Hello. Hello, good morning from New York City. I’m having this back and forth right now with one of my friends about how he speaks to his professional expertise and knowledge. He does a whole lot of explaining about what he does, and I sort of called him on it. I said “can you just tell me in five sentences or less what you do? Give me those two or three things I can repeat about you?” Granted he is a person with a wealth of experience, multi-talented, multi-passionate, multi-dimensional. Yet, in his effort to explain what he can do, I believe he’s missing an opportunity to give sound bites which clearly articulate some aspect of what he does that a person can grasp and repeat, or convey to someone when they want to make an introduction.

This makes me think of that past episode I did about how outdated the question is ‘what do you do?’ Oh my gosh, I know so many people that are multi-dimensional and multi-talented.  I’m doing what’s called a bootcamp this week.  It’s when someone who produces online courses and classes invites you into their world for several hours to give you a sense of what they teach and their vibe, and they share some of their best material. I do these quite frequently because I learn a lot and I don’t necessarily have to take a whole course. That’s how I learned podcasting. I did an online bootcamp for four days, decided that it really was for me and joined the course.

So this is the Visibility Bootcamp and yesterday’s class was about the unique opportunity you have when an article you submit gets published. At the end, there’s something that’s called the shirttail, and that’s media talk for who are they, what do they do, and where can I find them?  Because it lives on for a long time, it’s very important that you don’t lose an opportunity to invite people into your world and the person doing the course, Susie Moore was explaining that that changes constantly based on what you’re interested in or producing at the time based on the publication and the audience you’re reaching.

I thought this was relevant to my friend because the teacher drives home the point that you want to be clear and directional to the audience at hand. Right? So as I’m advising my friend to be really clear on what he says about himself, urging him to lose his tendency to say too much, on the Visibility Accelerator she was saying the exact same thing for the shirttail and the call to action at the end of an article.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Martha Silva is a fitness and nutrition coach helping women over 40 transform their health from the inside out. Sign up for a free 30 minute coaching session, get her eBook –   or whatever the call to action comes at the end. If I were to do a shirttail for beloved brother Randall, I’d say Randall Klein is a Master Montessori teacher and Early Reading Expert who helps parents and education professionals unlock the key that makes reading child’s play. Click here to get his free game or his eBook .  You get the idea.

I’d like to just tie this back into the filters question. I speak often about filters and being clear on what you want in a job search:  job title, location, scope of responsibility type of business. Those are the filters through which you direct your job search and evaluate opportunities that come your way.

When you’re at a certain age and you have a wealth of experience, don’t be afraid to create a clever short sound bite so that when people want to bring your name up in a room of opportunity they have some sense of what to say. That’s your job. Maybe you’re a coach or creating an online business or looking for a job, clarity and brevity is helpful. It does not limit the playing field because if you do it well and you pique someone’s interest, they’ll ask you if you can do something else.

When you have clarity about what you are, what you’re looking for, what you do, it gives other people confidence in how they speak about you.

I’ll leave it at that. I hope that helps someone. That’s all for. Until next time, from my heart to yours.