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Empathy Marketing

The Myth of The Ideal Client

May 13, 2013

Tami SmithThis is a Contributor’s Post from The Voice Bureau Collaborative Partner and Empathy Marketing Co-Creator & Strategist, Tami Smith.

As a business owner, you’ve been told: an ideal client is a very clear description of the type of client you would love to have more of.

What lens are you seeing your ideal client through? She or he may be an exact replica of a client you’re working with today, or she or he could be a combination of qualities you’ve seen in past and current clients.

You took this advice and you created your ideal client. You’ve even named her. (This is not so kooky as it may sound.) You care about her.

But even with your good intentions to cater to your ideal client through your business and your brand, something is missing.

You have a feeling you might have not be having the same experience as all those other people who rave about the power of knowing your ideal client, because you aren’t seeing or feeling much of a difference in your results.

Oh, the agony and the ecstasy of the Myth of the Ideal Client.

It’s true that ideal client profiling is supposed to be the Holy Grail of building a values-based microbusiness for the web today. And, well, we at The Voice Bureau agree.

But here’s what we see: it isn’t unusual for our incoming clients to feel like all the exercises they’ve done to define their Right Person were nothing more than going through the motions. If you’ve felt this way, rest assured, you aren’t the only business owner who’s had a temporary high of defining an ideal client, only to later feel like Meh. What was that all for, anyway?

An ideal client profile is supposed to be the most important aspect of your marketing. If ideal clients are so important, why doesn’t yours bring significant results?

There’s a good chance the way you created your ideal client is the real problem.

There are 6 common mistakes people make when creating an ideal client. Read on to see if you recognize your past efforts in one of these scenarios.

The 6 biggest mistakes people make when creating an ideal client:

Mistake No. 1: WISHLISTING

Wishlisting happens when you define your ideal client based on your wish list, or all the characteristics and qualities you would just love for her to have. This is the ideal client you “would love to have lunch with” and “hang out with” because she is just so darn nice.

  • What Wishlisting sounds like: This could sound like anything based on what would appeal most to you, the business owner. If you’re childfree by choice, she’s childfree by choice. If you like cupcakes, he likes cupcakes.  [Abby's note: We jest. A little.] Chances are, your Right Person Profile sounds a lot like your dream best friend (you know, the one who “really needs your services”), or like someone you wish existed.
  • Where Wishlisting comes from: More than likely, we do this when we’ve absorbed the popularly taught notion that your ideal client is someone you’d like to have as a friend. This may indeed be true (as some of our Empathy Marketing clients find out), but it’s not the most effective place to start getting a picture of your ideal client.
  • Why Wishlisting doesn’t ultimately work: When we use ourselves as the focal point — if I’d be her friend, she’d be a good client for me -- we risk letting our own ego, our own personal needs, or our own projections of ourselves creep into our Right Person Profile, thus missing the true needs of the person Most Likely To Buy from us.

Mistake No. 2: HODGEPODGING

Hodgepodging is when your ideal client is a hodgepodge of various people, usually all your favorite attributes out of the clients you’ve worked with so far.

  • What Hodgepodging sounds like: “Hank is a 28-year old web developer and unisex jewelry designer who comes from privilege and money (and so has plenty in a trust fund to spend on my services), yet chooses to live a rather minimalist, ascetic life. He’s outgoing, kind, but can also be kind of a jerk in relationships and he doesn’t know why. He refers to himself as a ‘bacon-eating Vegan.’ He wants to travel the world on a dime, reduce his carbon footprint, create big social change (through his jewelry line), and have a great relationship at some point — after he figures out if he should chuck both of his current career pursuits and start a band. After all, you only live once, and why not let it be epic?”
  • Where Hodgepodging comes from: There’s a notion that “if I could just take his grit, her experience, and his sense of humor, I’d have the perfect client!” But alas, people are not hybrids of many different people. They are themselves. Your Right Person deserves to have a complete, nuanced identity unto herself, complete with high sides, low sides, strengths, weaknesses, gifts, and challenges. (And, huge bonus: your Right Person, as unique as he or she is, represents many people.)
  • Why Hodgepodging doesn’t ultimately work: Just like you and me, your ideal client is imperfect, full of internal tensions and paradoxes, and is consistently inconsistent. When we fail to regard and respect our ideal clients as the whole human beings they are, we miss out on lots of opportunities to connect with and serve them.

Mistake No. 3: CAVALIERING

You’re Cavaliering when you define your ideal client around all her problems or claim you can help her with “anything” because you have “the power of helping people get clear.” Like boiling the ocean, this is a problem of trying to solve too many problems at once, often using a single tool.

