Day 4: How unicorns can improve your business

I love this, David. Thank you. When I started blogging, it wasn’t about building a business. It was a healing tool. So, writing as me and not apologizing for it was the only thing I could do.

And a funny thing happened while I was doing it…other people let their human-ness show. The more I “unmask” on my site, the more others feel safe to do the same. If I get one comment consistently, it’s “I love how real and raw your writing is.” (And oh yes, the business started showing up.)

I hope every blogger reads your post today. :)

Yes, be yourself. It’s so much easier to write that way too. I have been doing this since revamping my site early this year. It felt like a huge risk at the time, but it has worked. I feel really connected to my business now too.

Trying to be someone else (that arms length blogger persona) is really hard to sustain and adds yet another hurdle to my writing, which is hard enough as it is.

OMIGOSH! I LOVE YOU! The fact that you made a point of further defining methylchloroisothiazolinone is awesome! I’m 6’5″ and so my face is at the same level as the shelf in my shower with the shampoo and body wash bottles. Being the reader that I am, I constantly reread the ingredients on all of those personal care products. I kept noticing this one ingredient (yes, I actually wrote that word by memory when writing this post). There’s also another one that is almost 100% of the time coupled with it: methylisothiazolinone. Still a long word, but didn’t make the cut in the post since it is shorter than its buddy.

Ahem…back to Customer Love.

I’m the same way. Those writers who I continually run to are the ones whose personality is so evident that I can picture them as an actual person; someone that I could hang out with. Keep sharing TMI! If people don’t want to read it, they don’t have to…but there are tons that will. ;)

Just like there are tons who will end up reading WHY I know about methylchloroisothiazolinone.

Funny how risky it feels, isn’t it? And then you do it and you wonder what all the fuss was about, lol.

BE CRUEL!!! Well, not in the true sense of the word…but I want to see a video of you singing a love song to your people!!!!

And how could you NOT like monster trucks? Everyone in traffic moves out of the way when you come roaring down the road. And Hello Kitty? Even though I am not a cat fan, I’m a sucker for anything uber cute and Hello Kitty is the queen of cute. In fact (and this was 100% NOT intentional), I decided to eat cereal for breakfast this morning at work and grabbed one of my daughter’s Hello Kitty thermos to keep the milk in. Didn’t even think about the relationship to this post until I was halfway through my commute. The kitteh mug is staring at me right now!

I am glad we see eye to eye on the unicorns!

Living vicariously through your daughters in their love of Hello Kitty….Brilliant! hahahah that seriously made me laugh out loud :) Now I know what to look for this Christmas – a pair of 6’5″ Hello Kitty pajamas (with the footies)!

This is great my homie, I’m putting this one down for the record books. Not going to implement everything all at once, but wait a few weeks/months (for a real “dead” moment amongst my customers…probably winter time) and i’ll blast ‘em with some more love at that time.

This is by far one of my favorite posts you’ve written yet :)

- Josh

That is SOOO true about everything in life, eh? I mean I was PETRIFIED to leave a cushy office (and SWEET paycheck) to WALK DOGS for a living. Then I built that company to 6 figures in no time (6 mos).
Then I was scared to death to tell people I was going to learn to READ HANDS.
Then I did.
Then I was petrified to READ HANDS for a living.
Now I do.
In between I waffled way too long in deciding to sell my first company – which I eventually did but not necessarily the way I wanted to….
Waiting because I’m afraid doesn’t work…yet I do it.

hmmm. and they sell us this stuff to put on our skin? BLECH.

but wow. thanks for the definition. ;)

It’s too hot to wear pajamas with footies in Texas (or I’d already have a pair). LOL Just kidding, let’s be clear on this point, I live vicariously THROUGH my daughters…I do not adorn myself with Hello Kitty paraphernalia!

I will be monitoring you closely and waiting for you to put this in to action. ;)

You should definitely check out Sinclair at SelfActivator.com (the one I mentioned I interviewed). She approaches blogging and coaching with a background in nueroscience and has a cool take on why we do what we do. All those things we are afraid of even though we know we shouldn’t, it’s all brain science stuff…which she is much better than me at explaining. LOL

If you ever want someone to do some research for you ~ let me know !! I love (repeat LOVE!! research!!)
warm hugs!

