social media Archives - Page 2 of 2

Here's the thing: why I don't give advice (or write click-bait blog titles)

Hey friends. How are things in your part of the world? How’s September feeling so far? I would truly love to hear how things are for you – isn’t that why we’re here? For connection and support?

I’ve been a business mentor and coach for over three years. I started off using “mentor” because it seemed to fit the blend of professional consulting and the encouragement I offer. More recently, I’ve been describing myself as a coach, because coaching skills have become a bigger part of my repertoire.

Two years ago, I completed Tara Mohr’s excellent Playing Big Facilitator Training, and I’m about to embark on some more coaching training with the wonderful Randi Buckley.

Now, there are plenty of coaches out there for all sorts of different areas. Health, life, creativity – you name it, and you can probably find a coach for it.

The thing I love most about coaching, and why I’ve adopted it to describe my work, is because I am totally committed to the idea that I’m here to empower my clients, not tell them what to do. It’s the belief that there isn’t a one-size-fits-all answer to the majority of business challenges – at least not one that addresses our own unique situations.

Coaching is not advice-giving.

In fact, I’m slightly allergic to advice. One my most hated things to see or receive? Unsolicited advice. It sparks all kinds of sarcasm in me! Because not only is this all about you, you’re not even thinking about me or what I really need.

Advice is what we (as the would-be advice giver) think is best. Even with the highest levels of empathy, advice is filtered through our unique and limited life experience. It doesn’t take into account all the things we don’t know about the situation, person or possibilities.

Often, advice also has the potential to be laden with “shoulds” and the expectation that someone trying to help now deserves us to follow through on their golden nuggets of advice. “Well, Sally told me to do that. She’ll be offended if I don’t at least try it.” Not helpful. Not empowering. (NB Sally isn’t a real person here.)

So I don’t give advice. I ask questions. I allow space to explore the situation. I offer support.

And I share experiences. This is subtly different to advice – and when I lead retreats and groups, it’s one I have to watch carefully. In business support circles, sharing experiences can be so valuable. “When I tried this, here’s what happened.” Positioning your experience like this makes it a piece of helpful information, but leaves the other person in total autonomy to make their own decision.

Sharing experience keeps it as your experience, not universal and unequivocal truth – which is often how advice is offered. You keep the other person free to choose the best decision for them.

It’s so easy to offer other people advice! Our care-giving nature wants to help. Of course we do! Especially if we feel like we’ve really nailed a particular challenge. And I don’t want anyone to feel their experience isn’t valuable: it is so incredible helpful and supportive to hear others’ stories that shine the light ahead – people who’ve overcome problems similar to ours or are further ahead.

But let’s keep them as stories, not as foolproof blueprints for how others should run their businesses or lives.

Our culture is so prone to giving advice. And right now there’s a whole industry of bloggers offering tips and suggestions to help others – and the intention behind that is wonderful. But in my own online experience, I find it essential to have a high awareness for click-bait blog titles promising neat and tidy advice that’ll solve all my problems. Because honestly? There’s no possibility that they can dive into the subtleties of my experience. And so many posts I see use fear or scarcity to encourage readers to click through. There’s nothing like someone trying to convince me I have a problem I didn’t know about!

A recent example: “7 ways to have more boundaries between work and life.” Now, this is a topic I care about a lot. But there’s no way that there are only seven ways to develop healthy boundaries. And boundaries are so powerful and complex – in my experience – that a quick-fix list isn’t going to tackle the values, energy, practice, and self-worth it takes to tend to them.

Yes, these kinds of posts can be taken as inspiration. For sure! But I have to practice awareness when I come across them so that I’m not sucked into believing that the list (and advice) is comprehensive or appropriate for me.

Here’s my critical awareness checklist:

Does this post resonate with my experience?
Do the stories shared help me to understand my situation (or the situation of those I care about)?
Do I actually want the results this post is hoping to address?
What positive inspiration can I take from this?
Is there any fear, scarcity, manipulation or irrelevance I need to leave behind?

Here’s the thing: self-care around advice and online content

If you made it this far through the post, thank you! Thank you for listening and for giving your time to this post. I really appreciate it!

