Photo by Etienne Girardet
I was invited for drinks to celebrate a friend’s birthday. When introducing me, he said, “This is Juanita, and if you need any branding or marketing done, she’s the person to speak to.” Had this happened a few months ago, I would have considered it normal. I think that’s what we’re typically “taught” to do in business: name the person and then what they do, and that can permeate into the more social parts of life. However, I think my trip to Jamaica was more revelatory than I thought.
2023 was an interesting year for the relationship between me and my business. For its lifetime, it and I have been inextricably linked, something creatives like Insecure’s Issa Rae talks about when asked how she feels about the title character being her namesake. She regrets it, by the way.
From its name to its branding, my business was (is) wrapped up in who I was and my value system as a person, no an unatural place to start when you build something from scratch. The only potential opportunity for distance was to give the business an acronym, TGRG, which stands for The Girl in the Red Glasses. Seeing brands like WPP and aspiring to be acquired by them made me think about how I wanted the business to be seen. The full name felt small, like an independent one-man band. The shortened version felt weighty, like legacy, almost like big law firms or creative agencies where you make partner and your name and initial gets added to the title.
For a long time, I’ve led with my work, too. It gave me validity as a specialist, a business owner. But as I think more and more about how to extract my life from being consumed by my work, it is starting to feel reductive.
I’ve heard that a lot of men complain when women ask them what they do. You could argue that other than home, work is where you spend a lot of time, so asking the question allows people to discuss something prominent in their lives and familiar 0 them. It’s also seen as a way for women to gauge how much you earn. It’s not an idea entirely without merit, I guess.
Being a marketeer, an accountant, a lawyer technically says nothing about a person but allows others to place you in their personal hierarchy of importance. Your job doesn’t intrinsically make you good or bad as a person, nor does giving you a title imply any level of skill – failing upwards is a real thing.
Some people can automatically assume you’re of a perceived “higher” value if – again- you can name a profession that implies status, skill, or wealth. A positioning that has been the source of trauma for many African or Caribbean children.
Introducing someone by their job also adds a layer of pressure because you have to immediately respond to questions about your work especially if they’re a fellow specialist and really if you’re not at a networking event who really wants to talk about work?!
So, what are the alternative ways you can introduce someone? I think it’s as simple as “Hey X, this is my friend/colleague/neighbour Y”, stand aside, let them acknowledge each other and naturally ask a question that they feel is relevant. I’d like to think more people are likely to ask “How do you know [INSERT NAME]?” and there an organic conversation can begin.
Another way is to introduce people could be by introducing your favourite thing about them. So introducing a friend at the same event I went to, I started with her job *slaps wrist* but then went on to say where we met (social media) and how she is one of the sweetest people I knew.
I think introducing someone is an opportunity to choose something you like about them and almost pay them a compliment like “Hi this is Jeff and he always makes me laugh” or something relevant to that person. The person gets a feel-good boost, priming them to feel good to potentially have a chat.
So I’m going to try and stop introducing people by what they do outside of a work setting and instead use it as an opportunity to show someone something I value or find interesting about them as a person. How do you introduce people or even yourself?