Hmm…looks like you have a passion that might need to be turned in to a business. Just sayin’. ;)

I’ll disagree with this post in the case of people trying to do business. When you want to sell to people, it can be detrimental and damaging to write about quirks that are a little… well, quirky.

I ran a customer experience test on Men with Pens once. Hired a company, had them hire people to crawl it and observe reactions. Two people saw a post called, ‘Ten Wierd Things About James”. And both said…

“They can’t be very serious about business with articles like that on their site.”

So… be careful about this one and remember what your main goal is. If it’s a personal blog, great! Go for it! If it’s a blog that you depend on for your money… think twice. Showing personality doesn’t mean you need to drop your drawers, y’know? :)

that’s right, when I use to be a salesman I use to try to be someone else and I learned pretty fast that humanizing myself and talking about my passions and my family would actually make me sound more like a normal person than just that typical “DOOR-TO-DOOR SALESMAN”

Dude please send them to him, I bet you he’ll wear them….

Will you David, c’mon just for laughs will you? LOL…remember you need to keep your readers happy. If you don’t I won’t be happy.

Holy crow, there, David! It was just a friendly, “Hey, I think different, and here’s why…” I even used emoticons! And now there’s swords waving and pistols and dressing downs (or ups) and crikey, man! ;)

*points to above* emoticon – means “having fun here”

Since the gauntlet’s thrown down on the word count of comments, I’ll have to come back in the morning with coffee and see if I can crank out 683. Then you can beat me and I’ll beat you and Lavonne will have the longest comment section ever and you’re buying beers and we’ll party.

Ack! I hate when the written word comes off as overly harsh. You can’t possibly have known the fear and trembling in my voice as I responded.

Bows and asks for mercy!!! Offers sacrifices of Hello Kitty to the Men with Pens altar!

*watches and giggles from the sidelines*

Alrighty, time to respond to this – after wondering why Disqus thinks I’m anonymous. Odd creature.

First, thanks for thinking I’m an A-lister. I’d disagree with that as well, but I fear you coming at me with bazookas, so I’ll just nod and appreciate the compliment. ;)

Second, I love a good debate, and I appreciate you DID come after me in the first place. (Although a little avidly, but that’s cool too.)

You mentioned you were surprised I’d disagree with you, pointing out my own particular quirk of being a woman. Thing is, though, you’ll note that I rarely point out that little quirk of mine and don’t typically hold it waving as a torch of what makes me special. I’m careful about when and where I do discuss it and with whom, because above all, I want to be taken as a serious professional – not someone who gamed the system of society.

Did I lose clients and readers because of my situation? Yes. There were some very angry people and more than a few who felt betrayed (though that does say more about them than me, I feel). Did I *gain* clients and readers? Hooo, yeah. The pros outweighed the cons… but I *knew* that they would before grabbing the Copyblogger microphone.

Hence, I was careful and thought twice.

Concerning the customer experience testing, yes, the people were chosen carefully and were actually people who were considering hiring web designers on a personal level. The group was small, of course, so we can only take the results with a grain of salt, and I didn’t do split testing – I wasn’t that interested in investing more money or time into the test.

Still, the results need to be considered and again, I needed to be careful and thought twice. (I didn’t leave the article in plain view.) I operate a business, and first impressions as well as reputation are important.

In regards to people like Naomi and Johnny – they are successful, sure, and they are highly quirky, yes. But they have specific target markets that are very different to ours. The Men with Pens target market is small to large companies that tend to appreciate professionalism over personality. My target market doesn’t *care* about my quirks – they care about results and corporate bottom lines. Ergo, my brand needs to resonate with them and make them feel comfortable. Quirky would turn them away in a heartbeat.

