Why a Prospect You Want Chooses Your Competitor

You had trouble sleeping again last night.

Up until the time you got into bed, you were looking at their Twitter feed, their Facebook page, and their website.

It’s your competitor.

You’re completely preoccupied with everything they do … and for a seemingly good reason. Their customer base seems to keep growing and they keep expanding their offerings, while you’re just trying to keep your head above water.

You constantly ask yourself:

“What will it take for my business to be viewed like theirs?”

While it’s natural for that question to arise in your mind, it may stifle your progress if you’re thinking in terms of duplicating their marketing efforts.

Prospects don’t want to see a carbon copy of another business and you don’t want to obsess about competitors anymore, so I’m going to show you how you can immediately become energized about and sharply focused on your own marketing ideas instead.

The heavy lifting content marketing can do for you

Brian’s recent post about how to build trust and Sonia’s post about how to stop being boring are two sides of the same content marketing strategy coin.

The benefits of creating not boring content are essentially everything you wish to achieve with content marketing.

It allows you to build an audience of interested prospects who trust you to solve their problems.

They trust you because they know your personality. They know your sense of humor. They know your favorite analogies. Your word-choice preferences. What irritates you. What warms your heart.

They want to hear from you. You’re their go-to resource.

So, if a prospect chooses a competitor over your business, it’s likely because your competitor has revealed themselves to their audience in ways that you haven’t … yet.

What’s editing got to do with it?

The example we’re going to look at today comes from the service business world — specifically an editor who offers his services to clients — but you’ll be able to see how these ideas can be applied to any niche or product.

There can be a difference between what you think your prospect needs to hear and what your prospect actually needs to hear.

In order to explain why he is qualified to edit a prospect’s writing, an editor might write on his website that:

• He pays fierce attention to detail.
• He is a “grammar nerd,” with extensive training and experience.
• He loves working with writers.

And in order to explain the benefits that prospect will receive from hiring him, the editor might state:

• Your draft will be flawless when it’s returned to you.
• It will be returned to you on time.
• You’ll get feedback about common mistakes you make.

All of those statements sound informative and professional, but here’s a secret about writers:

Every writer thinks their final draft is perfect. Most only have someone else edit and proofread their work for good measure.

If a writer is your prospect, you have to do something else to win her business.

No one cares about how good you are until after they know they can trust you

Those bullet points above don’t impress the prospect, and even if they did, the majority of other editors offering their services on the web make the exact same claims.

When selecting an editor, the prospect is actually concerned about the intimate act of another person — a stranger — reviewing and revising her writing.

She wants to know if she can trust the editor with her draft and if she’d like working with him. She’s less concerned about whether or not the editor knows the difference between “compliment” and “complement.”

How do you get someone to trust you?

Even though you may superficially provide the same product or service as your competitor, you choose to attract the exact right prospects for your business.

When you decide to not be boring, you step into your power as a creative content marketer — an artist who reveals himself to his audience and builds trust.

Like your favorite painter or musician.

This is the fun part.

When you create a variety of content that helps your prospects with the issues they struggle with, the most important thing to remember is:

Information does not equal content.

If someone could find what you create on Wikipedia or your competitor’s blog, your content will not be the type that builds trust over time.

The type that builds trust produces a valuable, entertaining experience for your audience member and has a clear, unique payoff.

Your content is an opportunity for you to take knowledge you’ve acquired and supercharge it with your perspective. Then you’ll share your creations to reach the people who are attracted to your communication style.

The complete package

Now, you do have to provide an outstanding product or service once a prospect accepts your offer.

That’s why an editor should know the difference between “compliment” and “complement.”

All that trust you’ve built won’t help if you don’t fulfill your promise.

But think about the powerhouse force that is in motion when you’ve built enough trust to make a sale — and then meet (or even exceed) your customer’s expectations?

You’ve become the only reasonable choice for that person and made the competition irrelevant.

And when you nurture your existing customer base, you’ll get testimonials to display on your website that further demonstrate your trustworthiness. Those happy customers will also recommend you by word of mouth if someone they know needs a product or service like yours.

It all starts with smart content.

Consider that question from earlier again:

“What will it take for my business to be viewed like theirs?”

If your competitor’s business seems less interesting now … good. You’ll have a lot more free time to get to work.

Image source: Gwen Weustink via Unsplash.

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Cookies To Humans: Implications Of Identity Systems On Incentives!

A story where data is the hero, followed by two mind-challenging business-shifting ideas.

At a previous employer customer service on the phone was a huge part of the operation. Qualitative surveys were giving the company a read that customers were unhappy with the service being provided. As bad customer service is a massive long-term cost – and short-term pain –, it was decided that the company would undertake a serious re-training effort for all the customer service reps and with that problems would get solved faster. To ensure customer delight was delivered in a timely manner, it was also decided that Average Call Time (ACT) would now be The success metric. It would even be tied to a customer service rep’s compensation creating an overlap between their personal success and the company’s success.

What do you think happened?

There is such a thing as employees that don’t really give a frek about their job or company, they just come to work. You’ll be surprised how small that number is. (Likewise, the number of employees that go well above the call of duty, look to constantly push personal and company boundaries is also quite small.) Most employees work diligently to deliver against set expectations.

Reflecting that, in our story, most customer service reps, re-trained, took the phone calls with the goal of driving down Average Call Time. They worked as quick as they could to resolve issues. But, pretty quickly customers with painful problems became a personally painful problem for an individual customer service rep. They hurt ACT, and comp. Solution? If the rep felt the call was going too long, self-preservation kicked in and they would hang up on the customer. Another issue. If towards the end of the week/month your ACT was going to look terrible on your Manager’s dashboard, calls were picked up and hung up right away.

Result?

The success metric, ACT, did go down. The qualitative surveys measuring unhappiness went down even more than before. Likelihood to repurchase, took a painful hit.

What you deem as success creates an incentive for an individual employee, the group/division, your company’s partners, to behave in a certain way. When you choose unwisely, the long-term consequences can be dramatic.

Epilogue: There were lots of reasons for the fiasco above. ACT goals were set imprecisely. Too much emphasis was on Averages (remember averages suck, distributions are better). Reporting/dashboards were terribly created (CDPs anyone?).  That ACT was an activity metric was terrible – if you have a The success metric, it should always be an outcome metric. The closed loop with customer was too slow and loopy resulting in a slower understanding of impact. And, you can’t discount a contribution the quality of leaders. Company did recover, their stock is doing fine. Now.

Humans are pavlovian. Incentives matter. Metrics matter. A Key Performance Indicator (KPI), our industry’s lingo for what becomes The metric, has massive influence.

Let me share a real-world story with you about this phenomenon, how I end up simply framing the problem above, and the solution for my clients.

An amazing blessing of my professional life is the opportunity to work with influential companies around the world. At one such recent opportunity, I wanted to communicate two simple but powerful elements.

