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I was chatting the other day with my fella and we were talking about how we really want to be involved in something that’s bigger than us. For example, once his workshop is up and running and he’s found his groove, he’d love to teach, either an apprentice to make banjos, or a class doing something practical.
Me, I’d like to donate a chunk of my income this year to Marrie Curie Cancer Care and am already thinking ways to do this.
So what has this got to do with getting your sales message out there?
Well, my fella and I both agreed when you have someone else’s interest at heart, you have a bigger push to do what needs to be done. I know when I was fund-raising last year, I had to swallow my nerves and ask a packed pub for donations even though the thought of it made me so jittery. I was compelled because the reason I was doing it, wasn’t about me, it was about helping someone else.
Which is exactly what you do in your business
If you are solving a problem for your customer, you are making their lives easier and having a notable and positive impact on someone else’s life.
So many times I work with clients who are so passionate about what they do, but when it comes to telling people about, they freeze, or feel uncomfortable with the idea that they might be bragging or selling.
Fortunately, that’s a problem I love to solve but I realised if i was working with so many people struggling with this, there are probably many others having exactly the same problem.
So I want to ask you, what’s stopping you get your message to the people who need to hear it?
Perhaps it’s one (or many) of the following:
- Fear that you don’t know enough about your subject
- Not wanting to come across as “salesy”
- Confusion over how to put your passion across in writing
- Not knowing how to create credibility
- Not knowing how to explain the importance of what you do to your target market
- Waiting to craft the “perfect message” to send out
- Not knowing what to say
- Not knowing how to sound like you
Let me know in the comments below because I’d love to take all these points and give you some help to tackle this!
Your customers need to hear you!
I can relate to all these comments about what’s stopping me. The big one for me is about appearing too salesy and too pushy. Yik – who wants to be on the receiving end of that? Thing is: often what I think of as salesy, is actually interesting (new) info to someone I’m talking to. Where do I get this idea I’m being salesy and pushy? I’m beginning to think a large part of this problem might very well be only in my head….
Hi Jill! I think you hit the nail on teh head when you say that what is “salesy” to you is of interest to others. I think when it comes to writing sales copy, people are more at ease with the idea of “revealing the value in their product to someone who would be interested” rather than pushing it on someone who has no use for the product. Great point though – thank you so much for stopping by! 🙂
Amy, I really struggle to articulate concrete benefits. It’s so varied depending on who I am working with and what they are doing. So I end up resorting to describing features because it’s easier to see what those are.
Hi Christine, that’s a good point, and a tricky one for a lot of people. As a really simple way to get round this, you can focus on the “before and after” results of your customer working with you. Sometimes just seeing how we change the lives of our customers can make us start to feel the benefits more than the features. 🙂
For me, the challenge is making my message different enough so it gets noticed, and also write it in such a way that my differentiators are clear – particularly as compared to others in my industry (or what most perceive my industry to be).
I think this is a biggie – glad you mentioned it! The whole USP thing can be a nightmare to try and figure out, never mind write about it. Sometimes, you don’t need to actually “do” anything different from your competitors, you just need to do it as “you.” That’s why making your message sound like you works really well.
Amy, for me (like a lot of people), the stumbling block is trying to craft the perfect message. When I just say what I want to say without worrying so much about the right way to say it, the results are better.
That’s a great point Lisa, there’s a lot of pressure we put on ourselves for perfection, and what happens is our writing tends to sound contrived and lacking our usual personality traits. Thanks for that!
“If you are solving a problem for your customer, you are making their lives easier and having a notable and positive impact on someone else’s life.”
That is a great way to look at it Amy.
I buy information because it saves me time and keeps me from having to find all of the lessons-learned myself. So the way I see it, when people sell their knowledge, they are doing me a favor.
Spot on Mike. the problem is, we often take for granted what we already know, not realising that it could be a treasure trove of information to someone else! Thanks for kicking us off over here. 🙂