So what are the benefits to you? Well, I really want to share this idea that advice and feedback often tell us more about the person giving it than the person receiving it. In fact, Tara Mohr goes as far as to say that it only tells us about the person giving it. It’s always our choice whether we want to buy into their opinion.

(Meta moment: even as you read this post, you’re welcome to disagree with it or dismiss it if it doesn’t resonate with you!)

There is so much wisdom in the world, and the internet makes it more accessible. Hooray! But volume isn’t always the most helpful. Just because someone wrote a thing doesn’t mean it’s for me or going to help me. (And, most of the time, if there’s a click-bait, scarcity or fear based title, it’s already in the “nope” category for me.)

I’m learning to be more discerning about what I consume online so that I’m not feeding the depression or anxiety. It’s a practice – I have to remind myself every day. But today I offer this experience, and my opinion, to you too.

With love and much care

Jenny x

PS I’m planning to teach resilience and self-care around social media for business owners this October. There’s a teeny tiny bit of info here if you’re interested.

Here's the thing: incentives

When we think about incentives, we often think about money. That to incentivise a customer to buy, we have to offer a discount. Or to incentivise a member of staff to work late or quicker, we need to offer them a bonus or overtime pay.

In a culture so bound by monetary value, it’s no surprise that this is the case. Want something delivered today? Sure, you just have to pay for it. Want to make the sale immediately? No problem, just remove your profit margin.

I could write for hours on our relationships with money, and especially on the ‘need to earn more and spend less’ mentality that I often hear from clients. I really could, but I’ll save it for another time.

Because right now, on the cusp of Christmas and Black Friday (a week today), I want to suggest that encouraging customers to buy is not simply about 15% off, or buy one get one free.

I was talking to a client the other day, and I asked, ‘What incentive can you offer the customer?’ She immediately went to discounts and giveaways, which made me realise that that’s still the first reaction to so many people who want to boost sales in the short term.

But let’s just pause for a moment.

There are lots of reasons customers decide to buy a particular item at a particular time. There are many millions of pounds spent on trying to discover customer motivations and how to capitalise on them, but we don’t need that research. We already know.

Customers buy because:

They like a product (for themselves or someone else)
They trust the vendor/maker/seller
It matches their value perception of the product
It’s the right time for them to buy it (they were just thinking about something like that for baby niece Lela, and this fits right in)
There’s a time limit on the availability of the product (in essence, FOMO)
And yes, because there’s a money-saving opportunity

Customers are moved to make a purchase based on one or all of those reasons, or variations of them. And every customer has their own beliefs and values that make them different. Some customers are generous towards others, so it’s very easy for them to make a decision to purchase a gift, but much harder for them to decide they’ll buy for themselves. Some customers are the exact opposite.

And I say all this knowing that Black Friday is a good opportunity to boost sales, and that sometimes a discount or a giveaway boosts engagement and results in sales anyway. You can make good, strong business decisions to offer a monetary incentive, but let me just offer some thoughts before you do:

Do you always offer discounts and giveaways to boost sales? Doing this regularly may de-value your brand. Save discounts for special occasions, and be creative about giveaways. Make them generous and focused on a particular goal (eg getting rid of old stock, or building your email subscriber list).
Do the customers who are buying your discounted product also buy from you at full price, or will they in the future? If your discount attracts people who only buy from you when your products are on offer, it might be a sign that you need to add in a lower price point (that still offers you at least 25% profit).
Which products can take the discount? Both in terms of profit margin and sales status – bestsellers often don’t need to be discounted to be popular, and are more likely to be de-valued by a big discount.
Can you save discounts for special occasions? Like twice-yearly sales, or birthday sales, or launch discounts. You may find it better to offer discounts in a strategic, planned way, rather than simply as a push to get people to buy because it’s slow for you right now.

I’m not saying never offer discounts – just be confident they’re the right thing for your business right now.

And if you need a few ideas to offer non-financial incentives, here are some goodies:

Buy now, while stocks last! A great one for Christmas, and definitely motivated by FOMO.
Don’t end up in the dog-house this Christmas (buy one of our products instead). A good one for targeting men at Christmas.
Here’s something extra-special that’ll suit you really well. Customers need reminding that you understand them, and understand what they’re looking for.
How can you even resist something so beautiful / cute / useful?! Especially good for baby and pet products – things that tug at the heartstrings. Or remind customers how well you solve a problem they’re having.
You can get this by tomorrow if you order now. Be explicit about your turnaround times, especially in the run up to Christmas. Speed sells, especially for desperate customers.
Similarly: you can get this sent to a friend tomorrow, and it’ll be gift wrapped. Mid-December marketing.