1. You are what you measure.

Set better incentives for the org, see above life-lesson. Additionally, I passionately believe that optimal metrics help solve for more than an individual’s behavior. They help incentivize the elimination of siloed thinking amongst teams/divisions, politics, and self-serving execution that naturally creeps into every organization of every size.

If you pick the right metric, you can get people to care about the goals of their neighboring team/division. You can even get them to care about the long-term interests of the company.

2. Obsess about individual humans.

Zeroing in on digital specifically I wanted to create an north-star for brilliance to emanate through solving of tough problems over time.

My solution was two fold: Bring two lovely things into the equation: Profit & Humans!

I encouraged a ladder of awesomeness type shift from third-party cookies to first-party cookies to browser based persistent-id systems (in place today) to cross-device digital ids to a unified online and offline id (I call it nonline id) to finally a named human id pan-all-existences. Truly omg coolness.

Identity is key because currently targeting capabilities far out-strip any organization's ability to take advantage of it. Throw in Machine Learning and I weep at how many glorious sales, marketing, deep relationships initiatives are impossible because companies have not solved identity. (You, I’m talking about you!)

It is not easy. But, it is solvable. See where you are, go up one step. Then one more, then one more. Obsess about identity.

Great ideas are nice. Being able to communicate them simply is hard. As you’ve read in the Forbes article, I love storytelling.

I attempted to communicate the complexity above in a single picture.

Here's what came out of my doodling with crayons…

Like perhaps most large organizations, this one was a bit more focused on Cost. While not optimal, it was understandable given the evolutionary stage they were at.

I tried to incorporate their reality, and my picture starts with the metric they used to measure success and quickly moves to the right to metrics I believe are more impactful to the one on the very right that is an impossible dream at the moment (the north star).

Here are the definitions…

Cost Per Impression. An almost, if not entirely, useless metric no matter where it is applied. No one should use this for anything ever. World peace will be hastened by a millennia.

Click-Thru Rate. A little more interesting. Helps shine a light on the ability to do clever targeting, the content in the messages/ads, and smartness in bidding strategies. Good tactical wholesomeness.

Cost Per Lead. An outcome! Yes. In this case this was technically a micro-outcome in this case (conversion is offline). Still, very nice.

Cost Per Human. See the pivot? Per Human. In my definition, this is also online to offline, offline to online or whatever the heck to whatever the heck. It is very hard to do, you have to solve so many tough problems. It also has massively delicious implications in your data, acquisition and retention strategies (ignoring the sweet, heavenly, implications on your customers).

I realize that between CPL and CPH you go from crawling to flying. But, that is what north stars are all about.

Profit Per Human. What every company and non-profit really, really, really need. Why care about something as lame as cost? The only thing that matters is profit. Per. Human.

[Bonus: Remember, you can measure profit everyday in Google Analytics!]

An incredibly complex story, with implications up and down the organization, with smarter tactical and strategic choices, and a long-term hard problem to solve, all wrapped into one simple slide. When you communicate, that is all you need, after all you are the story and not the thing on the screen.

I of course built the story out piece-by-piece, when I was done, this is how it looked…

Imagine for a moment the behavior of your Acquisition team (call it Sales, call it Marketing, call it Tony), if you measure them based on CPM or CPL. Each incentivizes such a different behavior, right?

Applying it to digital advertising…

Shove ads up people’s faces like crazy, who cares if there are 300 words of content surrounded by 18 ads? CPM baby! These Marketers write articles and give conference keynotes that obsess about “viewable above-the-fold ads.” A heartbreaking obsession, but remember it is what they are being incentivized to care about.

Or, worry a ton about the three ad levers you can pull, Content, Targeting, Bids, to ensure you are optimizing for the max leads you can get. Will this marketer give two hoots about “viewable above-the-fold ads”? Only to the extent that their three levers might be influencing less clicks. Instead, they shift that problem to the ad-network (yes!). Let them ensure the ads are showing up in non-crappy-more-relevant sites/apps where the Content and Targeting results in a click to a lead. Good behavior shift.

Extend the above incentive purification and imagine the day-to-day behavior of your Acquisition team if you measure them based on CPH. Or… PPH. See, how dramatically different their execution strategy, their obsessions will be?

Can you imagine why I say team and organization and online-offline silos will be broken as you go further to the right? No one person can succeed without active collaboration, and empathy, with rest of the teams!

That's what you want for yourself or teams that you lead. PPH.

One more thing.

Taking this out of the confines that define the reality of the client, you know that I don’t obsess about Cost this much. It tends to have other unintended consequences (especially lower down in organizations).

Hence.. Here’s an important switch to one of the five metrics to better reflect my worldview…

Revenue Per Human.

Subtle change. But, you want people to obsess about Revenue and not Cost. Else people do frustratingly short-sighted things. This is real, from last week: "Our 2017 goal is to reduce the cost of your display campaigns by 20%."

I wanted to die.

Who gives a small kiwi if costs are down by 20% or up by 40%? Are you making more money every day? Are you taking advantage of the complete opportunity to win in the market? Is your competition stealing share by the bucket load while you obsess about cost?

If 10xing your revenue requires that you quadruple your costs, what's the problem?

Remember, we still have PPH to ensure that the revenue we are driving is driving a positive influence on the bottom-line of the company.

Yet, most senior executives in the world incentivize their organizations to solve for cost. Then, they are surprised that they are losing market share or a new competitor crushes them. Hey, costs are lower this year! #winning #not 

But wait, there’s more!

Since I’m now solving for all of you, one more critical evolution to bring this baby home.

If you have read anything I've ever written, you know that I obsess about ensuring every view I have, every portfolio of segments I have, every dashboard I create, every incentive-structure conversation I lead, every business strategy I help craft has to have the three elements that form an end-to-end view: Acquisition, Behavior, Outcomes.

In the picture above, you'll notice I have Acquisition metrics, Outcome metrics, but no behavior metrics.

Not nice. Let's fix that.

There are many candidates, I wanted to have something that _flows_ with the story I was trying to tell… Something that would still incentivize optimal behavior… Something a little unorthodox to push your thinking… Here's my recommendation…

Cost Per (unique) Page View.

I said orthodox, did I not. :)

Measure what it cost you to drive every page view (unique). It gives you a sense for content consumption. It will include all the bounced sessions (pain). It will get you to dive deeper into what site/app sections people visit, what they are not reading, what they do read, how many unique page views does it take to get a Lead, what about freshness of content, anything about layout and experimentation, so on and so forth.

Not quite perfect, but an unorthodox start to demonstrate the creativity you can bring to this.

Regardless of the version of the story you use, it is important to create an end-to-end picture for your own company, your own work.

You will matter more to your company as you personally shoot for the right side of the picture. It will be simply because you are solving for a KPI that actually matters when it comes to the fundamental existence of your company.

