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You sit down to write copy for that new project. Words flow easily about what you’ve done and who you are. You can describe the what, where and when with finesse. The only problem is, in nearly every instance, the reader is going to ask, “What’s in it for me?”
It doesn’t matter if it’s a report, a marketing brochure, a workshop description or a fact sheet. It doesn’t matter if the reader is a committed, in-your-camp devotee. It doesn’t matter how much you think they need your information or how interesting it is.
Why is focusing on benefits so hard?
Chances are as a business owner — especially a service-oriented business — you have something to offer beyond your core service that people want, maybe even need. But you’re not giving or selling that information or wisdom.
Think about your typical day and all the actions you take, the opinions you have, the advice you give, the troubles you troubleshoot. We all have blinds spots when it comes to what comes naturally. We don’t realize there is value in that pool of deep knowledge or interest we’ve spent years cultivating. We don’t think that sharing or selling that advice or information is a possibility. You might be thinking, “It’s just how I do my job.” Or, “Who would want to know that?” Read the rest of this entry »
The word brand and its counterparts, the mind-boggling (and snooty-sounding) array of words like brand architecture, brand extension, vertical branding, diagonal branding (okay, I made that last one up) are enough to make you not want to bother.
This leads small business people to think branding is only for the Martha Stewarts and Budweisers of the world. But as overused as the word brand is, it’s the only word we have to describe the totality of what a company represents to the outside world. Read the rest of this entry »
As an independent professional, you’re faced with whether to call yourself “I” or “we.” The alternative is to use only a company name and risk producing awkward copy for your website. Awkward, because when you don’t feel comfortable owning that you’re an “I,” but don’t want to claim you’re a “we,” you end up with passive language or other clunky constructions. Worse, you simply can’t express some ideas using only a company name in your verbiage.
I’ve gone back and forth on the issue. I’m coming down on the side of being an “I.” I really am an “I.” I don’t become a “we” because I extend my services by working with other professionals. Not in a true sense, unless this happens on every project, which it doesn’t. Some who all themselves “we” when they’re really an “I” might have a good rationalization. It makes me squeamish so I’ve always avoided “we,” and, well, have a hard time describing my services and client case studies with ease and clarity. Read the rest of this entry »
When asked the question, “What do you do?” most of us reply by reciting a role we play. When you think about it, if you say, “I’m an accountant,” you haven’t really replied to the inherent action part of the question. The doing part. Most of us see ourselves in roles—mother, barista, graphic designer, farmer—which is really just a set of clothes we wear most of our waking hours. It says nothing of who we are, what we care about, what our talents are, how our work makes us feel, what we think we give to the world.
Off and on for the last year or more, I’ve been evaluating my business and asking myself if I’m following my passions enough, serving the people I really want to serve, and putting things out into the world that are a good representation of my skills and talents and values.
In all the resources I’ve come across, one of the most often cited aspects of this exploration is learning how to say what you do without putting people to sleep. “I’m an accountant,” is a surefire way to put someone to sleep. No offense to accountants.
If that accountant were to say “I make one of the most unpleasant days of the year easy for people and sometimes even pleasant,” he or she would have your attention. Everyone wants an unpleasant day to be easier and even pleasant. They’d be curious to know which day you were talking about. Then they’d be curious enough to ask, “Well, how exactly do you do that?”
Now you’re having a conversation because you’ve captured their attention with a need they can relate to. People want to see themselves in there somewhere.
Even if you were a member of a circus, which sounds infinitely more interesting than what most of us do, you’d still cut your listener off. A role as an answer is a dead end. There’s nowhere go. “I take people out of reality to a magical place,” is the kind of answer that starts a conversation.
Recently, at a party, I met a woman who was a third grade teacher. I liked Pam instantly. I was working through exercises myself to answer that very question, “What do you do?” When I asked her what she did, she answered like most of us do.
“Can I help you reframe that?” I asked. “Here’s what you really do. You help shape young minds to thrive in this world.”
Her face lit up and a smile spread across her face like I’d just planted flowers along her career path. We were in a room full of web-savvy people. If she had said “third grade teacher” to anyone in there, she probably would have received only polite nods.
Just then a young woman walked up and introduced herself. When she asked Pam what she did, Pam stood up straight and threw her shoulders back. She looked at me and whispered with a smile, “I’m going to try it out.”
So, what do you really do?
Michael Pollan needs little introduction. But even a celebrity journalist can’t rest on his laurels. Much ink is spilled on the common pitfalls of presentations, and the suffering they inflict on audiences everywhere. Yet presentation best practices are still lost on most presenters.
Not so with Pollan who drew a crowd of some 4000 at University of Portland’s Food for Thought conference last Saturday. Pollan, a little incredulous at the crowd’s size, wondered if some of us were in the wrong place. “You’re sure you’re here to see a food writer?” he asked. Read the rest of this entry »
I stare at the fresh space left — along with a bit of dust — after removing my old laser printer from the office floor. As I approach the 15-year anniversary of Allegro Design on April 1, I feel both sad and spacious. Myself and two colleagues on the east coast make up a small club — those who cling to laser printers long after most equipment has died. Our motto is “Use it till it dies!” or “Keep it out of the landfill!” or “Long live black and white!”
Actually, we have no such motto. Read the rest of this entry »
Or, How you can get the most out of a necessary evil
(Download the white paper The RFP: Make It a Win-Win as a PDF.)
The RFP (Request for Proposal) signals opportunity for a creative firm! They’ve made it to your list of qualified firms. You (the client) will have multiple options from which to choose, pouring over creative work samples and pricing ranges. On the surface this sounds like a win-win for both parties.
Not really.
For every creative firm who sees opportunity, another sees a cost to avoid. For every client who sees opportunity, another sees it as an onerous task that takes them off their real work, and is confused about the process.
If the process seems to favor you, it’s because you create the RFP, choose who bids and choose who gets the job. But there are real costs that aren’t obvious up front. Even the best-run RFP process has built-in flaws. You can get the most out of the process if you recognize the built-in flaws and costs, and then use workarounds. Read the rest of this entry »
As I look at my stack of current to-be-finished books, I consider the recent proclamation of the death of the book, so called by some bloggers and news outlets. This isn’t really what was declared. But Seth Godin, marketing guru, announced that he would no longer publish (e-books included) the traditional way. He didn’t announce the death of reading. Though some might interpret it that way. Consider this exchange in the comments section from a blog post yesterday that elicited 2500 tweets.
Charity FootballClub: I’m SO OVER reading…it’s why i stick with twitter cos it’s quick , short and sharp. Linchpin the hard copy book is the last I bought and it’s taken a while but I’m getting to the end! as for eBooks! nah…click , close file …game over!
A friend emailed with a problem. Her gardening club loved her tales of digging in the dirt and her near-obsessive, homesteader-like canning and preserving activities that they asked her to write an article for their newsletter.
Then panic set in, so she asked me how write an article, which is funny for two reasons. One, that she asked me; I feel like I fumble through this. And two, her emails are already full of article-ready descriptions of her fruits and her labor, like this one:
I’ve been hanging out my bathroom window picking fresh figs. I’ve got a jar of figs in vodka. Will be doing another in bourbon later. Fig jam and chutney are on the list for this weekend. I guess there are worse problems to have.