  • What Cavaliering sounds like: “Miranda is tortured. She hates her messy closets — she thinks of them as ‘closets of shame.’ On the outside, she’s warm, competent, and pulled together. Her friends and neighbors would never suspect that underneath her cool exterior, lies a tidal wave of unopened mail, years’ worth of receipts, and clothing with the tags still on — all enclosed behind the perfectly painted-and-trimmed doors of her suburban upper middle class home. She’s not just messy, she’s desperate, lonely inside, and feels ugly and worthless because of what she’s keeping stuffed inside her closets. She wants to get a grip, she NEEDS to get a grip, and when she finds me, she knows that someone can finally help her get clear. She sees that I’ve done it for myself, and she automatically believes that I can help her do it, too. She knows I can help her with more than closet organizing — I can help her get clear on who she wants to be. Because I am that woman she wants to be more like.”
  • Where Cavaliering comes from: The origin of Cavaliering is the misguided belief that people reach out for help when they are all but flattened by their pain, and thus respond to sales pages full of pain points and Calls To Action that promise to save them. Also, in some cases, Cavaliering comes from — dare I say it? — a God(dess) complex: too much ego projection into the business. This often sounds like: “I’ve been put on this planet to help women like you do X, Y, and Z! It’s my gift to the world and to you, so you, too, can live a fuller, richer, sweeter life — just like me.” Oftentimes, it’s presented in a more subtle way than that, but the subtext is still clear: my life rocks, and I can help you make your life rock, too.
  • Why Cavaliering doesn’t ultimately work: Despite what some ‘turn up the heat’ marketers will tell you, people don’t seek solutions from the depths of their despair. Usually, people buy products and services from integrity-based businesses when they are in a more resourceful, emotionally integrated place. In fact, some values-based coaches and consultants have a policy where they refuse to start work with a client who’s in crisis mode. A healthy, resourceful buyer is still aware of his pain points (as awareness of pain points is a critical piece of the buying process), but he’s standing on his own two feet again, looking to the future, and ready to do something about his problem. He doesn’t need (or want) you to save him.

Mistake No. 4: STEPFORD WIFING

This is similar to Wishlisting, but instead of including ‘everything but the kitchen sink,’ Stepford Wifing draws the description of the ideal client into a very narrow view of the person, one who perfectly fits your needs, whims, and predilections as a business owner. (You’ve seen the movie or read the American cult classic novel, The Stepford Wives? It’s a satirical thriller.) Meanwhile, your ideal client’s imperfections are glossed over, as you narrow in on her extreme and oversimplified needs/desires.

  • What Stepford Wifing sounds like: “Marika is a smart, savvy, fit 40-year old wife and mama who, although her family lives on a tight budget, always manages to pay for her premium fitness coaching with me. Despite staying home with 4 kids under the age of 10 while her devoted husband works full-time plus, she never skimps on personal time because she understands the importance of putting herself first. She manages to maintain her size 6 figure through healthy eating and regular intentional movement, though it isn’t always easy. All of this plus she uses social media like candy so she’s a HUGE brand evangelist for me!”
  • Where Stepford Wifing comes from: Fear — specifically, the business owner’s fear that a “real” person with “real” problems and “real” challenges won’t hire her. So she draws her Right Person Profile to a (rather self-serving) tee.
  • Why Stepford Wifing doesn’t ultimately work: When you gloss over a potential client’s challenges, struggles, and imperfections, you risk having her miss herself on your sales pages. If she can’t see herself reflected in your brand, she won’t buy, because she won’t believe you ‘get’ her.

Mistake No. 5: BANDWAGONING

Bandwagoning happens when you jump on the bandwagon of whatever the popular teaching is and use a list of over simplified, means-nothing-really-but-sounds-good qualifiers as your ideal client characteristics. Bandwagoning oversimplifies the holistic and the nuanced aspects of what it means to stand in your Right Person’s shoes.

  • What Bandwagoning sounds like: “My ideal client is ready for what I have to offer, and happily pays what I’m asking without question because he sees the value in it.” Is this true? But of course. It’d better be. Is this all there is to understanding your Right Person? Absolutely not. Do these qualifiers help you see, clearly and with empathy, what your ideal client’s core needs and motivators are, his developmental desires, and his emotional triggers (for better and for worse)? Not even almost.
  • Where Bandwagoning comes from: Again, fear. And then dismissiveness of the necessity for a deep understanding of who your business can serve best. Knowing your Right Person and practicing empathy as you design your brand conversation for her is a complex practice. It requires us, as business owners, to go deep and to set our own assumptions aside. When this gets too difficult, it’s all too easy just to say, “Ba-da-boom, ba-da-bing: here’s all I need to know. The rest is just extraneous details.”
  • Why Bandwagoning doesn’t ultimately work: When we design our brand and our offers based on assumptions about who our ideal clients are (or, worse, when we say, it doesn’t matter who they are as long as they need what I’m selling and will pay my price), we end up with a Throwing Spaghetti At The Wall To See What Sticks brand. We become a hammer, to whom everything and everyone looks like a nail. Boom! There’s a problem. I can design a solution. Boom! She’s got a symptom. I can address it!

Mistake No. 6: SHADOWING

In shadowing, a business owner unconsciously projects his or her own problem onto an ideal client. Projection is a psychological defense mechanism where you “project” undesirable or unacceptable thoughts, motivations, desires, and feelings onto someone else, in order to distance yourself from the discomfort of experiencing them for oneself.

