Episode 45: The #1 Thing You’re Glossing Over That’s Costing You BIG Money

I’m working with a large accounting firm and was getting ready to present to a group of managing partners about a training series we are piloting. 

One of the topics was about how to message yourself in the digital space as a professional services provider.

I was going over the slide deck with the marketing director from the organization, and she told me that I could probably take out the slide on identifying your ideal client. She said, “we only need to focus on how to write a social media post…no need to spend time on who our ideal client is.”

I pushed back gently and said this….

How I teach people to message their content is directly aligned with WHO it is they’re speaking to…and yes, this applies to social media as well.

If you’re not able to intimately understand the pain points your ideal client is grappling with…you certainly won’t be able to say the words that will emotionally connect you to that person (and for them to ultimately buy from you) .

I was talking with one of the company’s managing partners. He’s fairly savvy on social media, and we were talking about who his ideal client is. He said that his person is someone who works in the private equity venture capital space. This person sacrifices a lot…time away from family, time away from the things they love to do. 

This managing partner has done a great job emotionally connecting with his ideal client because he talks about the sacrifice in his social media posts.

He had a post on LinkedIn a few months ago talking about how his mom would always call him during busy season and tell him “he was working too hard” or that “he needs to take a break.” It was a BEAUTIFUL tribute and post about his mom. This partner loves his work and talked to his mom about WHY he loves his work…and even though the sacrifice is tough a few months out of the year - the reward is he feels like he’s making a big impact in other people’s lives.

SACRIFICE. This was a key pain point for his ideal client. 

In order to make meaningful connections in your marketing messaging, I want you to do the following:

1. Think of the name of a client you’ve enjoyed working with. What did you enjoy about them? What pain were they experiencing that caused them to get in touch with you?
2. When you’re creating a post, write the caption (the words under the graphic) as if you were talking directly to your favorite client. Use words such as “you” and “yours.” You’re talking to ONE person…not to everyone. Tell a story of a lesson learned and the pain that was alleviated from that lesson. 

When you tell that story, you start with an interesting fact (or hook) to capture the reader’s attention and then follow up with what happened, lesson learned and how you handled the problem.

For example, in the managing partner’s post about his mom, the first sentence would read something along the lines of, “Mom always called me at the worst time during busy season.”

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If you are looking to learn more about the DiSC assessment, how to communicate with others or to best understand your communication style, check out www.heatherlisle.com for more information.