I want to read about me, not you!
So many business owners, business developers, even marketers fail at the same basics. They want to tell you what they would like to hear. What they are proud of. You’ve read before that is the wrong way. But what to do about it?
Customer centricity is more than a buzzword
Everyone in business has heard about having to change direction and become customer-centric. Give the customer what they want. Ask them what they want. Start with Why, go through What and maybe, just maybe finish with How. For more, see Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle:
Sounds plain and simple. And yet most of the businesses I meet for the first time do it wrong. I just love it when they start with “We …”. In 99% of the time, this leads to an instant #fail.
Everyone agrees that …
… hearing someone speak about themselves quickly becomes boring and disengaging. Whenever you believe you may have fallen for the obvious, you can use a fast&dirty trick: replace your product’s name with a competitor’s name. Would you congratulate them if this was their message and you would hope it was yours? Or are you getting fed up with their Ego while listening? Now you know how we — your customers — feel about your message.
What to do about it?
Making a message customer-centric is not an easy task. It requires practice and some deleted documents. Or, if you’re old-school like me, that would make for scraped papers!
Pro psychological tip: To spark even more creativity, use pen and paper instead of the keyboard and the screen.
Do not be afraid to make mistakes. These can help you realize your weaknesses and work on them. I haven’t yet met a person who could easily jump from their point of view to customer’s point of view and back. But practice makes perfect if you only follow these key points:
- what is the purpose of your writing? Write it down before you start with anything else. It can be as simple as “I want to share what I have learned.” or “I want to help people by sharing my experience.”
- Review the sentence you have written at the point above. If it reads like “I want to share what I have learned,” ask yourself Why. Be ready to accept the reason that there’s no reason. And because this is a bad reason, which definitely lacks customer centricity — scrap the message. Start again!
- Alright, so you want to help them. Why?
- 4 or 5 why’s should give you a clear picture. And they should help you decide whether you want to continue or not.
- After the purpose comes the message itself. Write it down. If you want to help people by reading your mistakes — which mistake you don’t want them to make. And why. Always think about the why.
- Bravo, you’ve got that sorted out. You have your purpose and your key message. Is it unique? What is unique about it? Write that down.
- Wait for a day. Yes, I am assuming you have time for that =)
- Do you still like your answers? If yes, start writing. If not … start from the top.
Tips for writing for the web can be found in my earlier article: Writing for the web
Yes, you have written your customer-centric message. Or an article. It doesn’t really matter. The process should be similar. But before I congratulate you … do you feel confident it passes the quick&dirty trick from above? If it does, I want to say bravo to you, you have just gained a huge competitive advantage!
Practice what I preach (my reason WHY and WHAT)
- The WHY: Because still, too many people do it wrong. And because only a few resources share useful tips on HOW.
- The WHAT: Useful and applicable steps to customer-centric message construction.
- The other WHY (the WHY ME): Because I do this all the time and because my messages in digital advertising compared with business-centric (original) messages perform up to 70 % better.
