Write for just one person

Almost all marketing advice of the past century tells us to try and be really popular. The goal, it seems, is to have more friends (customers, clients, evangelists) than the competition.

Over the last few years, the importance of focusing on niche markets has become more widely recognized. A market of 2,000 paying customers is better than a market of 2,000,000 non-paying non-customers, after all.

However, this is still too big of a market to try and please. It's great if you can get them all, but you can't practically aim to please that many people. On a planet of 6.5 billion+ individuals, you will not find two individuals (much less 2,000) who are exactly alike. Trying to please everyone becomes a exercise in mediocrity.

Instead, pretend you're only interested in one person. Just one. One is a manageable number. Anything more is asking for trouble.

Which raises the question: Who should you write for? Who is this idea client or customer? Who is this soul-mate who will weather thick and thin to support you and see you succeed?

In this instance, a mirror will come in handy.

Write for you and no one else. Create products and services that you would pay good money for, and then market them to yourself.

The magical thing that happens when you ignore everyone else and just do what feels right to you is that other people take notice. Since you're not trying to be safe, you end up doing things different. Since you aren’t trying to please everyone, your passion shines through. You end up standing out in a crowd of me-too products and companies. You end up leading your market instead of chasing after it.

I heard this great piece of advice recently: Charisma is the courage to be different regardless of what others think. Can you really afford to do business any other way?

Photo credit: svilen001

How storytelling will change the way you pitch ideas

Imagine, for a moment, that you are the Chief Marketing Officer of some major company. After a slump in sales, you sent out Requests for Proposals to a few different agencies. After some initial interactions, you're down to two candidates.

The first candidate has 100 PowerPoint slides. He has graphs. Charts. Research studies. He has every piece of data you can imagine. From all of this data, he tells you that your problem lies with X and he can solve it with solution Y. He thanks you for your time, everyone agrees it went well, and you have a nice big book of slides as a souvenir.

The second candidate opts to not even use PowerPoint. She has no graphs. No charts. No data. She looks you straight in the eyes and tells you that you fucked up. (Yes, she swears.) She tells your target market feels you've sold them out, or something to that effect. She tells you a few stories from friends who happen to fit your demographic exactly. Friends who used to be loyal customers but have since switched brands. Your colleagues note that this isn't very scientific, yet her words ring true. Finally, she very frankly tells you that she doesn't yet know the solution, but wants to work hand in hand with you and your team to figure it out and turn things around.

Which candidate do you prefer? I'm willing to bet the second one. And yet, she had no data nor solid solutions.

What was the difference?

The difference is simple. The second candidate didn't try to impress you. Instead, she confidently approached your business problem in earnest. She demonstrated a clear and fundamental understanding of the issues. She didn't need to hide behind data.

In short, where the first candidate gave you facts, the second candidate gave you a story. The story began with how you got to where you are at today, explored and elaborated on that with real life examples, and then gave just the slightest hint that the story will end well if you chose her. It's suspenseful, it's hopeful, it's exciting.

In my last post, I spoke about why stories were so persuasive. This doesn't need to be restricted to your writing. Stories should be a part of your every day life, and they should definitely be a part of your pitching strategy.

PostScript: You don't need to completely dump the data from your presentation. Indeed, some supporting data can help to show you've done your research. Just know that data alone won't win the pitch. The audience needs to have confidence in you, and confidence is an emotion. Data doesn't earn emotion; great stories do.

Photo credit: justino307

The Persuasive Power of Stories

When I was a kid, like most (if not all) kids, I had to take history classes. They bored me to tears. In fact, they bored everyone. At that time, none of us understood the benefit. Who cared who did what, where, and when? It just didn't seem relevant in any way.

Then, one day, I saw the movie Shindler's List. This was probably the first historical movie I'd ever seen. It was gripping. It was horrifying. It was beautiful. It was everything my school history books were not. Suddenly, I cared.

I went back to school, passionate about at least one event in history. However, when I opened my text books to learn more, I saw nothing but dates, figures, and very simplistic summaries.

The problem with history class wasn't that history wasn't important or that we, as children, don't care. The problem is that history classes are almost entirely deprived of stories. We had the naked truth, but nothing we could care about.

Stories matter

The biggest lesson I learned from that history class was that stories matter. We tend to think of stories as trivial; suitable for small children or for entertainment.

In truth, stories are so much more.

Stories help us relate. They give facts the structure they need to be digestible. To make sense of life, we tell ourselves stories all of the time.

Identity

I'm actually telling myself a few stories right now. I'm listening to Weezer, because I'm a geek. I'm wearing black because it's slimming and looks good. I don't buy new things until I absolutely have to because I'm frugal. I'm using a Mac because it's simple and gets out of my way. I'm using an open-source text editor to write this because it gives me control over my software.

Are any of these things that I'm telling myself true? Does it matter? What matters is that I believe them. My world is made up of the stories that I tell myself.

Collectively, these stories form the inner narrative that is my life. Believe it or not, you do exactly the same thing. Your stories are, hopefully, entirely different from mine, but they're there. They motivate every action you take.

This inner narrative is what we call our identity.

We are the stories we tell ourselves. These stories, these works of fiction inspired by reality, define us as people.

Still think stories are trivial?

Telling stories that sell

There are a lot of ways to sell something. Some companies choose to call you during dinner time. Others choose to plaster every available surface within sight with advertisements. The latest trend is to try and engage people online through social media (such as this blog). Whatever method you choose, you will live and die on the quality of the story you tell.

Money will leave your prospect's pocket to enjoy life in yours if and only if your story is one they'd like to tell to themselves about themselves. Apple, Nike, and Obama are all ridiculously cool brands. People who see themselves as cool buy into cool brands like these. Despite the old saying, like attracts like.

When selling, the question you and I need to ask ourselves is simple: What story can we tell that our prospective clientele would like to tell themselves about themselves?