Marketing acts across distance.
Not just physical (you’re not in the same room with them), but also emotional (they’re not ready to buy from you yet).
The great news is that there’s actually a shortcut to bridging the distance between their unreadiness to buy and their eagerness to.
It’s your tradeoffs:
Basically, the method is to talk about what you don’t do so you can overdo something else because of your unique experience.
These types of tradeoff statements are, in Peter Sandman’s parlance, an “admission against interest.” And those are seen as particularly credible.
So tradeoffs are, first, believable.
No one would say something they don’t do or offer unless it were true, right?
Second, tradeoffs are tangible.
If you just say, “We’re great,” no one believes you because no one’s taking the opposite viewpoint. Everyone thinks their own business is great, so saying it is worse than saying nothing at all.
But a tradeoff gives a tangible demonstration of why you’re great for one type of buyer.
You can only stake a position in a world where other positions exist. Otherwise, you’re all in the exact same spot.
What makes you different is what makes you valuable, and what makes you different comes from what you don’t do, overdo, and can only do.
So, what DON’T you do?
In a classic marketing firm, you tend to start with trending tactics. The client and the advisors both see what everyone else is doing in the market and think, “That’s what we should be doing, too.”
But then it backfires.
Because when a market coalesces on a trend or style, the benefits mainly accrue to the business most associated with that style. Everyone else is just a mirror reflecting them.
Which means you can’t just follow the crowd, you have to stand apart. Blending in is business camouflage and it only entrenches the leader.
So that’s why, in our firm, we don’t start with tactics or checklists. We don’t worry about what’s trending on TikTok.
Instead, we start with tradeoffs, value, uniqueness. That allows us to set apart, not just the messages, but the medium.
It’s your turn now: What don’t you do that most other businesses in your sector do?
What does that allow you to overdo?
So, because we don’t start with trending tactics, that allows us to spend more time and energy on giving our clients the right words to say in any situation or media.
And, I’m willing to admit, we go past the point of reasonableness to get there.
But why? Why do we overdo it, and why do I even use the word overdo in the first place?
Because, to get above-average marketing results, you need to apply above-average marketing pressure on a point you’re uniquely suited to.
That means pushing past where others would stop because they’re being pulled in too many other directions.
Here’s what that looks like:
In our last positioning session with a client, about halfway through, he said: “I’m going to have to lay down for a while after this.”
Because our process is deeper than what most people are used to, but the results we get are, too.
At the end of the session, he said, “I’m not going to lay down, I’m running off to start writing.”
(Later he told us he got more value out of a few hours with us than he had in months with other programs)
We chose to overdo it within the area we could create the most value.
But why there? It raises the question:
What can only you do?
My career has taken me through professional copywriting, to digital and social media strategy, through crisis comms and PR, to content marketing leadership, to starting our own expert advisory firm, to writing over 900 issues of my own newsletter.
That’s a bit of a jumble of things, but when assembled neatly it creates a structure of experiences that are unique to me.
The same is true for you. For all of us.
No one can copy someone else’s experience precisely or completely.
The trick is lining up your service offering tradeoffs with the capabilities that your experience and interests have created.
So we’re uniquely suited to focusing on giving expert advisors the words to say in their marketing.
You are uniquely suited to something else entirely.
The question is: What? And who wants that?
And, just as importantly:
Who doesn’t want that?
Because there’s a type of client who wouldn’t like working with us. We call them the “boop the marketing button” prospects:
The people who see marketing as a tertiary chore to their “real” work, and they just want someone else to deal with it.
The right client for us, though, already believes that marketing is part of the work. They believe that demonstrating value and delivering it are connected, and influence and inform each other.
The right client, when they hear your tradeoffs, your specialty, your uniqueness, they don’t say: That’s all I get?
They say: Finally, someone who gets it.
Because knowing exactly who your business is for is another way to build credibility. “We’re for everyone” is less than nothing. But “We’re for this buyer in particular” is everything.
So, when you put all the pieces together, you get a statement to rally your marketing and content around.
Take what you don’t do (“We don’t follow trending tactics”), connect it with what you overdo (“We focus on finding the right words for any marketing situation”), and express it as something only you can do:
We don’t follow the latest trending marketing tactics, we focus on the words that demonstrate your value in any situation. Which makes us uniquely capable of giving other expert advisors the words to demonstrate theirs.
That’s not polished marketing copy, it’s just a statement about tradeoffs.
But within it and from it flow an uncountable and perhaps unending supply of marketing content.
And the words to say in any situation.
So what are your answers to those questions?
And what questions do you have for me?
On June 30th, I’m hosting a LIVE Q&A session and walkthrough of our Marketing Rangefinder framework.
Spend an hour with me and a few fellow entrepreneurs and expert advisors as we talk through how to know what to say in your marketing, your messages, and your content.
RSVP here, and feel free to send this to a friend or colleague who’s struggling with what to say.
Kelford Inc. are content marketers for expert advisors. If you’re struggling with what to say and where to say it to attract your ideal clients, we’ll show you the way.