Turn Strangers into Customers: What Do You Do for A Living?

Anyone ever asked you what you do for a living?

Imagine this scenario. A woman who works in the Wealth Management Divison (lets call her Ms. Bank) and a mega-rich man (lets call him Mr. Money) meet for the first time at  a social gathering.

*After exchanging some greetings, here's how the conversation goes:

Mr. Money: What do you do for a living?
Ms. Bank: I work in the Wealth Management Department at Bank XYZ.
Mr. Money: Good for you.

Nothing wrong with that conversation. However, Ms. Bank could have potentially gotten another customer if she'd crafted a creative response to the question "What do you do for a living?". Here's how that conversation would go:

Mr. Money: What do you do for a living?
Ms. Bank: I help people increase their wealth so that they can enjoy a more enjoyable lifestyle without having to work harder.
Mr. Money: How do you do that?
Ms. Bank: Well, why don't you tell me what you do and I'll show you how what I do applies to you...
Mr. Money: All right. I am the CEO of Corporation XYZ.
Ms. Bank: Great! Well, what I do is to help CEOs such as yourself [show the person that you've helped people similar to them] create a customized retirement plan so that they can make their money work for them. In fact, we've had several CEOs who've doubled their wealth because of working with my company [give brief example of success stories. If you can mention the name of someone they know, even better].
Mr. Money: Wow, that's pretty impressive.
Ms. Bank: *Smile* You seem interested, and you're the right sort of customer who can benefit greatly from our services. Why don't we talk about this some other time? Here's my contact card. Why don't you give me yours- [make sure you ask for their contact details so that you can contact them later] so that we can meet up sometime next week to see if there's anything that we might be able to do for you...



Lesson:
Craft a creative response to the question 'What do you do for a living?'
Instead of simply stating your position/title/company name, highlight the benefit that you offer customers (e.g. a insurance salesman might say, "You know how there's so many things that happen in people's life that we don't plan for? Well, I help secure people against the financial risks of unforseen circumstances).

Find a creative way to highlight what you do for a living, and you'll be able to convert total strangers into customers!