How to Explain What You Do So People Immediately Understand
Liam Sandford
Liam Sandford is a Head of Marketing, public speaking expert, and 2x Best Selling Author including the book Effortless Public Speaking. He helps ambitious professionals and entrepreneurs communicate with impact to get noticed, grow their career, and build their business.
"What do you do?" is the easiest question to answer badly. Most people reach for a job title that means nothing, or a feature list, or a long story about how they got here. The result is always the same: the other person nods politely and changes the subject. A moment that could have won you a client or a referral is gone, not because your work is unclear, but because your explanation was.
I have coached founders and CEOs on their public speaking, and this is one of the first things worth fixing, because it is the smallest possible piece of public speaking and it happens every single day. Get it right and you turn a throwaway question into an open door. Here is how to explain what you do so people understand it instantly, and remember it well enough to repeat it to someone else.
Why Jargon Quietly Pushes People Away
When you use insider language, you are assuming the listener shares your background. They do not. Jargon creates distance and makes it sound like you are more interested in being impressive than being understood. Even when you are talking to someone inside your industry, clarity beats technical precision in the first explanation, every time.
Clear language is also a signal of clear thinking. It shows you understand your own business well enough to say it simply, and people trust a clear thinker instinctively. The owner who hides behind complexity sounds unsure; the one who can say it plainly sounds like they have done the work. If you can say it in five words, do not use 10.
How to Find the Real Problem You Solve
Most people describe their problem wrong, because they lead with their solution instead of the pain that sends someone looking. A financial adviser says "I provide holistic wealth planning," when the real problem in the client's head is "I feel anxious that I am making the wrong decisions with my money." Those are not the same sentence, and only one of them makes a listener lean in.
To find yours, go back to your clients and ask what was bothering them before they hired you. Not what they bought, but what kept them up at night. Their words, not your service description, are your real problem statement, and leading with it makes a stranger feel understood in the first few seconds.
Why "Who You Serve" Has to Be Specific
If you say you serve "businesses," you have said nothing. If you say you serve "founders trying to scale past a million in revenue without losing control of their margins," you have created recognition. People either see themselves in that description or they do not, and both outcomes are useful to you.
Specificity creates self selection. The right person leans in because they feel named; the wrong person moves on, which saves everyone time. This is the same discipline behind learning to stand out from competitors when you offer the same service: the more precisely you describe the person and their situation, the more it sounds like you were built for them rather than for everyone.
The Formula: Problem, Solution, Result
Your explanation needs a simple shape. Start with the problem your ideal client feels, move to what you do about it, and end with the specific result they get. Nothing more.
Here it is working: "You are missing your targets because your team has no consistent sales process" is the problem. "I give them a structured framework they can run week to week" is the solution. "They close more deals in the same time" is the result. That whole explanation takes 20 seconds and answers everything the listener needs, because people do not buy processes, they buy results, and this leads with the result.
How the Nano Speech Scales Your Explanation to Any Length
The Nano Speech, the framework I built for public speaking, has three parts: the open, the body and the close. Once you have that structure, you can stretch the same explanation from 10 seconds to 10 minutes without changing your core message, which means you are never caught out by the setting.
A 10 second version is just the problem statement. A two minute version adds the solution and the result. A 10 minute version lets you tell a story and give examples. The structure holds at every length; only the depth changes. This is exactly why the Nano Speech is so useful across your whole business, and public speaking for business growth explores how the same three part shape carries from a hallway introduction all the way up to a webinar.
Why You Should Drop Your Job Title
Stop opening with your title or your company description. "I am a business coach" tells people nothing and forces the follow up question "what do you do, though?", which means you have to explain anyway, now from behind. Lead instead with what changes for your client when they work with you. Your title will make perfect sense once they understand your value, and by then it is a footnote rather than a hurdle.
A formula helps when your mind goes blank in the moment: "I help [who] [outcome] so they can [deeper benefit]." A bookkeeper becomes "I help tradespeople stay on top of their books so they can stop dreading the tax year." It forces you to lead with the person and the result, and it is the same groundwork behind learning to communicate what makes you different so customers choose you.