Got PPH?

Inspiration: The Identity Spectrum, Ideal Solution.

So much of my solution for your huge success (imagine that being said as: yuge success ;) is dependent on identity. That last bit I added above, Human, has meant many different things over the evolution of the web. There are so many different identity mechanisms out there.

To help you traverse through them, and to get you to Human as in an individual warm body, here’s the identity spectrum we have access to today…

Cookies 3rd.

Most advertising networks use third-party cookies (cookies they set inside mobile and desktop browsers on your behalf – but not as you). These cookies tend to be fragile as they are not accepted in many browsers and are more often deleted – by choice or default. In the past they were roughly equivalent to a person as we all had one computer with one browser. They are not the most primitive form of any measurement (though if you only rely on your ad-network for success metrics of any type then you don’t have a choice, you are stuck with this fragile thing, and I offer a heartfelt sorry that your world is sad).

Here’s one metric you might have heard of that relies on 3rd party cookies: View-Thru Conversions. (Cue sad music.)

What can yo do with third-party cookies? Hold yourself, your ad networks, accountable in a narrow silo.

Cookies 1st.

These are set by existences you own. You’ll recognize these most commonly as being set by Adobe or Google Analytics on your site to better track metrics like Sessions and Users. They tend to be a lot less fragile because most personalization and authorizations except this capability. There is still a decay, if you want to get a sense for it checkout the Recency reports in your analytics tool. They are terrible at identity now as we all use multiple browsers on the same machine, and of course we use laptops, desktops, tablets, and phones (sometimes all at the same time with the same digital company!). It is imperative that you get off it as soon as you can.

Pretty much every metric in your Google Analytics reports uses first-party cookies as the identity mechanism. Conversion Rate. Bounce Rate. Visits to Purchase. Pageviews Per User.

What can you do with first-party cookies? Create better experiences in individual browser (as in Chrome) silos. Leverage advertising solutions like RLSA.

Login-ID 1st.

I’m a paying subscriber to my beloved New Yorker magazine. I’m logged into it’s site on my desktop, laptop, tablet, and phone. I’m logged into the browsers and the mobile application. This empowers the people at Condé Nast to dump cookies and use any digital analytics platform to rely on my login-id as identity to stitch my experiences and truly understand my Acquisition, Behavior and Outcome touch-points.

Login-ID is not fragile (for me the site/apps won’t even work without it). For The New Yorker they can easily tie to my name, address, credit card and a more. I know Condé Nast does not  leverage any of this because none of their platforms show any level of personalization, none of their offers for upping the subscription, none of their ads I see anywhere around the web, etc. show any intelligence related to me as a person. Sad. But. At least the possibility exists, and hope that Condé Nast will wakeup one day to the deeper loyalty and delight they could create using this identity.

For most of you, Login-ID might just be an account someone created on the web or a email address that someone used to sign up for your mailing list. In these cases of Login-ID you don’t have the tie to a human like above, but it is still better than cookies! Switch to 1. using an identity system that relies on Login-ID and 2. create meaningful incentives for people to login to their account.

Cookies as an identity are now only for those who don’t care about their digital business. Login-ID (the New Yorker variety or the signed up for an account) should be default.

For the most glamorous amongst you (I of course mean all of you!), you can stitch the third-party and first-party cookies littered around for your individual Login-IDs and paint an even more robust picture. I recommend this not as the default (because it is a lot of work), but rather as something you can do when *all* other business problems have been solved.

[Bonus: Here’s how to use Universal Analytics to implement Login-ID identity on your digital existences.]

What can you do with Login-ID identity? See above New Yorker example. Summary:  Personalized experiences via intent inferred from expressed behavior. Smarter Search, Display. More interesting understanding of Profitability (it will blow what you do with default first-party cookies with Adobe/Analytics out of the water on day one!).

Login-ID 3rd.

For people who can’t do above sometimes tend to rent an identity system from a third-party. This would be you implementing the Facebook identity system on your site, or one from Google or someone else who currently has most of the internet as it’s User.

So, people can log into your website using the Facebook identity system. With it comes the reduction of the pain of getting people to signup, and also additional behavioral data that the identity platform (say Facebook) would like to share. With it also come limitations related to how much of the customer data and relationship with the customer you own, as well as how much of this can you tie to your online, offline systems.

If you simply can’t do Login-ID on your own for any reason, this is a compromise is less worse than simply relying on cookies.

Nonline Customer-ID.

An improved variation of Login-ID 1st strategy. Most companies (think any retailer for example) still operate their identities in a silo. There is one for online (the one above), there will be another when you call on the phone (it might be your registered phone number), there will be a different one for when you walk into the store, and depending on if they own the store or if it is a channel for them, there might be one more.

Nonline Customer-ID is an identity platform that allows you to tie all of the above experiences down to one.

It could very well be my phone number. If I’m on your website, mobile app, call your phone center, walk into your store, or anything else, you use my phone number to know it is an individual. In this case, you come very, very close to Human.

Soon it could also be a BLE device implanted in my body that, in close quarters only, allows you to identify me when I am on your site (using a reader on my laptop), in your app (reader on the phone), in your store (readers in your ceilings) and so on and so forth.

It could be other things. I’m not opining on the pros and cons of doing this, I’m leaving out how you feel about this. That is for governments, companies and you to decide.

What can you do with Nonline Customer-ID identity? The ultimate deep level of understanding of customer behavior (as in customer), effectiveness of your marketing and service strategies, profitability, and everything else. If you want to imagine how insightful this can be, close your eyes, think of your business, imagine you have a Nonline Customer-ID platform, think of your current marketing data-driven attribution report. You realize how much this current holy grail sucks, right? That’s what I mean. Times 1000.

Nonline Customer-Id is an identity system will finally allow you to behave as one company and understand one person. B2B. B2C. A2P. DJT.

Nonline Customer-Name-ID.

This won’t apply to all companies, but as I’m deeply passionate about delighting every single individual human I wanted to share this purer version of Nonline Customer-ID.

Let’s take the most famous example: Amazon.

Today, Amazon is as close to Nonline Customer-ID as an identity system as you can get. Every touch point from site experience to mobile app to chat to phone (yes, they have that!) etc. play off the same identity.

But, in my family, like perhaps yours, my spouse and I both use the same identity (and both buy and ship things under my name to our home).

Amazon does not understand us individually though. From the recommendations it gives us to greeting her with my name everywhere, it is stuck with just Nonline Customer-ID identity.

But. Amazon has cookies. It has access to device-ids for mobile. It has access to pages viewed. It has access to products shopped from various browser IDs. And more.

They can easily use two or more of those to assign a Nonline Customer-Name-ID to my wife and to me. In one amazing instant, it would understand us individually and be able uniquely deliver deeper personalization, offers, support, and more.