  • What Shadowing sounds like: Shadowing can take many forms. But if reading your Right Person narrative — Ohmygod, that’s meeeeeeee! — feels like reading a page from your diary, you’re probably Shadowing.
  • Where Shadowing comes from: The current microbusiness coaching landscape sometimes pushes us toward the idea that a powerful Value Proposition comes from taking people through the transformation you yourself underwent to get the results you got. While bringing your own personal experience into your brand can be a wonderful and valuable thing (in fact, how to invite your story in strategically is part of the work we do with Empathy Marketing clients), problems start when a business owner can’t see past her own projections of what her ideal client might want and need.
  • Why Shadowing doesn’t ultimately work: Shadowing can often turn up online in the form of what a writer friend of Abby’s [Abby's note: Hi, Angela!] calls a “vanity venture.” In essence, the business exists to reflect back to the business owner that she has done a good enough job of healing herself, or fixing herself, or creating for herself the result she wants. While this is by no means a ‘wrong’ reason to have an online presence, Shadowing is not at the heart of a values-based business that offers a viable solution in the marketplace.

Why these mistakes will keep you from realizing the benefits of an ideal client

Your ideal client isn’t one person, a hodgepodge, or a wish list of characteristics. An ideal client isn’t a projection or a tidy little list of how much she values you. An ideal client is an ideal list of qualifications that make someone more inclined to buy your solution, rather than less inclined.

Creating a persona — what we at The Voice Bureau call a Right Person — is a way to avoid the common mistakes in creating ideal client scenarios.

A Right Person persona should:

  • Represent a buyer who shares the problem, paradox, and desires your solution is designed to address

  • Highlight search intent (queries and questions being asked in search)

  • Explain core motivators, desires, emotional needs, and buying preferences

  • Provide a logical way to create content that is optimized for the core practical  and emotional need of your Right Person

Your Right Person Persona will become your ideal client profile. When you understand who she or he is, you understand what he or she wants from you, and why.

When you get to this next level of clarity and create an ideal client based on methods that are proven to work, you will understand the relationship between you and your ideal client. You will see how your strengths, experiences, and intrinsic Voice Values serve your ideal client.

Your ideal client profile, created in an empathic way, is the key to articulating your Brand Proposition and your USP, and it’s the key to crafting even more effective Calls To Action.

Knowing what to say and how to say it unlocks those places where you feel stuck.

Feeling stuck and frustrated about not being able to articulate a strong Brand Proposition isn’t an experience unique to you or your brand (thank goodness, right?). It is incredibly rare to find microbusiness owners confident and clear about how they are a better choice for their ideal clients.

We think it’s important for you to know that these things aren’t easy to do and to know that persona development can bring clarity to your entire process of bringing a new brand online, or realigning an existing brand.

Your Right People are important. Understanding yours at an intimate level will bring significant results when created the right way.

In the comments, Abby & I would love to hear:

What hasn’t worked for you so far in getting clear on your ideal client? What popularly taught advice has fallen flat for you? Have you had experience with one of the 6 Mistakes described above? We look forward to discussing this with you in the comments.

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Being Human While Being a Personal (Business) Brand

April 28, 2013

How do you begin to develop the emotional competency of being a personal brand?Your business is personal.

If you’re reading this article, more than likely you agree with this statement.

As solopreneurs, microbusiness owners, the creatively self-employed — call us what you will — the onus is on us to decide where we draw the line between what’s on the table for ‘business’ and what we keep behind the curtain, or ‘personal.’

And when we consider this idea of being a ‘personal brand,’ or a business brand with a personal feel (like most of our clients at The Voice Bureau), the negotiation between ‘business’ and ‘personal’ gets all the more complicated.

Most of The Voice Bureau’s Right People clients don’t fight the idea of ‘being’ a brand. Around here, we hold that any individual or entity who shows up online, with a purpose, in any sort of a consistent way, is presenting (albeit unconsciously sometimes) as a brand. How you choose to live out your ‘brand’ is your business. (Pun intended.) Our clients tend to accept the idea that being a ‘brand’ comes with the territory of presenting value to the marketplace. Even if you don’t see yourself as a brand, other people will.

Over the past year, Tami and I have had many deep conversations about how we — and by that we mean all of us: she and I, and you (our reader), and our clients — show up online.

We notice what we choose to lead with in our brand conversations and we ask ourselves why.

A big part of our Empathy Marketing work is reverse engineering the rational and emotional logic that’s led a client to show up (or not to show up) online the way she does — both in search results, and more importantly, in her Right People’s realm of interest.

We’ve noticed that perhaps the most important part of leading a memorable, meaningful, and successful online business brand starts way before a Value Proposition ever gets clarified, before copy ever gets written, or before a website gets designed. It’s the inner work a values-based brand creator has to do to shape and lead a brand with strength, love, and intentionality, and be in integrity with herself every step of the way.

