The Trailer Introduction
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
Simon Alexander Ong's answer to "so what do you do?" replaces a job title with a one-line "trailer" — the same device a cinema uses before the main feature. His mechanism: a title triggers instant judgement and boxes you into a category ("I'm an accountant" reads as boring), which ends the conversation. A trailer instead names the transformation you create, which triggers curiosity, and curiosity is what makes someone ask to see the full film — your product or service. Once they ask "tell me more", you don't answer with logistics; you answer with a client story, because purchasing decisions are emotional, not factual. The line must be phrased in your own words, or it reads as borrowed and dies.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Notice the title trap
Write down how you currently answer "what do you do?" If the answer is a job title or industry label, assume the listener is silently categorising you and looking for an exit from the conversation.
Watch out Simon's point is that the judgement happens whether or not the label is accurate — accountants get boxed as boring regardless of how interesting they are.
- 2
Write the transformation, not the job
Draft one sentence describing the change you create in people. Simon's version: everything he does is to awaken people's imagination of what is truly possible so they can live a better story.
Pro tip Say it out loud. If it sounds like someone else's line rather than yours, rewrite it — authenticity is what made the American speaker's 'saving the world from boredom' land.
- 3
Deliver it as your default answer
Use the trailer as the first response at events, on podcasts and in intros. Then stop talking. The silence is what creates the pull.
- 4
Wait for 'tell me more'
The trailer's only job is to get the follow-up question. If they ask, the mechanism has worked and you now have earned attention rather than borrowed attention.
- 5
Answer with a story, not logistics
When asked how you do it, tell a short before-and-after client story rather than explaining meeting frequency, pricing or delivery format. Simon uses a client who went from stuck to being invited by the United Nations to speak in Madrid.
Pro tip Structure the story as where they were, then where they are now — the listener inserts themselves into the gap.
Watch out Logistics matter eventually, but leading with them kills the emotional pull that drives the decision.
- 6
Sell yourself to yourself first
If saying the trailer feels cringe, the block is belief, not wording. Simon's framing is that there are two sales — selling to others, and the one almost nobody does, selling yourself to yourself.
In the wild
Simon watched a speaker on the American speaking circuit get asked what he did. Instead of saying "public speaker", the man answered: "I have been saving the world from boredom since before you were born." Simon's reaction was immediate curiosity — he wanted to know more. What struck him was that the line was inseparable from the person: no one else could have delivered it the same way, which is where its authenticity came from. Simon took the device, not the wording, and built his own version around awakening people's imagination of what is possible.
→ Simon adopted the trailer format as his standard introduction and stopped leading with the word 'coach'.
When someone asks Simon how he actually does what he does, he refuses to describe the mechanics of coaching sessions. Instead he tells them about a client, Emma, who approached him around six months earlier in a very different place in her life — and who had just received an email from the United Nations inviting her to speak at a conference in Madrid, something she never imagined she could achieve in her lifetime. The listener's next thought, Simon says, is predictable: can you do for me what you did for Emma.
→ The prospect casts themselves as the hero of the story and asks to work with him, without Simon pitching.
Common mistakes
Leading with your job title
A title hands the listener a ready-made stereotype and ends their curiosity before the conversation starts. Simon's example is 'I'm an accountant' — most people immediately think 'boring' and start looking for the next person to talk to.
Jumping straight into logistics
When asked 'how do you do what you do', most people describe meeting cadence, deliverables and whether sessions are virtual. Simon's view is that people don't care about that yet — humans buy on emotion, so the answer at that stage should be another story.
Borrowing someone else's exact line
Simon credits the boredom line to the person who said it precisely because no one else could deliver it that way. Copying the words rather than the device produces something that sounds rehearsed and hollow.
From the transcript
“a trailer is very powerful because most of us respond with a title”
“everything I do is to awaken people's imagination of what is truly possible so they can live a better story”
“I have been saving the world from boredom since before you were born”
From the episode
Life Coach: Why Your Energy Drives Your Success In Life - Simon Alexander Ong
Simon Alexander Ong