It won’t be perfect. Perhaps it is off by 5%. But, it would be exponentially better than what exists today (which honestly is already better than 90% of the companies on the planet). And, Amazon needs it’s customers to do nothing new.

Additionally, Amazon could understand Home and understand Avinash and Jennie. Imagine all the possibilities that that unlocks.

What can Nonline Customer-Name-ID do for you? Cross-device intent customized smarter experiences that power relationships and not just shopping. Nirvana.

Now you know what it takes to truly get to Human. To real PPH. The only metric that matters (even for a non-profit). And, we’re not just talking about digital.

Got Human?

As always, it is your turn now.

Considering our metrics incentive spectrum pictures above, where is your company in terms of incentives for it’s employees? Are your little team, or your giant division, solving for the global maxima? If you are a leader, what incentives have you created for people who work for you? What element represents your company’s current identity system? What roadblocks do you see in front of you to get to Nonline Customer-Name-ID?

Please share your ideas, struggles, criticism of my ideas, worries and joy via comments below. I’ll be most grateful for the conversation.

Thank you.

Cookies To Humans: Implications Of Identity Systems On Incentives! is a post from: Occam's Razor by Avinash Kaushik

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The Persuasive Power of Analogy

An elderly man storms into his doctor’s office, steaming mad.

“Doc, my new 22-year-old wife is expecting a baby. You performed my vasectomy 30 years ago, and I’m very upset right now.”

“Let me respond to that by telling you a story,” the doctor calmly replies.

“A hunter once accidentally left the house with an umbrella instead of his rifle. Out of nowhere, a bear surprised him in the woods … so the hunter grabbed the umbrella, fired, and killed the bear.”

“Impossible,” the old man snaps back. “Someone else must have shot that bear.”

“And there you have it,” the doctor says.

Persuasion come from understanding

At the heart of things, persuasion is about your audience understanding what you’re communicating. Understanding leads to acceptance when the argument is sound, well-targeted, and the conclusion seems unavoidable.

When it comes to creating effective understanding, analogies are hard to beat. Most of their persuasive power comes from the audience arriving at the intended understanding on their own.

The doctor could have simply said that the old man’s wife had to be cheating on him. But the analogy allowed the cranky patient to come to that conclusion on his own, which is much more persuasive.

Let’s take a second to make sure we’re all on the same page with analogies. It first helps to distinguish them from their close cousins, metaphor and simile.

A metaphor is a figure of speech that uses one thing to mean another and makes a comparison between the two. A simile compares two different things in order to create a new meaning while using the words “like” or “as.”

An analogy is comparable to a metaphor and simile in that it shows how two different things are similar, but it’s a bit more complex.

Rather than a figure of speech, an analogy is more of a logical argument. The structure of the argument leads to a new understanding for the audience.

When you deliver an analogy, you demonstrate how two things are alike by pointing out shared characteristics (a hunter with an unloaded umbrella and an elderly man who is “firing blanks” sexually). The goal is to show that if two things are similar in some ways, they are similar in other ways as well.

Let me give you an example of a killer persuasive analogy. It comes from that master of sophisticated rhetoric, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

No, really.

The Terminator analogy

Schwarzenegger is an advocate for renewable energy, both for California and the world at large. Given his celebrity status and prior political experience as Governor of California, he has quite the platform to share his views.

Just over a year ago, Arnold published a piece on Facebook called I don’t give a **** if we agree about climate change. That provocative title set the stage for what could be called a “terminator” analogy, in the sense that it puts any intellectually honest person in an inescapable box that supports the conclusion Schwarzenegger wants you to arrive at.

First, Arnold says forget whatever you think about climate change. He goes so far as to say that climate change deniers can assume that they’re right.

He then turns to the facts of the here and now:

• 7 million people die every year from pollution
• 19,000 people die every day from pollution from fossil fuels
• Renewable energy is driving economic growth

Then, Arnold turns to an analogy that illustrates his argument in a very personal way:

“There are two doors. Behind Door Number One is a completely sealed room, with a regular, gasoline-fueled car. Behind Door Number Two is an identical, completely sealed room, with an electric car. Both engines are running full blast.

I want you to pick a door to open, and enter the room and shut the door behind you. You have to stay in the room you choose for one hour. You cannot turn off the engine. You do not get a gas mask.

I’m guessing you chose Door Number Two, with the electric car, right? Door Number One is a fatal choice — who would ever want to breathe those fumes?

This is the choice the world is making right now.”

Talk about putting someone in a box — literally. By sidestepping the controversy over climate change and making the outcome of exposure to fossil fuel emissions a matter of personal life or death, Arnold likely changed the minds of more than a few reasonable people.

Now, this is the internet. So, I’m sure some people simply refuse to be swayed no matter what, and some trolls probably said they’d rather choose the deadly Door Number One than do anything perceived as good for the environment.

Well, there is a way to set up a real-life demonstration of this analogy if anyone’s interested.

Why marketing analogies work like a charm

I shared Schwarzenegger’s analogy because it’s a brilliant example. But keep in mind that unlike with contentious social issues, your prospects want you to convince them.

If someone has a problem they want solved or a desire they want fulfilled, they want to find a solution. If they’re currently a part of your audience, they want you to be the solution.

That means they want to understand why you’re the best choice. Which means they want to be persuaded.

And that’s the essence of content marketing strategy. Tell your particular who exactly what they need to hear, exactly how they need to hear it.

The right analogy, at the right time, told the right way, may be exactly what they need to do business with you …

And there you have it.

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3 Content Marketing Mysteries Solved

OK, confession time — when I was a kid, I was a complete Nancy Drew junkie. “Sleuth” sounded like just about the best way ever to spend one’s time. (Of course, that’s before I knew what a Chief Content Officer was …)

This week, rather than figuring out Irene Adler’s cell phone password or who stole the missing emeralds, we’re working on “Why isn’t this content working? and “How can I get a whole lot better at what I do?”

On Monday, Brian gave us three rhetorical tools that can help build trust with your audience — then asks if you should consider putting all of them aside for another option. And on the podcast, I snagged the very nice Bryce Bladon from Clients from Hell to get his ideas on how to stay out of some less-than-heavenly situations.

On Tuesday, Kelly Exeter found a couple of critical elements missing from a lot of content — hooks and big ideas. Now, you and I both know that the reason we often lack a hook and a big idea is that … good hooks and ideas are really hard to come up with. Luckily, Kelly has some actual specific advice that can help.

Brian also has a nice interview on Unemployable with Emily Thompson of Indie Shopography and the Being Boss project. She shares one of those great, twisty-turny stories that show you how varied the entrepreneurial path can sometimes be.

And on Wednesday, Robert Bruce channeled the greatest consulting detective of all time to help us make the decision to move toward mastery.

That’s this week’s mysterious (or just plain useful) content … catch you next week!