One Friday morning during our weekly collaboration call, Tami described this inner work to me as “developing the emotional competency to be a personal brand.” I just about fell off my chair.

I knew this was a conversation I wanted us to be part of — in public, with you.

We feel strongly about the need for this conversation today. We’re hosting three complimentary calls for our readership (and anyone else you might like to invite).

The series starts Wednesday, May 1st, PST. Details are here. We hope you’ll register and join us live or enjoy the recordings.

In the comments, we’d love to know:

What have you identified as being part of the Emotional Competency of being a personal brand? What goes into it, from your view? 

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The Two Unsexy-Sounding Business Tools Your Brand Absolutely Needs

April 22, 2013

Vintage tools in a creative studioIn the toolbox of every values-based business creator, there are some tools we enjoy using more than others to tell our brand’s story.

Ooh, I get to have a new color palette! we marvel when it’s time to collaborate with a web designer.

OMG, I am so ready for a new About page! we tell our newly hired copywriter.

Pinterest? Sure! I’ll try it out, we think, after reading the 5 Best Pinterest-For-Business Tips article everyone’s been circulating on Twitter.

As a branding specialist, I get excited about these elements, too. But I’d like to share with you the TWO unsexy-sounding business tools every values-based brand creator absolutely needs to cozy up to — the sooner, the better.

But first, what are the signs that you could stand to have a better relationship with these two unsexy-sounding tools?

  • You find explaining what you do in one or two sentences to be really difficult.
  • You’ve been investing in all sorts of courses and programs that address the different pieces and parts of doing business, but you find it tough to implement because you know your foundation isn’t as solid as you’d like it to be.
  • You have SO many product ideas and you’re having trouble narrowing down which one to start working on first.
  • You’ve been doing business for a while and you’ve had some sales, but something just isn’t clicking. You feel like people are interested in what you have to say, but you also know you’re not really working in your sweet spot yet.
  • You feel frustrated and anxious whenever you see one of your industry peers tweeting about her new offering. Damnit, why didn’t I think of that? you find yourself fretting.

If one or more of the points above resonate with you, it’s high time you get to know your Brand Proposition and your Unique Selling Position, or USP.

The two unsexy-sounding but oh so powerful business-and-branding tools you have to get clear on are:

  1. Your Value Proposition, or as we like to call it at The Voice Bureau, your Brand Proposition, and
  2. Your Unique Selling Position, or USP.

If you’re anything like many of the creative people dreaming of starting businesses even as I type this article, your eyes may be glazing over at these terms. You’ve probably seen them a hundred times in various marketing articles. But here’s the thing: have you really done this foundational work of getting clear on what they are for your business?

Brand Proposition is a clear statement of:

  • the Who — who your business serves
  • the Value — what they get from working with you
  • the Vibe — your brand voice or unique style (at The Voice Bureau, we express this by your Voice Values)
  • the View — your unique POV on the problem your solution addresses

Here’s the magic mojo in these tools: if you can confidently state your Brand Proposition, you’re clear on what business you’re in. If you’re not so sure about your Brand Proposition, you’re probably not quite clear on what your business is yet. And you surely don’t yet understand your USP.

Here are two fictional examples of clear Brand Propositions:

Example 1:

Laurie Matthias helps parents of infants [the WHO] adjust to life with their newborn and establish their household’s New Normal [the VALUE]. Her firm but playful approach [the VIBE, with Voice Values: Power, Helpfulness, Playfulness] allows parents to relax into their new roles and create systems that encourage every member of the family to thrive. She believes that through creating a System of Care, baby and parents both can be themselves and flow more easily with the rhythms of life [the VIEW].

Example 2:

Troy Yu is a dog trainer who specializes in helping senior pet owners [the WHO] train and love their dogs. His gentle, personable, and systematized approach [the VIBE, with Voice Values: Intimacy, Love, Clarity, Accuracy] helps seniors quickly learn simple, clear commands and praise-and-reward techniques, establishing them as confident alpha owners [the VALUE]. He believes that any willing person can become a great pack leader and that it’s never too late to teach an old dog new tricks [the VIEW].

Once your know your Brand Proposition, you can pinpoint your USP.

Your Unique Selling Position, USP, is also commonly referred to as your ‘differentiator.’

While some of your competitors and peers may have the same or very similar Brand Proposition as you, your USP is what sets you apart from every single one of ‘em.

You can identify your USP by thinking about what makes you different. Maybe that’s:

  • your proprietary methodology
  • your unusual blend of training
  • your extraordinary circumstances or life experience

What isn’t a USP? (Although sometimes people try to pass it off as such.)

