Reimagine Your 30 Second Commercial

A friend of mine teaches a class on journaling.  One of the exercises she does is to have her students write the title of the movie written about their life.  It is an interesting exercise and in a room of 15 women, not one had a problem coming up with an answer.  Periodically ideas for movie titles like this pop in my head. Sitting in the dentist’s chair this week I wanted to name her book, “Everyone is a great listener when your hands are in their mouth”.  Long, but if you saw that on a bookshelf, you would at least read the back, right?

So since I was just sitting there with not much to do, I started thinking.  What makes you pick up a book and read the back cover? Is it always the art work? Or is it the title? or what?  And then, because it is me, I started relating that back to business and networking.  So if your outward appearance is your artwork, then the first words out of your mouth are your title.  They are the thing that will cause someone to want to keep talking.  If my dentist introduced herself to people as, “I’m a dentist and you know, all of my clients are great listeners because I’m working on their mouth!” those people who get nervous or anxious about going to the dentist would laugh or be willing to stay and listen.  It is the same for my husband. When he meets new people and they know he is a PhD, they always ask “in what?”. There is no way to answer “Math” without most people immediately tuning out. But, if we could write a title for him, he could redirect the conversation so it continues.

Once you have the person’s attention, you get to do your 30 second commercial or the back of the cover. You want something that will cause them to want to open the book and get more involved.  But you won’t get here unless you get that first look.

So if you struggle with how to view your commercial, think about it as a book cover or a movie preview. Obviously you aren’t an Avengers movie so you don’t need to go all block buster on people, but be something people want more information on so they will pick up the book and read it.  And by the way – as my dentist is fantastic, listening to her is really fun!