— Sonia Simone
Chief Content Officer, Rainmaker Digital

Catch up on this week’s content

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How to Build Trust and Enhance Your Influence with Content Marketing

by Brian Clark

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Two Vital Elements that Might Be Missing from Your Content (and Precisely Where to Add Them)

by Kelly Exeter

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Sherlock Holmes and Mastery of the Craft of Writing

by Robert Bruce

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6 Business Insights that Could Radically Increase Your Online Engagement in 2017

by Sean Jackson and Jessica Frick

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Thriving Freelancers and Clients from Hell

by Sonia Simone

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Succeed by Serving an Audience, with Emily Thompson

by Brian Clark

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How Journalist and Author of ‘The Power of Meaning’ Emily Esfahani Smith Writes: Part One

by Kelton Reid

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Podcasting: The Stand-Up Comedy of Content Creation

by Jerod Morris & Jon Nastor

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Sherlock Holmes and Mastery of the Craft of Writing

Sherlock Holmes was the greatest Consulting Detective in the world.

Though merely a fiction — written over a century ago by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — his methods of logical deduction are without equal.

Holmes’s mastery of his craft brought him to the fog-cloaked London doorsteps of the most powerful people of his time.

Correction: he was so good, those clients came to him.

They ran, desperate, to his Baker Street rooms, begging for his help, willing to pay any amount of money for his services.

What can Sherlock Holmes teach us about the craft of writing?

Everything.

I’ll let you find the wealth of anecdote, advice, and adventure in Conan Doyle’s stories for yourself, but here’s a short list on Holmesian mastery to get you started …

Make a decision

When you watch or listen to an interview with a brilliant and successful writer, something happens deep down in your gut.

Some part of you thinks something like, “Ah yes, listen to her. Her fate was sealed from birth. Some are chosen to create brilliant work, and the rest of us are screwed.”

What you conveniently dismiss from such interviews — if they’re included at all — are the stories of the hours, days, weeks, months, and years of silent practice that the writer has put in.

Somewhere, back there, a decision was made.

On a particular day, at a particular hour, that writer had said, “This is the thing I will dedicate my working life to.”

Sometimes — as in Holmes’s case — there are obvious hints regarding what that “thing” is. Most times, there are none.

The first step on the road to mastery is making a conscious decision about what you will decide to master.

Do not wait for it. Decide.

Focus, focus, focus

Our society tells us from youth that we should become “well-rounded” individuals.

If you want to master your craft, ignore that advice.

Sherlock Holmes focused intensely on a narrow set of criminological skills and subjects that ultimately made him an incomparable detective.

He studied specific disciplines within botany and chemistry — only to the point that they served his needs as a detective.

He learned the science of cryptography in order to swiftly crack the codes of master criminal communication.

He became competent enough in human anatomy to forge the early stages of what would become actual forensic analysis in murder investigations.

He would lie down napping, smoking, and thinking for hours about one minute aspect of a case, not moving until an idea — and sometimes a complete solution — came to him.

Think deeply about the core demands of your craft.

What is needed to advance in mastery of it?

What can be ignored as mere distraction?

Practice brutal focus.

Our fictional detective’s methods are studied even now by very real, working detectives everywhere, because he had the discipline to stay within the arena of his expertise.

Note: For those familiar with Holmes’s methods … No, I am not advocating the use of morphine and/or cocaine.

Become an idiot

Idiocy is the other side of the coin of mastery.

In order to focus your working life on mastering your craft, you’ve got to rule out a lot of the trivia that takes up most people’s time.

Sherlock Holmes could determine what part of the city you’d been recently walking through, from a quick glance at the type of mud on your boot.

He was a strikingly horrible violin player.

Within moments of meeting, he could tell you where you were born, what you’d eaten for lunch, if your brother was an alcoholic, and if you’d served in the war (and where).

He knew nothing about current events or the politics of his day.

He could seemingly predict the future, arriving at correct conclusions that left witnesses believing he was an other-worldly being.

He was utterly oblivious to the basic astronomical patterns of the stars and planets.

Holmes accomplished his amazing ability to see the obvious by … becoming an idiot.

Holmes’s greatness — and ours — is largely defined by what we do not know.

He had one driving professional goal — to engage and best the greatest (and lowest) criminals in the world. He shut out the rest, and he did not care if anyone regarded him as less than “well-rounded.”

All of his considerable mental power was directed at the “elementary” practice of deduction and the few peripheral disciplines that supported it.

Distraction pulls us in all directions

The boredom of repetition drives us to other interests. The pressures of culture make us worry we are missing out on something “important” if we dedicate ourselves to our pursuit of mastery.

Stop.

If you want to master writing, you are giving up running the 800 meters in the Olympic Games.

If you want to master the cello, you are giving up the ability to talk about what’s good on television these days.

If you want to master anything, you must become an idiot about nearly everything else.

Oddly, you must become an idiot in order to become a genius.

Continue to obsess

This path of mastery is not for everyone, but I believe it is one of the great callings and joys this life has to offer.

You’ll never get all the way there … nobody does.

There is only so much time in one day, only so many days in one life.

As our immortal Victorian detective (and the extraordinary man who wrote him into existence) has shown, mastery is one way to truly change the world.

Choose. Focus. Become an idiot.

Image source: Blake Richard Verdoorn via Unsplash.

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Two Vital Elements that Might Be Missing from Your Content (and Precisely Where to Add Them)

It’s taken you more than 10 hours to write a blog post.

You’ve researched the topic to the nth degree. You’ve edited it to within an inch of its life.

Now it’s time to get it out into the world!

You excitedly press Publish, and … even days later … crickets.

Heartbreaking, right?

We all like to think that the amount of effort we invest in creating a piece of content directly correlates to how deeply it resonates with readers. But, experience has repeatedly shown this is not the case.

So, what’s the deciding factor if it’s not effort?

Luck? Timing? Skill?

Yes, the factors above do play a part. But, more often than not, it comes down to these two elements:

1. If your content doesn’t hook readers in the first few sentences, it doesn’t matter how good the rest of it is, you’ve lost them.
2. If you don’t clearly communicate your idea, readers may lose interest after your introduction because they don’t have an incentive to keep reading.

So, how do we write both a strong hook and a strong idea? That’s what I’m going to break down for you today.

What’s a hook?

A hook is a narrative technique that operates exactly as it sounds.

It’s information so interesting that it hooks the reader’s attention, and they feel compelled to see what comes next. So, they keep reading.

The hook works in tandem with the headline; the headline delivers the reader to the first lines of an article, and then the hook in those first few lines launches the reader deeper into the piece of content.

What’s the idea?

The dictionary definition of an “idea” is:

“A thought or suggestion as to a possible course of action.”

That neatly sums up what we’re trying to do when we write anything. We want to share a thought, make a suggestion and/or inspire people to take a certain action.