  • Your passion. You’d better have passion if you’re providing a service to people based on your expertise. We expect you to have passion, and we know that passion gets expressed differently based on your Voice Values. (For instance, a high Enthusiasm value expresses passion quite differently than a high Accuracy value does.)
  • Your experience of being a survivor or an overcomer. Many of us are survivors and overcomers, and the world is better for it. But resting your USP on your experience of that lands as way too general and ambiguous. Let your survivor disposition inform and inspire your work, but don’t declare it as your USP.
  • Your intuition. While using your intuition in your service can be awesome and a legitimate feature of your work, because it’s not measurable from the outside, it’s not a strong USP.
  • Any “I’m better” conclusion that can’t easily be substantiated — “I’m the best,” “I’m mindful,” “I’m committed,” “I’m all in.” Many people boldly claim these types of things on their About or Services page, but if everybody’s claiming it, it’s definitely not a USP.

While Brand Proposition and USP are basic building blocks of any viable business, you might be surprised to know how many creative and intelligent people start businesses without being clear on these important elements.

We have had ENOUGH of seeing smart, sensitive practitioners stumble and falter in their business and brand-building because they simply aren’t clear, settled, and confident in their relationship with these tools.

That’s why when Tami and I set out to design our premium service experience for The Voice Bureau, we knew we wanted to go all the way back to basics.

We knew that the fun stuff — content strategy, social media conversation, visual vibe — couldn’t come to life for our clients without a clear Brand Proposition and USP.

So when we recently revamped Empathy Marketing, we decided to put ALL of this into the experience.

We’re now booking clients for Empathy Marketing 2.0. And until June 1st, 2013, we’re booking at an introductory price. Learn more here.

In the comments, Tami and I would love to hear:

What’s your Brand Proposition? What’s your USP, or differentiator? Lay them on us in the comments, and be sure to share your Voice Values, too.

photo by: Mooganic
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Should you survey your readers to find out what they want from you?

April 18, 2013

A recent trend I’ve spotted among those who coach and advise microbusiness owners is the advice to survey your readers to find out what they want from you.

maria mejia © studio.esThe premise here is great. Any time I see someone wanting to focus their business expression  on their potential clients rather than on themselves, it’s a good thing.

But — is surveying your blog readership, or even your email subscriber list, a smart way to gather information?

Let’s take a look.

Chances are, if you’re doing a good job of creating high-interest, helpful blog content, you have a loyal core of readers — people who consistently read everything you publish. This core group is most likely a fraction of the traffic to your site on any given day.

Then, you’ve got a bigger group of semi-readers, who pop on and off of your site after clicking a link on Twitter or Facebook, or clicking through a pin of yours. They probably glance at your latest post for two seconds, then bounce. If it’s a particularly engrossing topic, they may read in full, but not comment or share the post. These semi-readers are not part of your loyal core, but they are moderately interested in learning more about what you have to say/teach/model/share (which is good), or in hearing your take in particular (which is very good).

You may have Right People-like buyers hanging out in both groups: the loyal core and the moderately interested peeps. Will the moderately interested peeps click through to your sales page, read or skim to the bottom, and click Buy on any given day? That’s a matter of everything from how much time they have in that moment they encounter your site, their energy level, their predisposition to be proactive (or not) about addressing a problem they’re aware they have, and the balance in their PayPal account.

But your Right People readers? The majority of the time, they will buy your offer if the timing is right (for them), if the price is right (according to the value you’ve demonstrated on the sales page and through the rest of your brand’s suite of signals), and if they believe that you see them and get them and you have the solutions they’ve been yearning for.

Whether your Right Person buyer buys what you’re offering is a function of how well you’ve communicated that you understand what they’re up to, what troubles and concerns them, what delights and serves them, and that you’ve designed this offer with them in mind.

Your brand is not a buffet.

A short personal story:

I like buffet eating. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. As a kid, one of my favorite  ”holidays” of the year was our annual Kerr family reunion. Why? Picnic food! Three stretches of wooden picnic table full of it. I like having options.

But great brands that get profitable are not built buffet-style.

Here’s what I mean.

Let’s imagine you’re a graphic designer. Your business is a year old and you get about 1500 unique visitors to your site every month. In the first year of business, you brought in $16,578.43 in revenue from a hodge podge of digital download products, one-to-one services for clients, and one 4-session coaching workshop that 6 people signed up for. You blog inconsistently: sometimes 4 times a month, sometimes none. You use every social media channel you can think of, but you don’t really have a plan for what you’re doing there — you’re just showing up and being warm and engaging, sharing links to other people’s stuff and occasionally to your own. You have an email list of 117 people, but you’ve never had a freebie so you have no idea why most of these people signed up to receive updates from you. You’ve emailed them only 5 times over the course of the last year.

You’re eager to grow your business and your reach, so you’ve decided to survey your blog readers to find out what they want from you, blog-wise and product or service-wise.

You post a survey on your blog, and you also email the link to your subscriber list. There are 5 questions, because you’ve read that you should keep surveys to as few questions as possible, certainly under 10. Two of your questions are multiple choice and three are open-ended. You get 38 responses over a one-month period.

