Co-founder of a tote reconditioning company is a hard job to explain at a party. Here's what I've settled on after seventeen years of trying.
What people think it is
If I say "we recondition IBC totes for a living," about 80% of people nod politely and change the subject. The other 20% ask what an IBC tote is. After I explain, about half of those people are interested. The other half are still polite but ready to move on.
This took me about five years of party conversations to figure out.
The version that works
The version that works is: "We rescue big plastic tanks from the waste stream and clean them up so they can be used again." This sentence is approximately accurate and it activates two interesting threads: the environmental angle, and the question of what the tanks are used for.
If the person follows up with the environmental angle, I tell them: "Each tank we save is about 285 pounds of CO₂ that doesn't get burned to make a replacement. We do about 15,000 tanks a year. The numbers compound."
If they follow up with the use angle, I tell them: "Breweries, farms, food manufacturers. You've probably had a beer where the cider sat in one of our tanks before it got bottled."
The version that doesn't work
The version that doesn't work is "we recondition intermediate bulk containers for industrial liquid storage." Every word in that sentence is correct. Nobody cares.
It took me about two years to stop saying that.
Why this matters
It matters because the perception of our industry shapes who applies for jobs with us, who decides to become a customer, who tells their friends about us. If the party line is boring, the talent pool is thinner and the customer pipeline is slower.
We've reframed our marketing materials over the years to read more like "second story" and less like "industrial reconditioning." Our applicant pool widened noticeably after that change.
The thing I want people to take away
When somebody asks what I do and I say "we rescue tanks," I want them to think "oh, that's cool" rather than "oh, that's industrial." Both are true, but only one of them generates curiosity.
Industries that struggle to recruit talent often struggle because their elevator pitch is technically accurate and emotionally inert. The fix is words.