In some businesses, you don’t want 50 enquiries a day, especially when 49 of those aren’t suitable for what you do.

What then happens is you spend time emailing, talking and negotiating before you realise that you’re just not a good fit for each other.

Stop people kicking the tyres of your business

The copywriting and content on your site is a great way to filter your visitors so that when you do get enquiries, they are much more targeted to what you do.

This isn’t about turning business away, your time is precious and if you haven’t got to the stage of outsourcing your enquiries, this can save you a lot of time.

FAQs

People keep calling you up and asking you the same question time and time again? Don’t get annoyed, get that question answered on your “Frequently Asked Questions” page.

Whether it’s your payment terms, how long before customers see results or whether or not you can be hired by the hour, these are all good things to have covered in your copy.

Some businesses want to generate as many phone enquiries as possible so have little copy on their site in the hope that sales people can convert them into customers once they’re on the phone. This can work, but if you have a small team, your time is going to be much better spent building your business and booking in clients rather than answering the same questions 20 times a day.

About

This is where you want to let people know:

• Who you are (and who you’re not)
• What you do (and what you don’t do)
• Who you work with (and who you don’t work with)

Who you are not, what you don’t do and who you don’t work with are just as important as the first parts.

If you are a graphic designer who is constantly turning people away because they’re looking for a web designer (and you don’t want to be a web designer), let them know before they pick up the phone or email.

You can be light hearted about it, you can be direct, but this information is not only going to be a big time saver for you, it’s going to attract more relevant clients who will start to see you as a specialist in your field rather than a “jack of all trades.”

Sales Page

Similar to the About Page – this is where you reinforce what your product or service is for.

This can be done under a specific heading such as “Who this is for,” or you can play around and be a bit more subtle with references such as:

“I know you don’t mind putting in a bit of hard work…”

Showing that you don’t offer a push-button solution

Or

“If Twitter and Facebook baffle you but you’re too busy to spend months learning, this bite-sized guide to social media is for you.”

Showing that you’re working with beginners who want to use social media but don’t have the time or passion to learn it firsthand.

So, any time you find yourself getting enquiries from customers that don’t quite fit what you do, see if you can tweak your web copy or advertising materials to change this!

Till next time, have an amazing weekend!

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You know those promotional emails you get that you delete without a moment’s thought?

Well, a moment’s thought might just stop you making the same mistakes in your own email broadcasts.

What does your customer really think when you get in touch?

Here’s 5 reasons why your customers might be deleting your emails

One: You signed them up without explicit consent

I received an email today from a newsletter I’d never signed up to. I once attended a networking event with the sender over a year ago so wasn’t too pleased I’d been signed up without me knowing.

To avoid this with your business, make sure you use a professional email service like Aweber or Constant Contact and even have your settings to “double opt-in.”

A double opt-in means that if you add someone’s email address, they receive an automatic email making sure they want to be signed up to the newsletter. This added filter makes sure that your crowd is definitely keen to get your content so you’re not going to get complaints about unsolicited mailings.

Two: Your forget what your email is competing with

The subject line on the email I received included the words: “marketing”, “Internet” and “best” and the exclamation at the end made the subject line seem a little hyped, rather than having an editorial value to it.

When you write your email headline, you want it to look like the kind of email your audience WANTS to read. Remember, it’s competing against subject headlines from people they know or companies they are interested in . Let’s take my inbox for example. In my primary inbox we have:

• Web Copy and Sales Material
  
• Touching base
• eBook content request
• Make sure you’ve got your thermals this Friday for camping

Now, because those are from people I know – they are highly specific and interesting to me, but let’s also compare it to other newsletter emails I’ve signed up to and we’ve got:

• Amy, your special report on social media is attached
• How to get out, get organized and get noticed
• Would an extra paycheck be helpful?
• Can I share something personal with you?

To try and get me to open their email they are using:

• Something specific I have asked for
• Specific benefits I might be interested in
  
• A question alluding to a specific benefit
  
• Intrigue and curiosity

Could you use something similar to get your emails opened?

Three: If you are promoting something, you tell your reader why you care, not why you she should care

After a brief courtesy asking me how I was, the email then launches into the amazing successes of the business owner, how this person had launched a number of fantastic and successful projects and because everything was brilliant, she wanted to tell me about how great it was all going.

The email told me plenty about her, but not a lot about why a customer should care or be passionate about it. Make sure the emphasis is on your reader and customer and not on you.

Want to find out who the emphasis is on in your email? Count how many times you are using “I,” “my” “mine” as opposed to “you,” “yours,” “you’re” etc

In this particular email the emphasis was 16 times to the business owner and 7 times to the customer.

Four: If you are selling something new, you do not explain it simply and directly.

After reading the email and visiting the new product’s site, it’s not really clear what it does, although it has something to do with being a new “marketing platform” and also included words such as “powerful seo”, “rapid results”, “effective presence” but nothing specific that could be pinned down and explained simply to my mum for example.

If you want to test the understandability of your explanation, find someone who knows the least about your business and see if it makes sense.

If I had to write instructions on setting a DVD player to record and could explain it to my dad, I know I’d done well (and if I could keep him from storming off and cursing I’d be performing a damn miracle.)

Five: You assume people know who you are and what you do

After much research, from what I can gather, this person IS good at what she does, and there are many favourable testimonials around the web about her other services.

Unfortunately, most people don’t make this much effort to convince themselves to trust you if you haven’t already captured their attention in the first few seconds. We’re bombarded with promotional messages every day that it’s much easier to delete then it is to look for reasons to clutter your inbox.