Because you’ve asked so few questions, you have very little insight to work with about who these people are. (But the thought of giving them the third degree, via a longer survey or a phone call, just feels . . . weird.)  Your survey tells you that only 14% of those surveyed are “currently looking for a graphic designer to work with” but 87% of them “would appreciate more free graphic downloads.” (Don’t blame me — you asked them!)

Furthermore, to your open-ended question, “What would you like me to share on my blog?” you’ve received all manner of responses, from “Photos of your creative studio, so we can see what it’s like to be you!” to “How-to articles that help me learn PhotoShop techniques” to “Top 10 lists of your favorite free iPhone apps!” to “How you got into graphic design,” “Tell me whether I need to hire a web designer or a graphic designer or both,” and “Tips for how I can start my own graphic design business, please! I want to be you when I grow up.”

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm . . . that was . . . helpful (?)

The reality is, if you left your brand conversation up to people with the time and inclination to participate in a blog survey (not necessarily your Right People), and you actually implemented what they asked for, you’d be taking a huge risk: a risk that you’d miss the Important Conversations your Most Likely To Buy Person really cares about, wants to engage in online, and wants your take on.

Don’t risk turning your brand conversation into a buffet.

When surveying people can be helpful

There is one group of people you absolutely want to talk with and learn from: people you’ve worked with, who have experienced your offers first hand (i.e. purchased your digital product or hired you for a service). You’ll want to find out what drew them to the offer in the first place, what tipped them over the edge to buy, what they expected to get/learn, what they actually got/learned, and where they’d like to suggest improvements or upgrades.

Will all of your buyers be Right People? Nope. Not all buyer feedback will be useful for you in developing your brand conversation further.

That’s why it’s even more important to intimately know your Right Person — the person whose core needs and developmental desires sync up perfectly with what you have to offer, in the way you offer it.

He or she really is out there. In fact, there’s not just ONE Right Person out there for you, there are thousands of ‘hims’ or ‘hers’ hoping — in the back of their minds, if not at the forefront — to find a conversation online like the one you are uniquely designed and equipped to create and hold.

The question is: will you do it? Will you bring it?

If you’ve been following The Voice Bureau for a while, you know that I (Abby) deliver a high level service called Empathy Marketing, along with my collaborative partner, searchologist Tami Smith.

We launched the service right before the New Year 2013 and have had the awesome pleasure of unveiling Empathy Marketing strategies to 16 high integrity microbusiness owners. We listened closely to their feedback during, immediately after, and months after their time with us concluded. We heard what they told us they wanted more of, what they were empowered to implement immediately, what was most inspiring, and where they needed more support (copywriting!).

And we’ve iterated. We made Empathy Marketing even tighter, more impactful, and more immediately actionable.

We kept all of the best parts in — and made them even better. And we added a few new features we think you’ll truly dig, like ready-to-go titles for your 101-style articleseries, and grab-and-go examples of how to work deep metaphors into your copy that will speak directly to your Right Person’s core needs.

We think you’ll love looking at your business this way, and getting to know your Right Person by standing in his or her shoes. If you’re ready, please take a look at the NEW Empathy Marketing.

We’re currently booking new clients, one per week. Book soon to ensure the Start Week of your choice.

In the comments, Tami and I would love to hear:

What have you learned from surveying your own readers? Have you found a question that’s yielded particularly insightful responses? What have you NOT been able to learn about your Right People, so far?

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The 5 Phases of Microbusiness Brand Development

February 6, 2013

Microbusiness brand development.

Photo by centralasian courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons.Or, put a sexier way: making your brand more of what it needs to be to connect with your Right People. Becoming even more of who you ARE in service to your Right People. This is what I mean when I talk about ‘microbusiness brand development.’

Developing a business brand can be an arduous, insecurity-laden process. It can also feel thrilling and emancipating. It’s a PROCESS and most likely, you’ll toggle between emotional states as you do the deep work of articulating The Who, The Value, The Vibe, and The View as it relates to your brand.

So, what phase of the microbusiness brand development process are YOU in?

Identifying where you are, what you’re currently challenged by, and where you’re heading next are all ways to gain perspective — and isn’t perspective what we all really want?

Note: As I crafted this post, I was reminded of my colleague Charlie Gilkey’s wonderful series on The Business Lifecycle. While there’s some overlap between stage of business and phase in brand development, it’s not always lockstep.

Here are the 5 Phases of Microbusiness Brand Development:

→ PHASE 1: Committed Conceptualizer

This is the aspirational, Total Newbie phase. Whether you’re new to owning your own business or just new to this particular business idea of yours, we all start in this phase.

WHERE YOU ARE IN THE BIG PICTURE OF BRAND DEV

In this phase, you probably don’t know your USP from your Brand Proposition from your tagline. You know you want a business and you understand that you need a thoughtful brand to support it, but you’re not quite sure how to make it all come together. You have an idea of what business you want to be in, but don’t yet know what your services will look like, who you really want to work with, or how you will market your business (i.e. reach potential clients and customers).

