You are an undercover agent of whatever it is that YOU do… cloaked in civilian clothes.
A few weeks ago, several of the business owners in my Writing Brigade production lab were talking about my message.
And it turns out, they knew more about it than I did.
(I thought I taught writing.)
“Are you kidding me?!,” one Brigadier said. “I don’t care about that. ”
She was lovely and irreverent about it.
(I love that in a woman).
“The reason I signed on to work with you for 6 months is so I know my message.”
According to her, that’s the transformation she’s looking for.
To know her message so deep in her bones, it pours out of her being.
And into every smack of marketing she sends out into the world.
She reminded me that she’s very, very skilled at connecting with people offline. Her business – helping women take control of their finances and build financial independence — is booming. But the thing she’s focused on now is how to connect and move people online.
“Building out her online presence” she calls it.
Another Brigadier chimed in. “For me, it’s that you helped me find my voice in all this marketing stuff. And then once I found it, we put it into a message that’s really, really good.” (She just hosted the “Cut Your Workload in Half” Event).
Here’s the thing I’m learning about message – we’re often blind to it.
Our clients know more than we do.
It pains me to tell you all this. I rarely used the words “message” or “find your voice” until a few months ago.
Because I’m stubborn. Head strong. Thought I had the answers.
I teach writing, gosh danggit! I don’t even know what a “message” is!
I never thought of myself as the squishy feel-gooder who helps people find their voices. (Can I get a kumbayah?)
I share this with you because maybe you are experiencing something similar right now.
You think you do one thing.
But the people you most love working with understand something about your work – and it’s far more valuable than the word channel you’ve been transmitting on so far.
I gave a talk at an event two weeks ago, where I told the story about how much I hadn’t said in my life… and how lately I’ve been turning that around.
And I talked about the parallel in our businesses.
Because I believe the stuff you reserve for your paying clients is the stuff that you actually need to push out and take a stand for on your website, in your newsletter, on your sales pages, in your videos.
That’s marketing worth crafting.
So here we are. Me, a message smith who helps you find your voice. You, an undercover agent of whatever it is that YOU do… cloaked in civilian clothes.
All this leaves me with the idea that we don’t entirely know who we are. We are never entirely seen to ourselves. We actually require others to see us, before we can actually give birth to ourselves. As service professionals, sure, but also as humans.
And it leaves me with the insight that we come to know ourselves, in part, through conversation.
So if you don’t feel at home in your message or on your website or in your newsletter… maybe it’s time for a juicer conversation. And may you have clients and colleagues to talk you through your process of coming to know who you really are.
Mighty thanks to Lucky Lynda flickr photostream for the cloak.