Why is your content’s idea so crucial?

Because your idea drives the payoff the reader will get from continuing to read your article.

That payoff can be:

• Laughing from your humor
• Learning new information
• Taking meaningful action that will help them reach their goals

The idea forms the backbone of your article that leads to a positive outcome for both you and your readers.

We all dream of making such an impact on people that they share our ideas far and wide.

If the people reading your words aren’t inspired to share them with their friends, there’s a ceiling on the number of people you can reach.

Where things can go wrong for your idea

It might be easy to think of an idea for a piece of content, but when we actually sit down to write:

1. We discover we don’t have as much to say about the idea as we first thought.
2. We start writing about one idea, but then introduce another halfway through.

In both of these situations, if we publish that content, the reader may be left feeling either bewildered or cheated at the end. Not ideal.

How do you get super clear on your idea?

My favorite technique is to initially write a very literal headline.

Why?

Because it forces you to identify the exact promise you’re making to the reader.

If you can’t identify your promise, then you’re not going to be able to deliver a payoff.

Once you’ve written your literal headline and confirmed you know the exact idea you want to communicate, you’ll use that to:

• Determine whether you actually have enough material to deliver a payoff for the reader.
• Edit tightly to ensure you do so.

Here are three examples of literal headlines that sum up the article’s payoff.

• We’re not burnt out because we’re busy; it’s because our emotional bandwidth has been completely tapped.
• You don’t usually say “thank you” in these seven situations. Here’s why you should.
• If you’re a man who wants kids but doesn’t want to stay home with them every day, you’d better value your wife more.

When you click through to each of the posts above, you’ll see the actual headline is different from the literal headline I’ve identified.

That’s because your headline needs to hook the reader’s interest without giving away the payoff. If you deliver the payoff in the headline, there’s generally no need for someone to read the whole article.

Struggling to write a literal headline? That means you don’t have a good handle on the idea you’re trying to communicate.

Here are three examples of categories that can help you craft a strong idea … and then we’ll get into writing your hook.

1. Counterintuitive

This is where you take conventional wisdom and turn it upside down.

We all know a balanced diet made up of a variety of foods is ideal, so when someone tells us they ate nothing but potatoes for a year and lost a large amount of weight along the way, that gets our attention.

2. Practical and actionable

Telling people “If you’re organized, your life will be so much easier” is yawn-worthy. Everyone knows that.

Showing them the way you organize your life so that they can learn your tips? That’s far more powerful.

3. Contrarian

When everyone’s telling us not to do a certain thing, having someone tell us we should is incredibly refreshing.

It’s also the kind of thing we tend to share because it’s “ammunition” that justifies our choice to take a path less travelled.

How to write a great hook

One of the most common things I do as an editor is delete the first two paragraphs of articles sent to me.

Introductions are difficult to write, but:

If you’ve written 400+ words of an introduction, there’s a solid chance there’s a decent hook sitting somewhere around the 200-word mark.

Remember, your hook doesn’t need to be the most interesting thing anyone’s ever read; it just needs to be interesting enough to keep the person reading.

Here are five of my favorite hook techniques, with examples:

Hook #1: Ask a question

Humans are drawn to questions for a few reasons. One reason is that we’re inherently competitive.

When someone asks us a question, we’re compelled to first answer it and then find out if our answer is correct. If you don’t have an answer to a question, but someone suggests they do, that’s an even stronger hook.

Here’s an example of Sonia Simone leveraging this:

Headline: The #1 Conversion Killer in Your Copy (and How to Beat It)

Hook: What makes people almost buy? What makes them get most of the way there and then drop out of your shopping cart at the last second?

If you have a website with a shopping cart, I defy you to stop reading the article after those first two lines.

Hook #2: Focus on the reader

This is probably the easiest hook to create. By using the words “You,” “You’re” or “Your” in your introduction, you directly address the reader.

Take this example from Alexandra Franzen:

Headline: This one’s for you

Hook: Your inbox is full of ego-rattling rejection emails, but you’re emailing 10 more literary agents today. … Your podcast has exactly three fans (and two are your parents), but you’re posting a new episode every single week, nonetheless.

The reason this hook works so well is because the reader now feels they’re part of the article’s story. This creates a strong need to know how that story ends.

Hook #3: Add dialogue

Who likes listening in on other people’s conversations?

We all do. We can’t help it. When an article starts with dialogue, we’re quickly hooked because we’re getting all the pleasure of eavesdropping, without the guilt.

Here’s an example from Jerod Morris:

Headline: Why Your Greatest Asset May Be Slowly Eroding (and How You Can Rebuild It)

Hook: “Why are we sending this email to this list again?” Kim asked. I was incredulous. “Umm, because we never sent it a first time,” I thought to myself. Still, before responding, I decided to check. Glad I did.

This hook combines both spoken and inner dialogue. The latter of which is next-level intriguing because it gives the reader access to the writer’s inner thoughts.

Why was Jerod “glad he checked?” We have to know.

Hook #4: Make a big statement

This is where a writer makes a “big call” — usually in both their headline and their opening line. It’s effective because it makes people think, “Really? What have you got to back that up?”

It’s a favorite technique of Penelope Trunk:

Headline: Living up to your potential is BS

Hook: The idea that we somehow have a certain amount of potential that we must live up to is a complete crock.

The reason this hook is so effective is because it captures the attention of people from both sides of the argument.

People who agree with the sentiment want to find out why they’re “right” in thinking so. People who disagree? They read on because they want to rebut.

Big statements are not for the faint-hearted. If you don’t want to engage in robust conversation about the ideas you’ve expressed in a post, stay away from this one.

Hook #5: Tell a story

If you present information in a story format, people immediately pay attention. Using a story as a hook, however, is a pro skill.

You can’t kick off with just any story; it has to be relevant. For an ongoing master class in this technique, simply follow Bernadette Jiwa.

Here’s a recent example from her blog:

Headline: The Unchanging Nature Of Business

Hook: It’s a cool November day in 2014, and a young couple pause on a suburban street to snap a selfie with an iPhone 5C.

Why does the above statement hook you? Because you want to discover the link between the headline and a young couple taking a selfie.

Let’s recap

I’ve covered a bit of ground, so let’s touch on the key points again.

1. If you don’t hook readers at the beginning of your article, they’re more likely to move on to a different piece of content.
2. If you can’t summarize the idea of your article in a “literal” headline, then you don’t have a firm grasp of what you’re trying to communicate — and you’ll fail to deliver a payoff for the reader.

Where to go from here?

A simple exercise I urge you to do regularly is: pay attention to the articles that you read all the way to the end and share.

Study them by identifying:

• The hooks the author used to get you reading.
• The hooks the author used to keep you reading. (For example, subheadings also function as hooks.)
• The underlying ideas. (Write literal headlines once you’ve identified those ideas.)
• What moved you to share those articles?