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND, BRANDING-WISE

As a Committed Conceptualizer, it’s easy to get caught up in external visual branding doodads like “Which social media sharing plugin should I use?” “Should I host my site on Blogger or WordPress?” “What colors do I want in my logo?” In this phase, these concerns seem pressing because they feel like “what your business is really about,” but in actuality, this is not the time to be concerned about the minor details.

WHAT TO FOCUS ON IN THIS PHASE

It’s time to get clear on what business you want to be in, how you want to make money, who needs the solution you want to provide, what experiences you have to help position you as credible, and what you want your experience of business to look and feel like (AKA lifestyle factors), as this suggests the type of business model in which you might thrive. And yes — all of this exploration and decision-making needs to happen before you commit to any visual branding or naming ideas.

→ PHASE 2: Avid Adopter

This is the phase in which you’re drawn to every Shiny Object that presents itself as a foolproof template or a surefire blueprint. I don’t say that as a criticism. We have aaaaaaaaallllll been there. (I currently have a tiny mirror taped to the top of my MacBook so I can watch myself as I type this. Not really. But you get the idea.) If a personal development guru, messianic business figure, or online superstar is talking, you’re listening. You sign up for every free call, download every bonus e-book, and opt-in for every coach’s complimentary 30-minute session, all in hopes of finding the spark, the trick, or the path that will lead you into pastures of business success.

WHERE YOU ARE IN THE BIG PICTURE OF BRAND DEV

As an Avid Adopter, you’re clearer on who you want to serve, why, and how, but you’re struggling to identify which strategies and tactics will help you build your business. (And you’re damn sure the right ones are out there, if only you look hard enough.) You spend a lot of time on long walks listening to marketing podcasts, panning for gold in your favorite brand’s blog post archives, and Skype chatting with friends about who said what about which topic.

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND, BRANDING-WISE

You’re looking for voices of expertise. You’re open to input. You’re also at your most vulnerable, because you’re convinced that somebody knows something you don’t know about how to run your business. (You’re both right and wrong about that.) In this phase, you’re likely to be able to quickly name the 3 online business owners you’d most like to emulate in your brand. And if you hired a creative professional to create a website for you at this point, you’d probably tell them to make your website or your copy look or sound “just like So-and-So’s,” or “like So-and-So’s, but me.” (Again, not a slam. Just a truth. Ask any active professional copywriter or web designer how often he or she hears this and you’ll get a lot of head-nodding.)

WHAT TO FOCUS ON IN THIS PHASE

This is not the time to invest in a full-scale brand design. This is the time to put up an inexpensive template site you can customize (Elegant Themes, Woo Themes, and Theme Forest have  some lovely, fairly flexible ones), write your own copy, and launch your first modestly priced service. Get your feet wet. In fact, do lots of your own writing around your business ideas, your Right Person, and your beliefs about what needs to change in your industry — and be prepared to scrap it all. This is a discovery phase and you will change a lot from month to month and year to year as you learn, practice, and integrate. The most important thing to focus on in this phase is coming to terms with your own strengths, style, and voice — and to tune out the noise. Unsubscribe from anyone’s e-newsletter whose insights you aren’t immediately applying. They will still be there when you’re ready.

→ PHASE 3: Devotedly Disillusioned

This is the phase in which you’ve tried a few things — and failed. Or tried a few things with a mediocre return. You’re burned out on seeing the Same Old Online Superstars launch project every project and garner more tweets, more Likes, more book deals, more guest appearances, and meanwhile, you can’t seem to get a viable business off the ground. (Branding? Who the eff cares right now, you’re thinking.) You’re starting to wonder if this whole “build a business around your passion and market it online” thing is a frickin’ scam. Can anyone do it besides those who’ve already Made It? Is it too late for you? Is the market too saturated? You’re in eff-it mode.

WHERE YOU ARE IN THE BIG PICTURE OF BRAND DEV

If you’re Devotedly Disillusioned, branding is not the first thing on your mind. You feel like a shiny new website is just icing on the cake — and you’re aware you haven’t yet baked the cake you want to keep serving. You can’t really hire a copywriter because you’re not sure what you stand for anymore or what your business will be about once you emerge from this funk. You somewhat bitterly watch colleagues and peers launch new websites all around you, and feel as if there’s something wrong with you for not being able to pull your brand dev together.

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND, BRANDING-WISE

You just want to know what works. Nothing works. Everything could work. You feel lost, confused, and frustrated — even a little bit tricked by the “industry” you thought was so easy to “break in to.” This can be an incredibly painful phase of brand development, because it’s shining a spotlight on all the gaps in your business model and showing you your areas for growth. As Devotedly Disillusioned as you are, you still probably have days where you peruse designers’ portfolios or pore over copywriter and branding specialists’ packages, looking for that magic something that will reignite your flame.

WHAT TO FOCUS ON IN THIS PHASE

As counterintuitive as it may seem, this is the time to lean into your strengths and rediscover your personal power — by getting offline, looking away from the theatre of values-based online microbusiness, and reconnecting to what you love to do and are fantastic at. Take your skill sets out into the “real world.” Read a book or some magazines that have nothing to do with your topic in business. Devotedly take a powder from following your online mentors and worthy peers. Show yourself that inspiration is everywhere. Living it in 3D makes delivering it in 2D so much more satisfying and meaningful.