Nor do I want to turn people away because of arrogance. Taking a “you’re not my ideal client” stance to the extreme and telling people to go away isn’t my style and not the way I roll. Certainly, people will or won’t resonate with who I am based on what I do show, and if they don’t click with my personality or brand, then they won’t work with me – but I don’t actively push that fact in their fact. I let them decide.

Do I hide my personality? Not at all. But my personality isn’t typically one that’s extremely flamboyant or dramatic, either :)

You mention a lot of well-known names in your post to uphold your arguments that personality and quirks can work in business, and that’s great. But for the most part, these people are the exception, not the rule. You don’t see Steve Jobs cursing it out on stage. You don’t hear Brian Clark telling people to go away. Chris Brogan doesn’t post strange oddities that don’t match his professionalism.

And thousands and thousands of businesspeople out there don’t flash their quirks either, specifically because they are careful and cautious about their business and want to make sure it always has a good, solid reputation. That doesn’t mean you can’t have your Hello Kitty thermos. It does mean you have to think carefully before you paint your office pink and blue, play lullabies on the stereo full blast and stick up posters of Japanse anime.

There’s certainly a time and place to use humor and shock people a bit, and you’ve mentioned some good examples – but analyze the commercials and ads you mentioned… believe me, the companies thought very carefully about what they presented, WHY they presented it and weighed out what the consequences of presenting it might be.

What my major caution is to readers is that some people don’t seem to be able to have the good, common sense to monitor their own behavior. Many readers see, “Show your personality!” and suddenly go friggin’ whole hog all over like flashers at a gay parade. When you’re out to sell consulting services at $250 an hour or land a $15,000 design contract… well, that “take me, baby, take me!” mindset is not really a very smart idea, is it?

I disagree with the article not because you say, “Quirks are okay,” but because most of it implies personality exposure without some grounding message about how much is too much *especially for those who are in business*. I think THAT is what’s important, because as you say, our words carry a lot of weight, even more so with the people in this challenge who follow us.

So my comment was meant to say, “Quirks are okay, but pick and choose carefully which you reveal and use in moderation at the right times depending on your goals. Don’t be silly about it and have some common sense.”

*leans forward to admire Hello Kitty thermos* Nice. Can I have a closer look?

:: Pulls out both guns ::

:: Drops them on the ground and begs for mercy ::

I GIVE I GIVE!!! ;)

I love that you are such a good sport and didn’t come back with “Everyone on the internets, hate David”. LOL Believe it or not, it wasn’t so much my intent to respond with defense as it was a result of this mindset:
– You: Internet goddess whose words turn into golden law and rainbows
– Me: The new kid on the block whose only hope was to back it up with tons of supporting examples

I think we see eye to eye on the aspect of intentionality. If your business is to write copy for businesses, you probably shouldn’t be talking about super quirky things. People like Naomi and Johnny whose target audience is much different, they have liberty to do so.

I also agree that regardless of which market you are targeting, the “take me, baby, take me” approach really should probably be reserved for only one industry (you can guess which one I’m thinking). Ha! Even Naomi and Johnny are intentional about their audiences…though there has been much bra talk with the #MSMS hashtag on Twitter.

Ultimately, I find myself in complete agreement with your further debate…while still holding to my side. I don’t think they are in strong contrast, but hinge on intentionality. Perhaps I will develop this post more and address that as a key component.

And one thing I would say that you are 100% correct on: I would indeed come at you with bazookas if you tried to deny your A Lister place. This whole debate brought me from just a fan of yours to a mega-fan of yours.

:: shares his Hello Kitty thermos ::

I think that can be a really good approach. As you can see from my discussion (or western style shootout) with MenWithPens, voice really could benefit from tailoring it to your audience. (Ok, so it should maybe definitely probably be tailored to your audience.)

I’ve got a few other areas that I live on the internet and my voice is slightly different there too. Still 100% me, but different. I think that is like real life though, I don’t talk with my wife’s Memaw the same way that I do with my buddies over beer. Still both me, but different based on the relationship.

Glad you saw no flakiness. :D

I love how you admitted that you loved Hello Kitty. If that doesn’t show how human you are as a dude, I don’t know what else does!