Is your business preaching to the converted?

Back when I was an HR Manager, I went to a morning-long HR Managers’ seminar that focused on workplace wellbeing.

(I know. But there was free coffee and a good choice of biscuits).

The seminar examined why wellbeing was so important in the workplace. It offered a few suggestions on how to improve it (provide healthy snacks, promote work/life balance, encourage people to sit properly in their chairs), and then it threw the floor open for comments.

Everyone agreed that it had been a lovely morning, thank you very much. Lots of biscuits had been scoffed, and we had a whole host of practical suggestions to take back into work.

Not once did anyone provide any insight into what we really needed to know. In a nutshell, this was: how to convince our company directors to invest actual time and money into workplace wellbeing.

What tends to happen at seminars such as these, is that bright-eyed people come together to share their thoughts and ideas, in a cosy group of like-minded others.

Wonderful.

But the moment you take those ideas and suggestions out of that cosy group, they will often dissolve into nothing.

The reason? Those fabulous ideas are going to need a completely different approach, if you’re going to sell them to people who aren’t already sold.

The same rule applies to promoting your business.

Whatever you do, there’s probably a group of people out there who don’t know they need it.

There are other groups of people out there, too. Those who already love what you do, those who know and aren’t particularly interested, and those who do the same thing.

Think about this as you create your content. What group does it tend to attract the most? Do the same people respond every time you post something on social media?

Nods of approval from those already in the know are fine and dandy. But if you want to start attracting those who aren’t, here are a few suggestions.

Explain your obvious

In other words, take your business back to basics.

Pretend you’re talking to someone who doesn’t know anything about what you do – so you have to explain it all from scratch.

This is a fantastic way of unearthing all those shining golden threads of information you’ve unconsciously weaved into the fabric of a ‘normal’ working day.

In other words, what’s boringly obvious to you can be divine enlightenment to someone else.

Play to your customers’ weaknesses

I create content for people and businesses who need the right words.

The thing is, a lot of my customers aren’t ‘wordy’ people. They either haven’t got time, or they have trouble finding the right ones.

If words are their weakness, I have to reach them in other ways.

One of my best early marketing ideas was asking a professional designer to create an eye-catching infographic about why people should work with me. I got some leaflets printed up, then spent a few afternoons posting them around my local area.

Flurries of interest followed, and I eventually landed my first ‘big’ client (read: one who kept my mortgage paid for a good few months).

I also record a monthly podcast, which provides short snippets of writing advice for people who prefer to listen, rather than look or read.

So if you’re looking for different people to talk to, why not give these tips a try? I hope they work for you.

Is your business preaching to the converted?

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Is your business preaching to the converted?

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