Ep. 04 - Finding the Right Words to Express Your Story & Expertise
One of the things that frustrates me about this aspect of marketing is that we often see messaging as this disembodied concept from the rest of your marketing.
So let me say here and now: messaging is one way we talk about it, but the concept in the marketing world is really POSITIONING. In the old days, it was how to position yourself AGAINST your competitors. Now I see it more about how to position yourself in the MIND of your ideal clients, especially in a world that’s so saturated with advertising and content that’s competing for our attention.
People will market helping you construct a tagline or polish your pitch, but not explain the process for when it’s time to revamp or tweak. Which as we said in the last episode is not only inevitable, but encouraged.
This may be due to a lot of folks who have not gone to marketing school and so don’t have the comprehensive view of how it all fits together. This is why I look at the big-picture goals and strategy with my clients in the initial session of Storyspark Connection.
Uncovering Your Unique Value —
One of the hardest aspects of messaging is recognizing in yourself the things that make you unique to clients. It’s often not even a confidence issue (though it can be). I think it’s more because it’s YOUR life, YOUR strengths, YOUR education, it feels normal. Mundane even. Like why would anyone care?
What seems boring to you can be THE THING that captures the attention of your ideal clients.
In my messaging work, I’ve categorized types of unique differentiators:
Core Values & Practices
Purpose
Creative Strengths
Lived Experiences & Identities
Lineage & Inspiration
Your Journey (and How it Reflects that of Your Clients)
Which all go into and form your:
Insights & Expertise
Modalities & Frameworks
Being able to look at them individually and write about them separately helps you to be more objective about the different factors that go into why someone would want to work with you.
ACTION STEP
This is an exercise that I found from Austin L. Church of Freelance Cake that I use a lot now. I hope you like free writing because I want you to set a timer for 15 minutes and write out all of your possible differentiators.
Use the above to help you if you get stuck, but think through all of the projects, trainings, certifications, industries, personality types, your previous corporate career, and anything else that makes you the service provider you are. We’ll come back to that in the next section.
Clarifying Your Core Message —
In the beginning of this episode, I mentioned positioning and how this isn’t just a deliverable. What we’re doing is clarifying how we explain our business as a whole and creating a system of repeatable language that strengthens the associations we want folks to have around our business.
Messaging consistency will trump content frequency every time.
It may seem redundant, but the reality is that people are seeing at least 10 thousand marketing advertisements every day. No one is thinking as hard about you as you think. Using the same phrases is going to make it far more likely that you will be remembered. Think of it like a refrain in a poem. It’s repeated intentionally as a literary device.
Looking at all we’ve written for the first exercise, this is where overthinking can creep in. Because we can’t just wordvomit all over our ideal clients. We have to distill it down into what is relevant. But how do we know what to include?
The action step later will help with this, but if you’re like me and everything feels very precious, this is how I justify what to leave out.
What factors are similar enough they can be combined?
What aspects can make for good content but not necessarily make it into the core themes?
Is this just interesting lore about me or does it offer context into the way I approach my work, the people I work with, and/or the results they can expect?
ACTION STEP
Remember last episode, how we got feedback on our elevator pitch from business owner friends and community members? We’re coming back to that. Pull up your reviews or testimonials. If you don’t have these all in one place, do yourself a favor and create a Google Drive folder and keep these in one easy-to-access place.
As you read through them, start highlighting the common themes that come up: what they struggled with, why they chose you, and how they talk about their results. Start to look for patterns.
Compare this to the free writing exercise from earlier and look to see where these patterns came from: is it related to your previous career as a nurse or tech consultant, like for me? Can you point to how you leverage your Clifton Strengths? Does being neurodivergent change how you approach the work? Tie their outcomes to your differentiators.
Conclusion
In my done-with-you offer Storyspark Connection, we discuss the unique differentiators from this episode and how to weave them throughout your message, content ecosystem, and sales process. Each month we co-create a system that feels enjoyable and works with your capacity instead of trying to stretch it.