How to Test Whether Your Explanation Is Clear
Say your explanation to three people who do not work in your industry. Can they repeat back what you do and who you help? Can they think of one person who might need you? If not, the explanation needs work, and the work is almost always subtraction rather than addition. Cut every word that does not directly serve problem, solution or result.
The reason this test matters is that your buyers, and the people who might refer you, are exactly those non specialists. If a friend outside your field cannot repeat your explanation, neither can a happy client trying to pass your name along at a dinner party. Clarity here is not vanity; it is how your reputation travels without you in the room.
Why Over Explaining Your Process Loses People
Your client does not care about your process until they trust you and believe you can help. They care about the problem, the solution and the result. Lead with your methodology and you lose their attention before you have earned the right to keep it. Win their interest with the three simple things first, and only then go deeper into how you do the work, once they are asking rather than enduring.
Why a Story Makes Your Explanation Stick
A problem statement is abstract until you attach it to a real person. "Some clients feel overwhelmed by compliance" is forgettable. "Say an HR director is drowning in compliance, with no idea whether the business is exposed, and six weeks later she has a system she can manage without panic" is not, because now the listener can see it. Stories give people something to picture and remember, which is the whole game, and a good story belongs at the heart of how you explain yourself, not just a tidy formula.
You do not need drama, just a shape: where the client was stuck, what changed, and what it meant for them. That small arc turns a description into something a listener can feel, and a listener remembers what they feel.
How to Adapt Your Explanation Without Losing the Core
The core of your explanation stays fixed; the examples and emphasis flex to the audience. Talking to a startup founder, you might lead with a different problem than you would with a corporate director, and reach for a different result. The message underneath does not move, but the framing meets each person where they are. Confidence comes from trusting that structure, not from memorising a script, so practise your explanation enough that you can vary the words freely and still land the same clear point.
Frequently Asked Questions About Explaining What You Do
How long should my explanation be?
Start with 20 to 30 seconds, which is enough to cover problem, solution and result without losing attention. That short version is worth polishing on its own, because learning to introduce your business in 30 seconds and make it interesting is a skill you will reach for more than almost any other. Once that lands reliably, you can stretch it to two minutes or 10 depending on the setting. The structure never changes, only the depth. Most people make the opposite mistake and start too long, so if in doubt, cut it back and let curiosity pull the rest out of you.
What if I work with many different types of clients?
Lead with your most common or your ideal client, then adjust afterwards. Something like "most of my work is with e commerce businesses trying to scale, though I also help service firms move into productised offers" gives a clear anchor first and flexibility second. Trying to name every audience at once produces a blur, and a blur is exactly what you are trying to avoid.
Should I mention my experience or credentials?
Only when they directly help solve the problem for that person. "I have been doing this 15 years" does little on its own; "I have seen this exact pattern in dozens of organisations and I know where it trips people up" is specific and relevant. Credentials land after someone understands what you do, not before, so lead with their problem and let your track record reinforce it.
How do I handle follow up questions without going off track?
Listen for what they are really asking. When someone asks about your process, they usually mean "can you really solve my problem?" Answer the concern underneath the question rather than the literal words, and you stay on message while making them feel heard. That instinct, responding to the real question, is a public speaking skill as much as a sales one.
TL;DR: How to Explain What You Do So People Immediately Understand
People understand what you do the moment you stop describing it from your side and start describing the specific problem you solve and what changes for the person you solve it for.
A job title, service list or process description tells the listener what you do but not why it matters to them.
Lead with the specific problem you solve, so the listener hears it as "that is me" or "that is someone I know."
The outcome is more memorable than the process, because the change you make possible matters more than how you make it.
One concrete example of someone you have helped lands faster than a page of abstract description.
If someone outside your industry cannot repeat what you do in one sentence, the framing is still too internal.
More From Liam Sandford
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