Incentives are basically anything that completes this sentence: Buy now, because…

You can finish it however you want! You can use whatever little extras you like. You can also simply point out how awesome you are. ‘Buy now because our customer service is great’. ‘Buy now because this is a bestseller and we know people love it’. The options are really endless.

But I encourage you to see incentives differently than simply money off.

What’s your experience? What has worked for you? What hasn’t? Where do you get stuck? I’d love to hear!

Here's the thing: quality content

Every Friday I post a “here’s the thing” blog. “Here’s the thing” is something my mum (and many other wise people) like to say when they’re about to make a good point. Hopefully these posts are also good points.

I’ve written about quality before, but this time of year, when you’re still holding your nerve and waiting for the big sales to hit, it requires a little reminder.

When you’re busily fulfilling orders, or prepping stock, or managing and training staff, you’re in the thick of it and it can be hard to come up with a marketing message (on Facebook, Twitter, your blog, or in your email newsletter) that’s clear, true to you, and something customers are going to respond to. In short, a quality post. Couple that busy-ness with worry about low sales or no sales, and you’ve got a recipe for reactionary, half-baked and potentially desperate messages that turn customers off.

And I don’t want that for you.

Your business, your brand, your products, deserve high quality marketing. They deserve to be shown in the best possible light. You’re putting your all into this. We want that to shine through to the world.

Of course, ideally, you’d have a marketing plan all mapped out, and great ideas and content coming out of your ears. You wouldn’t have to discount your products to make sales, because they’d just be coming in anyway. In a dream world, you wouldn’t have to compete with the likes of John Lewis making heart-wrenching ads about penguins, because your customers would understand that you’re a different kettle of fish: independent, small, creative, and high-quality.

But the reality is, it doesn’t always get planned down to what exactly you’re going to say on Facebook, you know? And we all fall in love with John Lewis and almost (okay, maybe completely) forget that they’re going to grab the attention of what could also be your customers.

I know you are capable of connecting with people who want to buy your products. I know you have great products. I know they (and you) have a story that will get people engaged and interested and purchasing.

So here’s the thing:

Tell your story. Bring your posts and emails and tweets back to what makes you, you. Start the conversation. The positive, brand-affirming conversation.

Here are some ideas and tips to use to connect with your audience without selling yourself short:

Tell people what you’re always up to. This isn’t just about getting sales at Christmas – you’re not that shallow. This is about your dedicated approach to your business. You craft products by hand. You spend hours designing, creating, testing, developing ideas. Show people what’s behind the finished item.
Feel festive. Get some Christmas decorations up and post photos of them. Are you buying from other small creative businesses for your Christmas gifts? Show people, and tell them it means a lot to have their support too.
Put your products together in a new and interesting way. Simply directing people to browse your whole range isn’t the strongest message ever – every brand and their dog is doing that at this time of year. Put together a new collection or category of products based on a colour, a personality, a new theme, and link to it. Tell a story about how you’ve really been inspired by metallics or musicians or travel this year, so you’ve created gifts to reflect those passions.
Share positive reviews and customer feedback. Perhaps someone had a really touching story. Ask them if you can tell it on your blog, or Facebook, and get more people sharing their stories and ideas with you.
Be kind and generous, but not desperate. If you’re going to do a promotion or offer, consider how you might find something that doesn’t cheapen your product, but makes customers feel special. Perhaps you add a little gift rather than discounting. Maybe you could offer gift wrapping for free for a limited period.
Post a photo of your products in progress. Either as you’re making them now, or a shot of you making them from earlier in the year. Show customers that you put time and effort into each order.

It’s not easy to always be “on it” at this time of year. But I know you’ll come out stronger in January if you keep your messages and marketing consistent with your brand.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Jenny x

PS This quote remains one of my favourite business mantras. Disclaimer: not suitable for those who are averse to swearing.

Here’s the thing: self-care around advice and online content

So here’s the thing:

Enter The Forge