KISS*

(audio version of blog below)

I once threw a birthday party for my mom and invited all her friends to my house. She took the liberty of giving her guests “the tour” and since we happened to rent the rectory of a church at the time, a Heritage property (and the house where both my children came home from the hospital), it had the potential to be interesting.

When my mom made the stop in my office / studio – she kept her friends in there for at least 10 minutes, offering a soliloquy of what I do for a living, or so I thought…

Weeks later, my mom confessed that she didn’t understand what I do. I laughed and laughed. What in the world was she telling her friends in depth in my studio?! My mother’s storytelling skills are epic.

I love this blog post called “Does your mother know what you do?” by Linda Daley at Daley Progress because distilling what we do into something our mothers can understand is a valuable tool.

Linda’s premise for “the Mom Test”:

“Telling my Mom about what I do forces me to get outside all the details and get down to basics. It helps me rethink my marketing messages from a completely different perspective.”

Further, this quote comes to mind:

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” Allegedly quoted by Albert Einstein,… but my point is, if you can’t explain it simply, NO ONE will understand it well enough.

This isn’t more true than when I go to the occasional networking event. When I have the opportunity to share who I am and what it is I do, everyone’s eyes glaze over. And, while it seems to be common for voice talent to confuse their own mothers about what they do (CLICK on this interesting 16 minute documentary, Unseen, about the peculiar lives of voice talent), what a great exercise to write, simply, what we do – to share our story to potential clients, in a job interview, or even to our Mum.

CLICK TO HEAR SONG>>*”Kiss” – a 1986 single by Prince and the Revolution, covered by Tom Jones on link.

CLICK TO HEAR AUDIO VERSION OF BLOG>>