, "Who are you and why are you here?" These might not be exact words used, but the import and intensity behind them will be deadly certain. And if you are not prepared with a fast, solid and easily understandable answer, you will find yourself removed from the premises. Nobody wants an uninvited guest, a loiterer, a gatecrasher, a freeloader or any person without a permit or a definite purpose.

People in positions of decision making authority have become increasingly impatient and frustrated with answers which are either laden with technical language or which are nebulous. Some wonderful examples follow:

A) "I am a Six Sigma Sensei specializing in collaborative solutions utilizing hybrid and eco-friendly technologies to empower your C-suite team through the liberation of trapped liquidity in expressive assets" (In Plain English: "I'm Tony, a licensed plumber from City Plumbing, and if you'll show me to the executive washroom I'll use my case of rotary tools to unstop the toilet bowl so that your top employees can use the bathroom there instead of going constantly taking the elevator to the eleventh floor to use the bathroom in the guest waiting area."); or

B) "Utilizing a four-tiered personality analysis of the individual client on a comparative basis with a three-tiered market analysis of existing and prospective market recipients, I conceive, design and create works on paper which communicate amicability and accessibility in order to inspire reciprocal acts on the part of the recipients/observers." (In Plain English: "I'm Diane and I am a card designer for QuoteActions creations. I'm here to create unique, personalized New Year's calendars for you to send out to each of your accounts so that they'll keep them on their desks and think of you and your company all year long.").

In a society that is increasingly obsessed with technical jargon and obscurantism, your host or your audience (if you are a visitor, a salesperson, a BizNetwork inductee or a parasite) will be appreciative and impressed with you if you answer this initial qualifying question: "Who are you and why are you here?" so that they can simply get a handle on who you are and what you might be able to do for them. The persons who have the easiest time answering these questions are usually in the acknowledged professions or trades, such as estate planning attorneys, tax accountants, cardiac surgeons, firemen, locksmiths and massage therapists. The persons who struggle with giving a simple answer to these questions are usually those who are in fields which involve consultation, education and training, or technical specialties, or those persons who do things which involve unusual "twists" on, or refinements to seemingly ordinary businesses.

In brief, the more complex or specialized the nature of your business, the more difficult it will be to construct the best answer to this question. What hurts us most (personally and in our dealings with prospective clients, employers and others who may wish to use our services) is that we tend to use rehearsed catchy phrases and slogans which:

• showcase our wit and wordsmithing capability, but which do not permit people to either understand precisely what we do, or to explain to others, in simple terms, what we do;

• do not permit people to categorize what we do in ways that are directly meaningful to them or to others...we resist being labeled in certain circumstances where it could actually help us to convert a prospective client into a paying client, and to further convert that paying client into a referral source;

• make us look bright, but which do not make us appear useful - as a result, people grin at us, scratch their heads and then don't take us seriously;

• do not truly focus in on exactly how we benefit the person who engages us - this can often be accomplished by using a very brief, very simple example fo what we may typically be called upon to do for a client;

• make us look either uncomfortable, indecisive or defensive about what we do. None of these things is desirable. We wind up sounding like we're making excuses for not having well-defined jobs.

Slogans and wit are wonderful in terms of branding, advertising and promoting, but they are not a substitute for brief, understandable explanations of what we do. Some simple parameters for constructing your personal mission statement might help you build a good one:

1. Start with "I am";

2. Keep it brief, direct and intensely focused, although you may use an example for the purposes of memorability and clarification;

3. Cite cause and effect (benefit), i.e., "we send in our team of experts to analyze your delinquent accounts and and we will either a) purchase them from you for cash, or b) help you collect them in order to produce cash to help you finance your operations." Your Personal Mission Statement is the key to your fortune or failure;

4. Avoid acronyms and technical pop-jargon or people will think that you are hiding behind your words, or worse...they'll think that you're an S.O.B. tgrying to BS them into some obscure IT arrangement;

5. Resist the urge to use humor in a Personal Mission Statement - it distracts people from your message and alienates those who don't appreciate humor in an initial business meeting (the world is filled with folks like these).

If I were to create my Personal Mission Statement regarding this article, I might say:

"I am Douglas Castle, of The Castle Consultancy. I meet with business owners, interview them, learn about their services, and I compose a concise Personal Mission Statement for them which they can use on every occasion where they may be asked to present what they do. These Personal Mission Statements are brief, powerful, memorable and immediately attract business to my clients. When I construct a Personal Mission Statement for my client, it is not a clever slogan - it is a statement of what he does, how well he does it, and why every person in that room will want to get in touch with him. Every businessperson and professional needs a Personal Mission Statement. Call me - after we've met, I will create one exclusively for you. It's great to meet you, and I'll look forward to hearing from each of you."

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

p.s. Do you have a unique, powerful, brief and memorable Personal Mission Statement? You must have one. Please feel free to email me directly at douglas.castle@yahoo.com, and include the words "Personal Mission Statement" in the subject line.





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THIS MIGHT HURT: "Who are you and Why are you here?" - THE NEED TO STATE YOUR MISSION