When you understand the writing techniques that work well on you, you can use them in your own writing to ensure that if you put a lot of time and energy into creating a piece of content, then it will get the attention it deserves.

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How to Build Trust and Enhance Your Influence with Content Marketing

Know, like, trust.

At its essence, those three things are why we do content marketing. And if you’re not hitting all three, you’re likely not enjoying success with your content.

Traditional marketing is big on the know — it’s all about creating awareness in the marketplace. Add in some clever messaging to prompt some level of liking, and mission accomplished, right?

It’s as if awareness of a brand is enough to spark trust. And it’s true — we do tend to prefer brands that we know, even if there’s no true difference between one product and a generic one.

But when it comes down to choosing between two or more brands, trust becomes critical. This is one of the benefits that content marketers have over competitors who don’t create and freely share valuable information — and it can be substantial if done correctly.

Trust works on many levels:

• Do you do what you say you’re going to do?
• Are your products and services solid?
• Do you treat customers fairly?
• Will you be in business next year?
• Do you abide by the core values you claim?

Content marketing allows you to tell stories that touch on each of these over time. Even more, your brand can be viewed as not only trustworthy, but generous. Even selfless.

The art of disinterested goodwill

In terms of persuasion techniques dating back to the time of Aristotle, ethos is an appeal to the authority, honesty, and credibility of the person speaking or writing.

And that’s exactly what builds trust and influence when content marketing is done well.

Aristotle also thought that a key component of effective ethos was a combination of likability and selflessness, which he characterized as “disinterested goodwill.”

Disinterest here doesn’t mean you don’t care if you get a beneficial outcome — it means you serve your audience whether or not you get that benefit from any particular person.

When you give away quality content that’s so good you could have charged money for it, you’re acting with “disinterested goodwill.” That means your audience received value regardless of whether they ever pay you a dime.

It’s this very aspect of content marketing that makes it unacceptable to some business people. The thought of providing something valuable to “freeloaders” just drives them nuts.

I’ve been giving away free, valuable content for 19 years, and all eight successful businesses I’ve started were powered by it. I have complete faith that I’m going to get benefits back — and the know, like, and trust I earn is the entire reason.

Just the act of performing content marketing triggers the power of disinterested goodwill. Lacking that, there are techniques that persuaders use to achieve the same goal.

The “reluctant conclusion” technique

A classic persuasion technique is the “reluctant conclusion.” You share with your audience how you had a change of heart based on overwhelming evidence.

For example, you’ve recently raised the price of a product and discovered that it’s killing your sales. You could just quietly change the price back and hope no one notices, but you’ll build more trust and goodwill with your audience if you explain that you were wrong about the price raise and will be reverting it.

Meanwhile, you’ve also met your goal of sparking dormant sales. It’s a win-win-win when you count the additional trust that you’ve built with your audience for future products and promotions.

The “personal sacrifice” approach

Another tactic is the “personal sacrifice” approach.

Yes, the free online workshop you’re doing could have been a paid product, but you’ve decided not to charge for it so you can help more people.

I’m sure you’ve seen this done many times before, with varying degrees of skill in the execution. The key to handling it well is, as always, to know your audience.

The “Abraham Lincoln” technique

And finally there’s the “Abraham Lincoln” technique. Lincoln was an unusual-looking guy with a hick accent and a whiny voice. When he gave speeches during his run for president, he added fuel to his personal fire by claiming to be a poor public speaker with nothing new to say.

And yet, Lincoln was a very bright man with an excellent grasp of the nation’s problems. He lowered expectations by presenting himself as a sincere fool, and by the end of a speech he had won the audience over completely.

So, if you’re a chiropractor who also does content marketing, it’s really easy to claim that you’re “no master copywriter,” even as you begin to deliver some damn persuasive copy. Again, you need to intimately know your audience to understand what’s appropriate when it comes to these things.

Which brings us to something completely different.

What’s in it for you?

If any of the three tactics above sounded hokey or even manipulative, you’re not alone. That doesn’t mean they don’t work to build trust with certain audiences; they just might not work on you.

That’s why I repeatedly say, “Know thy audience.” I don’t use those tactics on you, because I think I’d get a chorus of eye rolls. You’re more sophisticated about marketing than a typical audience, so those approaches might hurt more than help.

Some marketers in our space have resorted to “radical transparency” in order to build trust. The problem with that, especially when talking about revenue growth, is it can come across as bragging more than honesty. And when things start going badly, you’ve got to maintain that transparency, which may actually reduce trust in your product or company.

My approach is to simply never be shy about saying what’s in it for me. It was a lesson I learned back in 2007.

I had been giving away valuable free content on Copyblogger for 18 months at that point. No product, no service, just relentless focus on serving and building the audience.

Then a strange thing started happening. I began getting emails from people who didn’t understand why I was giving everything away for free without asking for a sale.

It caught me off guard, but the people in my early audience were worried that they couldn’t trust me, because they didn’t understand what was in it for me. Color me shocked.

So, even though I still try to be as generous as possible, I never shy away from saying what’s in it for me. If we’re doing our jobs correctly, what’s in it for you should always come across as superior — which makes it a sales strategy as well.

For example, when we launch a new product that has special introductory pricing, we’re doing it for a reason beyond maximizing sales. We want feedback from our initial customers so we can rapidly improve the product.

So, we explain that in great detail. And it’s worked on both the sales and feedback level every time. The more potential for skepticism within your audience, the more you just come right out and tell people the deal — for both sides.

Demonstrate trustworthiness

The most powerful way to establish yourself as a subject matter expert is to demonstrate your authority with your content rather than simply claim to be an expert. Trust works the same way.

So, some of those ancient rhetorical tricks I’ve listed above are good to know, and if appropriate, you should work them in. But overall, serving your audience with the right valuable content is the best way to demonstrate your trustworthiness and establish true “disinterested goodwill.”

Other than that, the natural impulse to hide your economic motivations or business objectives is almost always a mistake. Realize that people increasingly think everyone is “on the take,” and your primary job is to assure your audience that you’re not.

Building trust is bigger than tactics — it’s your entire mission.

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A Guide to Meaningful Content that Resonates

Oh the drama!

No, I’m not talking about the latest political fight you got into on Facebook — I mean this week on Copyblogger has been all about creating dramatic, meaningful content that pulls your audience toward you.

On Monday, Brian shared five proven techniques that stir emotions and inspire people to act on your content. And on the Copyblogger FM podcast, I talked about how some of the Super Bowl ads sparked more drama than they intended — with thoughts on what to do when your once-neutral message takes on a political charge.

On Tuesday, our friend Sean D’Souza dove into interesting ways to use audience objections (all of those annoying reasons people don’t buy) to increase the dramatic tension in your content.

