Mountains of Arizona
Clear 38 Degrees
7:32 a.m.
Years ago, I read a few books talking about how to “position” yourself when you’re selling services.
Some of these books were written by accomplished individuals with a long list of documented results throughout their body of work.
The issue was, at the time, I was not an accomplished individual and I really didn’t have a long list of any results worth mentioning.
But I ran with the approach anyway!!
This led to a rather unique attitude where I tried to communicate to the world, through my marketing, that I was doing clients a favor by working with them. I was valuable, darn it, and I was going to make sure YOU knew it!
This is hilarious to print, but I’m writing about it in an effort to make anyone who thinks this is SMART to think a little more deeply about things.
If you’re going to be a jerk (and that’s the best word for it when you’re in a business where your job is the HELP HUMAN BEINGS,) no one will want to work with you. There are too many competent choices for just about EVERYTHING these days. That’s the reality.
Now in the world of the Incomparable Expert, we walk on an even higher road where we do the work (sometimes it’s a lot) to PROVE to the world that we offer something that cannot be acquired via any other source.
We don’t have to say it. We simply show it.
But this is extremely rare for anyone to go to this trouble.
Most people think that by just saying things it makes them true.
But no one believes words. They’ve been abused. They’ve been manipulated. They’ve been NLP’ed to death by everyone and his brother.
Why are people so skeptical? Because they’ve been trained that’s the highest probability path to not get screwed!
So you’ve either got proof or you may as well not say anything.
For example, if you’re trying to communicate how valuable your time is, the last thing you do is SAY IT. Anyone who needs the world to know how “valuable” their time is is dealing with an extreme case of insecurity. That’s how they express that. That’s what it looks like.
If you have to say it, you have more work to do. It’s not work on your marketing or your positioning, it’s work on the hole and emptiness you’re trying to fill by making yourself feel better than someone and trying to make sure they KNOW it.
(By the way, if prospective clients contact you and ask you what your RATES are first, don’t get annoyed with THEM. Get annoyed with YOU. They’re only asking because you haven’t setup your systems or your entire business in such a way where you actually gave them a better way to approach you. Their question is the byproduct of YOUR approach.)