→ PHASE 4: Meaning Masterminder

This is the phase in which you’re embracing the fact that probably no one knows your best path to business success but you, through figuring it out as you go along. You start experimenting. Maybe this works. Lemme try this. You have some wins and some losses. Yay, you! Experimentation is the true heart of entrepreneurship. You’re not willing to throw out “best practices” and what works well for other people entirely, but you’re interested in adapting what you see out there into something that feels good for you and your Right People readers and prospective clients. In this phase, many people get themselves into peer coaching circles or Mastermind groups, with the intention that sharing experiences cumulatively and giving each other feedback will help each one. (Sometimes that’s true; sometimes not. I’ve seen many a well-meaning entrepreneurial type be held back by the group she joined for support. So vet your peers carefully and go with your gut on this one.)

WHERE YOU ARE IN THE BIG PICTURE OF BRAND DEV

You’re ready for A Brand. You’re in a terrific position to begin investing carefully, thoughtfully, and consciously in a full-scale brand design (or redesign) with an experienced professional branding specialist, copywriter, and/or web designer. Chances are, this won’t be the last iteration of your work in the world, but it certainly can (and should) be a strong, clear, and gorgeously composed one.

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND, BRANDING-WISE

You’re massively interested in understanding your Right Person — the person most likely to buy from you. And you want a brand identity that speaks directly to that person. You’re perusing websites you like the looks (and sounds) of and vetting creative professionals left and right. You’re probably talking with peers about who they’ve enjoyed working with, who gave great perspective and who was little more than a hired pen or pixel-pusher. You dread making bad decisions, but you also know that choosing and committing yourself to moving forward thoughtfully is the only way you’ll make progress. You’re concerned about how you will adequately communicate what you have in mind to a creative pro, but you’re willing to trust the process.

WHAT TO FOCUS ON IN THIS PHASE

When you’re a Meaning Masterminder, it’s essential that you begin to separate your own personal vision, tastes, and core needs as a person and a buyer from those of your Right Person — the person most likely to buy from you. Now’s the time to humbly but confidently and without bias or assumption step into the shoes of another and see life as he or she experiences it. This isn’t the easiest thing to do, but making this mental and emotional shift will free up so much creative energy for you as a business owner and brand creator. You’ll begin to have lots of clear and actionable ideas that can truly support the growth your Right Person wants for him or herself. (To help business owners do this, Tami Smith and I created Empathy Marketing.)

→ PHASE 5: Earned Empathizer

This is the phase in which you have earned a degree of empathy for your Right People — through conscious observation, clearheaded question-asking, and the laying aside of your own ego so that you can hear what people really need and want to buy from you. To say you have empathy for another person is one thing, but earning empathy is an ongoing process of being open to what is instead of projecting what you want to have happen.

WHERE YOU ARE IN THE BIG PICTURE OF BRAND DEV

Your brand reflects a degree of empathy for your Right People: you’ve designed it that way. Granted, business owners’ audiences can change and shift as the market does, so it’s possible that the Right People you once served so well are no longer searching for a solution like yours. Or it’s possible that your own interests have changed or your skill sets have been upgraded, so you’re ready to serve a different Right Person through your business. And your brand must realign to reflect it.

WHAT’S ON YOUR MIND, BRANDING-WISE

You think a lot about your brand’s positioning in the marketplace with respect to your Right People. How’s your conversation landing? Are you as available and accessible in your brand as your Right People need you to be? How are your brand advocates sharing your message out there? You also think a good deal about conversion (a somewhat scary-sounding word that’s really important to a smart business owner). Your brand is designed to support your business (not the other way around), so if your offers aren’t converting — if people aren’t buying from your sales page, if they aren’t signing up for your e-newsletter, if they aren’t registering for the call from the opt-in page — something needs to shift. You get that.

WHAT TO FOCUS ON IN THIS PHASE

Earned Empathizers need to stay watchful — watch the market, watch your peers and competitors, but most of all, watch your Right People. Don’t be afraid to reiterate or re-focus your brand conversation to move in a different direction (or — buzzword alert! — pivot). This is the phase in which to do what works, to know why it works, and for whom it works, and to be quick and light on your feet when it’s time to innovate.

All values-based microbusiness owners go through the 5 phases of brand development, and it’s a recursive process — which means it can loop back on itself.

A business owner who once found himself squarely in Phase 5 can find himself back in Phase 3 again when he’s reiterating or starting a new venture from scratch. The nice thing is, we take all of our previous experiences with us, so we’re never totally without chops again.

In the comments, I’d love to know:

Do you see yourself and your brand in any of these phases? Which one(s)? Which phase can you currently relate to most? I’ll be hanging out in the comments and I look forward to talking with you.

(Image credit.)

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