How do people feel about you?
We all know that people do business with the people they like. So it’s really important to know how others feel about us.
People do business with people they like
Here’s an example…
Imagine that you are in the market for a new website. You’ve had your existing one for 3 years. It was created by a friend as a favour when you first started your business. You now are firmly established and wish to invest in a website that truly reflects the brand you’ve developed and the personality that your contacts have come to know and like.
In the last 3 years you’ve been an avid networker and this has helped you to gain clients and meet people that have helped you grow your business. You’ve met a plethora of web designers – who do you engage?
Perhaps you make a short list of three and you meet for a coffee and explain what you would like. Each of the web designers are able to show you some cracking designs that they’ve created and a long list of shining testimonials.
Who do you choose? They all clearly have the expertise to help you but there’s likely to be one of them that, from your gut feeling, is the right person to go with.
You’ve made your decision based on your feelings. The web designer has presented an image to you that makes you feel they are the right person to help you. You may have heard this referred to as brand image.
What might these feelings be?
Something has made you ‘click’ with one particular web designer. What might those feelings be?
- Empathy, Trust and Creative
- Or, Knowledgeable, Honest and Fun
- Or perhaps; Reliable, Professional and Helpful
Chances are that some of their values match your own and others are values that you want to see in those you choose to work with. You may have heard this referred to as brand values.
These three little (but very important) words have differentiated one web designer from their competitors.
What image do you wish to portray?
So if you’ve made this important decision based on your gut feelings, which made one web designer stand out from the others, what image do you wish others to have of you?
Here’s another example…
Redstone is a local radio station based in Redhill. Last week 12 of Redstone’s DJs attended two workshops that I ran called ‘How does Social Media fit into your business?’
Connecting with and building relationships with their listeners is really important to the radio station, not to mention attracting potential advertisers. Social media is an ideal means to do this.
I’m sure every business owner has had nightmares about mixing employees and social media. There are enough examples of embarrassing faux pars and damaging disasters.
With a large number of people representing the radio station on social media, Redstone needs to know that their brand is truly reflected and their image is protected. Ensuring that everyone understands what this means and getting them actively involved brings huge benefits to the station.
The workshop was designed so that the DJs:
- Understand why they are using social media. Objectives have been set so that results can be measured.
- Know the type of listeners and advertises they wish to appeal to and attract
- Know the image they wish to portray and how they would like their listeners to feel about them
- How they are going to achieve this using the appropriate social media platforms
Very importantly, they now all know the values held by Redstone and the image they wish to portray. During the workshop I divided them into 3 groups and asked each group to come up with three words that they believe reflected their values and how they’d like their listeners (and of course their potential advertisers) to feel about them.
We came up with a number of words so Redstone can now go away and work on their 3 words! Watch this space.
What 3 words describe how you’d like people to feel about you?
There can sometimes be an incongruence between how people perceive you and how you would like to be perceived. It’s very subjective and everyone is looking for something different.
Why not ask a few in your network what three words they would use to describe you and see if they match how you like people to feel about you.
If you’ve not consciously defined your three words this could be one reason for any disparity.
What might your three words be?
Once you’ve chosen your words take a look at every touch point you have with your prospects and people who might recommend you and make sure that these values are very clearly communicated and that you live and breathe them.
If helpful is one of them how are you showing that you are always going out of your way to be helpful?
If knowledgeable is one of them, how are you demonstrating your knowledge in a way that’s helpful.
If approachable is one, how are you making it easy for someone to connect with you once you’ve demonstrated that you know your ‘stuff’ through sharing your really helpful, useful and relevant tips.
I’d like to think that you wouldn’t be surprised that my three words are:
