Day 3: Summer Lovin’: the Power of Words

Heya CustomerLovahs! It’s summer in my hemisphere, and in my world that means beach time, boats and beer. We couldn’t pick a more fun time of year to love up our customers.

What did you picture in your mind when you read that? Bikinis and volleyball, beer commercial style? Or possibly something preppier, boat shoes and grey shingled cottages?  How would your image change if I threw in the line:

It’s a great time for some hot, sweaty customerlovin’!

What would you have imagined if I had opened with this instead?

Hi Customerlovers. It’s my least favorite season here in the Northeastern US: summer. I already have bug bites and a giant rash on my face from a poisonous plant. With calamine lotion in hand, I’m going to cowboy up and offer some tips to help you love your customers.

What did you imagine there? Someone who feels sorry for herself? Someone with a negative attitude? A whiny, drippy, pink calamine mess? I wrote it and I’m still a little repulsed.

My point with this little exercise is that your words have power.

I want to talk about the power your words have to convey who you are and attract who you want to talk to.

Think of your blog and your website as a gatekeeper. (In corporate terms, the gatekeeper is the person who decides who gets through to the decision makers. Think about the admin assistant or executive assistant who keeps salespeople from harassing the CEO.) Your words, images and stories should be repelling the people who aren’t right for you and appealing to the ones you want to attract.

If you regularly get the wrong people on your site, look at the atmosphere you create with the stories you tell and language you use.  Most people (I believe it is 2/3 of the population) are visual.

They read your words and get a picture in their heads.

If you talk about the club you went to last night, your favorite brand of vodka and the time you got drunk and lost your car, it creates a specific picture of who you are. You attract a very different kind of person than if you talk about a church picnic and your kid’s little league game.

Both pictures may be an a portrait of you or some aspect of you, but consider which one will appeal to the people you best serve. Admission: both intros contain truths about me. (I’m treating that rash with hydrocortisone gel. I appreciate your sympathy.)

When you decide what stories to tell and which picture to present, consider how your ideal people perceive themselves, and talk to that perception.  If you want to attract people who see themselves as fun-loving, popular, maybe a little edgy, go with the bikini, volleyball, sweaty customerlovin’ opening. If your ideal client feels sorry for herself,  open with the bug bites and poison ivy.

Show them, don’t tell them, that you understand who they are and where they are coming from.

Love them with your words and the pictures you create. Include as many points of connection as possible. Exclude information that waters down your message.

I don’t talk about my health, my faith or my politics on my blog. None of those topics are a big secret. But every one of them will put a picture in the mind of the reader. Each of those subjects will cause the reader to make an assumption about who I am that may or may not be true. I want to set the tone and create the image of who I am. Then as someone gets closer or works with me more in-depth we can bring up those subjects.

Psychologists and communication experts call that levels of disclosure.

You don’t tell someone you met 5 minutes ago about the most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you. Some things are reserved for people who are a little closer, relationships that are a little more intimate.

Think about ways can you get more specific about creating the ideal atmosphere for your clients. Love your customers with your stories.

What mental images are you creating with your website? Do they speak to your ideal clients? Tell me in the comments below – I’d love to hear about them!