Why "What Do You Do?" Is the Question Most Creative Founders Answer Wrong
Ivy Malik . 6 min read (1740 words)
If you leave networking conversations feeling like you talked a lot but connected very little — this is why.
You’re at an event. Someone turns to you and asks the question.
“So, what do you do?”
And something happens in that moment that’s worth paying attention to.
Most creative founders feel a version of pressure. To explain themselves clearly. To sound credible. To land the value of what they do in a sentence that makes the other person understand why it matters. To not sound arrogant, or vague, or like they’re reading from their website bio.
So they talk about themselves. Their experience, their process, their clients, their credentials. They give the other person all the information they’d need to make a decision — and then wonder why the conversation didn’t go anywhere.
Here’s what’s actually happening.
The moment you make “what do you do” about you — the answer becomes a performance. And the person across from you isn’t looking for a performance. They’re looking for a connection. Something that makes them feel understood. Something that makes them think this person gets it.
That shift — from talking about yourself to making the other person feel seen — is the most important thing you can do in any first conversation. And it’s a skill. Not a script. A fundamental reorientation of where your attention is in the room.
Why Most Creative Founders Answer This Question Wrong
The instinct when someone asks what you do is to answer the question literally.
I’m a brand designer.
I’m a creative consultant.
I’m a business coach for creative founders.
Those answers are accurate, they’re also almost completely useless as a starting point for a real conversation. Because the person asking doesn’t actually want to know your job title. They want to know whether you’re interesting. Whether you see something they recognise. Whether this conversation is worth having.
And a job title tells them none of that.
The founders who turn networking conversations into genuine connections — and eventually into clients, referrals, and opportunities — aren’t the ones with the most impressive credentials or the most polished elevator pitch. They’re the ones who make the other person feel like the most important person in the conversation.
That starts with understanding what “what do you do” is actually asking.
What the Question Is Really Asking
Nobody asks “what do you do” because they want a job description. They ask it because they want to know whether you’re someone worth talking to. Whether you have a perspective worth hearing. Whether something in what you do connects to something in what they’re dealing with.
Which means the best answer to “what do you do” isn’t about what you do at all.
It’s about what changes for the people you work with. Not your process. Not your credentials. Not your years of experience. The specific thing that shifts for someone when they work with you — the problem that gets solved, the gap that closes, the outcome that becomes possible.
When you answer from that place, something different happens in the conversation. The other person stops processing information and starts feeling something. Recognition. Curiosity. The sense that this person understands something about a problem I actually have.
That’s the moment a networking conversation becomes a real one.
The Lens Shift That Changes Everything
Most creative founders are taught to think about networking as a chance to explain their value. To make a case for why they’re worth working with.
That framing keeps your attention on yourself — on whether you’re landing, whether they’re impressed, whether the conversation is going well.
The founders who are magnetic in these conversations have their attention somewhere else entirely. They’re curious about the person in front of them. What they do. What they’re finding difficult. What they’re trying to build. What’s not working the way they expected.
That curiosity isn’t a technique.
It’s genuine interest, and it produces something no amount of polished positioning can replicate — the feeling of being truly heard. When someone feels genuinely heard in a conversation, they don’t just like the person they’re talking to. They trust them. And trust, in a first conversation, is the only thing that matters.
This is the lens shift at the heart of everything I teach. From self-focused to other-focused. From performing to being present. From trying to impress to being genuinely interested.
It sounds simple. But it’s one of the hardest shifts for creative founders to make — because it requires letting go of the need to control how you’re perceived. And for someone whose work is personal, whose identity is tied to what they create, that’s not a small thing.
How to Answer "What Do You Do?" in a Way That Actually Works
There’s no single right answer, but there’s a structure that works consistently and it has three parts.
Name the person you work with and the problem they have.
Not your job title. The specific person and the specific thing they’re dealing with.
“I work with creative founders who are brilliant at their work but can’t figure out why the right clients aren’t choosing them.”
That sentence does something immediately. The right person in the room hears themselves in it. The wrong person moves on. Both outcomes are useful.
Say what changes when they work with you.
Not your process or your methodology but change they walk away with.
“I help them close the gap between who they know they are and who they’re showing up as — until the right clients can’t not choose them.”
That’s specific enough to be credible and intriguing enough to create a question. Which is exactly what you want.
Stop talking and ask about them.
This is the part most people skip. After you’ve said what you do, the instinct is to keep going — to add context, to add credentials, to add proof.
Resist it.
Ask about them instead. Something genuinely curious. Not a qualifying question. A real question about what they’re working on, what’s challenging, what they’re trying to figure out.
That question is what turns the conversation from an exchange of information into a real connection.
The Follow-Through That Most People Miss
A great networking conversation that ends with “let’s stay in touch” is a conversation that didn’t quite work.
If you’ve connected with someone — if the conversation went somewhere real — give it a clear next step. Not a hard sell. Not a pitch. Just a natural continuation.
“I’d love to continue this conversation. Would you be up for a quick call next week?”
Or simply connecting on LinkedIn with a specific reference to what you discussed — not a generic connection request, but something that shows you were actually present.
The difference between a networking conversation that leads somewhere and one that doesn’t is almost always the specificity of the follow-through. Generic stays generic. Specific becomes real.
What This Has to Do With Business Charisma
The way you answer “what do you do” is a microcosm of everything that determines whether the right clients choose you. It’s the same lens shift. The same choice between self-focused and other-focused. The same question of whether you’re trying to impress or trying to connect.
The creative founders who never struggle to find the right clients aren’t better at networking, they’re better at being present, at making the person in front of them feel seen before they’ve said anything about what they offer.
That’s not a social skill.
It’s a business skill.
And it’s one of the most direct expressions of what Business Charisma actually means in practice.
If you want to work on this — not just the words but the internal shift that makes the words land differently — this is exactly what we do inside Business Charisma Bootcamp and Flight Club.
DM me or visit ivymalik.com/becoming-wanted if this resonates.
Ivy Malik is a business coach for creative founders with 19+ years of entrepreneurial experience and an MA(H) in Psychology. She is the author of Kill the Pitch and the founder of Flight Club — a 16-week coaching programme for designers, consultants and creative professionals who are ready to become someone the right clients can’t resist.