I meet new virtual assistants and service providers every day (virtually, of course) and I’m always fascinated by the different styles and paths that people take. When I meet someone new I want to learn more about them, what they offer, and what they’re working on. That’s how we get to be friends after all, right?
Recently, I noticed an unfortunate trend. People aren’t really telling others what they actually do. One example comes to mind in particular – I don’t want to name a name or link to a page here, but I want to talk about this whole trend of being mysterious to get people to click and join you – or whatever you want to call, I’m sure there’s some fancy catch phrase or name for it out there.
This particular connection was being very active in the usual places on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. She also had two websites that she was mentioning; one for services, one for teaching others.
I’m not talking about personal Facebook walls and profiles full of friends and family, I’m talking about business pages and promotions, advertising and recruting efforts. All these messages were being pushed out, probably paid for, and not a single one of them told me what the person actually does. After two weeks of being connected, I still can’t tell you what the person does or why I would to buy anything from them.
She was posting lots of messages to join her, to sign up for something, to “create income,” to “work with her,” to “build a lifestyle,” to “make a change,” but not a single message or post or page on her website told me what she was selling, what she was offering, what she was doing to create and build these imaginary lifestyles. She could have been doing anything – selling Amway, providing coaching, walking dogs, editing ebooks. I could not figure out her real message, I didn’t know who her audience was, I just couldn’t figure out anything about her and what she offered. The only solid piece of real information she gave anywhere was her name.
So this week I want you to look at your messaging with a closer eye and pretend you’re a person who has never met you before. Are you telling people what you actually do and how you can help them?
Remember, if you’re promoting services or products, the potential customer or client wants to know what’s in it for them. If they’re visiting your Facebook page or your website for the very first time and they absolutely need to have what you offer, they need to be able to figure that out almost immediately. If you’re using buzzwords, catch phrases, or industry lingo on anything at all, fix it up and make the message clear, “I can help you with ___________.”
Not sure if your message is clear enough for a new visitor to know right away what you have to share with them? Ask someone to look at it. A friend, a family member, a neighbor, the babysitter, anyone at all. It’s a good test to have someone who isn’t familiar with your industry to look over the page for a minute and see if they can tell you what it’s about. If you get stuck and you need help or just want someone to have a look at your page, use our contact form here and I would be glad to look at your page or message materials with you.
Now get out there and tell people what you do. Don’t be afraid to be loud about it.
This is a trend I see a lot, unfortunately. I can’t tell you how many sales pages I’ve read recently that say little more than “we help you make money” in 67 different ways. Not how, or anything at all about the product/service/membership they’re selling. Just a bunch of buzzwords, really.
Perhaps this woman is modeling that. Or – and this is more likely – she’s promoting an MLM product.
Regardless, though, you’re absolutely right. As a business owner, we need to be very clear about what we do and for whom, and we need to be able to articulate it so others understand.
I think that is what a lot of people are modeling, the MLM and the sales pitch pages, and sales videos – blah, yuck, no wonder people think MLM is all junk all the time.
In this case I think one of her sites was in relation to an MLM, not sure which one, but the second site I think was for business or life coaching services. (I’m still not sure what she does, and I actually asked for more detail in conversation.)