Words that get noticed

Robert Gerrish As regular readers will know, in my coaching and speaking business I put considerable emphasis on clarifying who is an ‘ideal client’ for me.

It's only by recognising who that person is and being certain that the services I have to offer are relevant and needed that I'm able to tailor my marketing messages and actions.

Soloists who don’t know precisely who they want to target invariably waste time and money promoting dumbed-down offerings to audiences that aren't listening anyway.

A good example is a web designer I met last week who basically told me he'd help anyone who'd pay his fees. Well, whoopee!

I just Googled 'web designer, australia' and came up with 4.5 million responses, which suggests a relatively crowded and competitive marketplace, wouldn't you say?

If we're going to stand out and get noticed we have to speak to, and connect with, individuals. Simply contributing more noise to the cacophony that already exists isn't good enough.

So what's your key message and who do you want to hear it?

Following some discussion with John the web designer, I created a message on his behalf - something that he may choose to use as a conversation starter.

Check it out below. Once you've had a read, why not add your own? That way we'll discover just how wonderfully clear and lucid Flying Solo readers' messages are. Won't we?

Until next week.

Love your work,

Robert Gerrish is Flying Solo’s managing director and founder and works as a business coach, professional speaker, business commentator and consultant. He’s the co-author of Flying Solo – How to go it alone in business.

Published 27 February 07
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Here’s my the tailor-made message for John our web designer:
“I create websites for small professional service firms who want to ease their administrative burden, not add to it.”
Now surely this begs the question "That sounds interesting. How do you do that?"
Far more likely to result in a meaningful conversation wouldn't you say? Robert Gerrish from Flying Solo | Read my articles
My attempt at a clear message: "To net savvy business and leisure travelers, Oodles.com is the easy alternative to going from website to website to save on car rentals".
Steve Sherlock from Melbourne
I've found that small businesses (my target) are understandably nervous about taking that leap to the internet, venturing into unchartered waters. So my message is "Bluetrue will work closely with you to ensure you get what you want... even if you aren’t quite sure what that is yet." Melinda Kelf - Bluetrue Web Design from Port Macquarie
I work with Real Estate agents and have learnt to keep it simple "I want to help you sell houses" always elicits a response face to face or over the phone. Martin Wehipeihana from New Zealand
I tried out a few before I found one that I truly connected with - I help people take what they know about living well and put it into practice - it works because it inspires me each time I say it. Cheers Katherine Street - Personal Development Coach from Hobart
As an organisation that focuses closely on bridging the gap between the online world of the Internet and the offline world of Marketing for small businesses, i've found that you need to keep it simple and straight forward. I try to stay clear of jargon and other terms that may be confusing to business owners who aren't overly computer savvy.
One of my messages is: "Bergan Blue firmly believes in assisting small businesses bridge the gap between the online world of the Internet with the offline world of Marketing". This tends to swing the conversation in one of two ways - either towards the web or towards marketing collateral. Both of which I love talking about!
Jon Bergan - Bergan Blue from Terrigal NSW Australia

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