And on Wednesday, I just flat out broke down and pleaded with you (well, maybe not you, but someone like you) to quit hiding your best ideas in boring, washed-out content. Kelton Reid also talked with neuroscientist Michael Grybko about why the fake news epidemic creates so much drama of the unhealthy kind — and how we might be able to combat it.

Hope your weekend is an excellent one, and all of your drama is good stuff! I’ll catch you next week …

— Sonia Simone
Chief Content Officer, Rainmaker Digital

Catch up on this week’s content

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5 Writing Techniques that Stir Your Audience to Action

by Brian Clark

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Transform Your Content from Predictable to Provocative with This Bold Method

by Sean D’Souza

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How to Quit Being So Damned Boring

by Sonia Simone

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Can Customer Insights Really Drive Innovation for Your Online Business?

by Sean Jackson & Jessica Frick

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Politics, Content Marketing, and the 2017 Super Bowl Ads

by Sonia Simone

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The State of Social Media Marketing, with Michael Stelzner

by Brian Clark

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A Neuroscientist’s Perspective on Fake News, with Michael Grybko

by Kelton Reid

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Podcasting Lessons From a Psychotherapist

by Jerod Morris & Jon Nastor

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How to Quit Being So Damned Boring

It always begins with so much promise.

“I’ve been working really hard on my site. I put a lot of time and effort into it, but it’s just not getting any traction. Can you take a look?”

I don’t want to take a look. Because by now, I know what I’m going to find. And it just makes me sad.

There it is, the capable site design. The perfectly decent headlines. The bullet points of usefulness. The careful, even painstaking articles, describing 7 Ways to Do the Thing.

The blogger has been studying, and that’s excellent. We love content marketing strategy. But not when writers forget the most important thing:

Nobody has the time or attention span to read a boring website.

Why do we do it? Why do we launch a new site, when there are already hundreds of sites exactly like it?

Why put hours into writing content that melts into the vast, indistinguishable mass of Meh?

From my observation, there is one underlying reason there’s so much boring content being published:

We’re afraid someone won’t like it

We don’t want to use an unusual word, because someone won’t like it.

We don’t want to uncover a thorny problem or controversial issue, because someone won’t like it.

We definitely can’t tell the truth about the way we’re weird, or different, or vulnerable. We can only conform, because that’s the only way to be safe.

The sad irony is, it’s conformity that’s dangerous.

Nothing will kill your business faster than dull conformity.

When you make yourself bland and inoffensive, you appeal to no one. No one gets angry at you … and no one particularly wants to spend any time with you, either.

You’ve been in hiding so long, you’ve forgotten what it was like to be truthful.

We forgot what it was like

If you ever get the chance to spend time with very small children, you’ll notice something.

None of them are boring.

(Parenting reality moment: Spending a lot of time with little kids can be excruciatingly boring, especially if you can’t muster enthusiasm for their weird obsessions. But their thoughts, their expressions, their points of view, their wild passions — these are not boring people.)

Kids are not boring for two reasons:

1. They care bizarrely deeply about things.
2. They don’t know that it isn’t okay to be who they are.

Now, the process of teaching kids how to be good members of our culture is a good thing. Potty training and learning to eat without throwing your food are wonderful developments for everyone.

But the insidious messages always ride alongside.

“Those don’t really go together.”

“I’m sure you don’t really mean that word.”

“Being an artist (writer, cowboy, ballerina, musician, astronaut) is really hard. When you get bigger, you’ll choose a real job.”

“Let’s stay on this side, okay?”

“We don’t play with children like that.”

“We don’t spend time with people like that.”

“We don’t talk about things like that.”

Parents do it, teachers do it, and maybe more than anyone else, other kids do it. We knock all of the weird edges off one another.

So we make ourselves palatable and convenient. Girls are pretty and boys are tough. And no one likes the weird kid who reads too much and spends all that time by herself.

A word or two about honesty and outrageousness

There have always been some who try to create success by making themselves highly, visibly obnoxious.

The professional troll, the shock jock, the provocateur.

It’s pretty easy to infuriate people in order to get their attention. Easier than ever, in fact.

But mistreating other people to get attention isn’t “authenticity.” It’s just bullying. And the success it leads to is short-lived and shallow, if it comes at all. Which it probably won’t, because paying attention to you isn’t the same thing as trusting you.

Trust me, if you’re at all honest, you will offend people. You don’t need to go looking for ways to be offensive.

What to do differently

So, I’m not advocating that you go back to stomping, screaming, or throwing things.

Growing up is fantastic. I love grown-ups.

What I am advocating is that you re-find the habit of telling the truth about who you are.

The most important thing you can do to end the horrible cycle of boring writing is to write with your own voice. Your honest, unafraid voice. Even if it bothers people. Even if it makes people nervous.

It’s not about being loud. It’s about being real.

Luvvie Ajayi’s voice is hilarious, wide-ranging, and shade-rich.

“This is the time to use that ‘shutting the hell up is free’ coupon code. It never expires.”

Sugarrae Hoffman’s voice is sharp, salty, and truthful.

Protip: If people really made sites that you could buy & watch checks start rolling in with 0 effort, they wouldn't be selling them to you

— Rae Hoffman (@sugarrae) February 12, 2017

Jeff Goins’s voice is compassionate, quiet, and thoughtful.

“I spent too long waiting for someone to call me a writer before I was willing to act like one.”

Marjorie Ingall’s voice is opinionated, funny, and urbane.

“Did you miss the Google Home Super Bowl ad with the mezuzah in it because you were hanging out with activist rabbis instead of watching the game? Me, too!”

Roger Lawson’s voice is playful, goofy, and, yeah, cocky.

“Your friends are in relationships, eating wedding cake (mmmmmm!) and having all the sex while you stare wistfully out the window, waiting for your one true love to appear as a single tear rolls down your cheek.”

Pamela Slim’s voice is inspiring, sassy, and no-nonsense.

“Why do we tell women they are ‘too much?’

I will spend my life telling them to speak up, strut more, push the edge, and show up.

I want to see all you got and then some.”

Ishita Gupta’s voice is encouraging, vulnerable, and pragmatic.

“Resilience is what you hold onto and trust when it seems like there’s nothing left, and it’s more subtle and trustworthy than ‘bucking up.'”

Brian Clark’s voice is authoritative, definitive, and sometimes irreverent.

“‘But Brian,’ the voices in my head object. ‘What about branding, engagement, social sharing, SEO, comments …’

‘Let me stop you right there,’ I tell the voices. Which is awkward, because I’m in a crowded coffee shop.”

You get the idea. You’ll never mistake one of these voices for someone else’s. Each one is distinctive, opinionated, maybe sometimes a little cantankerous. And each one inspires action because they’re speaking from a position of courage and truth.

Please, please, please stop undermining all of your hard work by being afraid to step into a real voice. The world needs to know what you honestly have to say.

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