Get to the point quickly. When you’re sending emails, you want to let your reader know:

• What you have
  
• Why they should care
• Who you are and why that matters to them
  
• What they can do next to enjoy the benefits of your offer
  

So, next time you get a promotional email that you instinctively want to delete straight away, don’t. Stop, think about what turns you off it, and ask yourself what you can avoid when you’re emailing your own audience.

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Good Friday afternoon folks!

I’m going to be honest with you, this is a short post because it’s Friday afternoon, it’s the bank holiday weekend here in the UK and the weather is dreary so I’m in the mood to get under the duvet, put on a film and wake up in time for next summer (but will probably settle for waking up tomorrow).

I still have a bunch of writing to do which I love, but as I was daydreaming about what kind of duvet films are the best, I remembered Groundhog Day with Bill Murray and had a flash of inspiration for this post which I hope you’re going to enjoy.

First step. If you have 5 minutes and 30 seconds free, watch this clip from 4mins 30 onwards.

Click here if you can’t see it.

If you don’t, I’ll give you the lowdown.

By some bizarre twist, Bill Murrays’ character Phil Connors is caught in a repetitive day, Groundhog Day.

He decides to try and seduce Andie MacDowell’s character Rita by playing out the same evening night after night after night until he gets all the responses right to win her affection.

It doesn’t go exactly to plan, but the part where he quotes 19th century French poetry is brilliant.

Now, you don’t have the luxury of a repetitive day where your customers forget all your mistakes and only see the brilliant parts of your content and communication, but you can certainly learn a thing or two from Bill Murray’s character in this film.

Listen to your customers. No, really listen

For the first time, Phil is listening to producer Rita. He is being attentive and taking note of the things that she likes: Vermouth on the Rocks, World Peace, and French Poetry for example, and also what she doesn’t like: Fudge and white chocolate.

Takeaway – Look for the clues to what your customer might like and not like. Which of your blog posts get the most comments? Have you asked your newsletter readers what topics they might like you to cover? Interact, ask and ask again.

Repeat what works…

Based on the feedback Phil gets in the film, he starts to tailor his responses to only tell Rita what she wants to hear, and do the things she find adorable about him. For the most part, this works. She finds him interesting, sensitive and with lots in common to her.

Takeaway – If your customers are raving about a blog post, do a follow up post, or offer an information product expanding on the subject. As you write lots of content about your business, take notice of the positive feedback and work on producing more of what works and gets a great response.

…But stay sincere

However, because it is all in a bid simply to “bed” her, ultimately Phil’s tactics don’t work because he’s not being sincere, and she can see through to his ulterior motive. If you click through to watch part 6 in this series, you get to see a lot of face slapping. He comes good in the end, but ONLY when he is sincere.

Takeaway – Listen to your customers BUT don’t compromise the identity of you and your business. If your customers want a service that you don’t offer, don’t feel you have to suddenly do this, especially if it’s not in line with your passion or long term business goals.

So there we go, a short(ish) post today, I hope it’s been enjoyable, and tell me – what’s your favourite duvet film for those grey August evenings?

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Okay, you took the salt and you poured it into your customer’s wound.

Now you need to rub it better.

Use your copywriting savvy to make it all better

After spending time making sure you paint a vivid picture or your customer’s pain, it would be easy to think that following this with:

“We can solve your problem and make you feel better…”

…would compel your customer to buy.

It’s not bad, but we can do better to show your customer exactly how amazing working with you is going to be. And as all great things come in threes, here are my 3 simple steps.

All we’re going to do is bring to life the joys your customer will experience once you’re through with them.

So, the first step is:

Know where to rub

You already know your customer’s pain, so make sure the benefit of working with you relates directly to that.

Let’s say you provide  flower arranging for weddings.

Your customer’s pain is the confusion over what kind of arrangements to choose, wondering how much of the budget will be used up on flowers, trying to find the time to view and order the flowers and also, worrying that the arrangement isn’t going to be as special and as unique as they need on the “big day.”

So, some big areas there that need comforting are:

• Saving time
• Saving money
• Wanting to make an impression
  
• Needing a reliable service
  
• Wanting a personal and helpful service
  

Think about the pain areas for your customer and write them down on a separate piece of paper so you can see them when you’re writing your copy.

These are the areas you’re going to “rub” and you start to do that when you…

Show your painkillers

When you know what pain areas your customer has, you then need to figure out what parts of your service are the “painkillers” for their problem.

What will you do to solve the pain areas you wrote down before?

List them specifically, and add them to your list.

For example:

• Online catalogue and order system to save time
• Discounts for advance or bulk orders
• Unique bouquets created based on colour and flower preference
  
• Guaranteed response to all enquiries within 15 minutes
• Personal consultation over tea and cake

Then, the next step is to add in a dash of feel-good emotion when you…

Show you can make it all better

Think about how your service deals with your customer’s pain , and how that’s going to make them feel.

Then, think of a specific example why this is something they will love.

Taking the examples above, our bride to be would probably be feeling:

• Calmer – With the flowers sorted, she can spend more time choosing the dress
  
• Excited – There’s more in the budget for food
  
• Special – All those admiring glances at the bouquet
  
• More relaxed – She doesn’t have to worry about “radio silence” at critical moments
  
• Cared for – She doesn’t have to wait for the big day to feel like a VIP
  

Then, once you have all of these elements, you just need to put it altogether.

“With plenty to organise for your wedding, we make sure that choosing your flower arrangement is a special piece of your big day that you can enjoy, not worry about. We can visit you at your own home for a personal consultation (and we bring the tea and cake!) where we guide you through picking the perfect bouquet that will make heads turn…”

Now, that’s just an example using only a few of the items we looked at above, you can pick and mix as many as you need in order to make your customer fall in love with your service.

Words to help

If you find yourself struggling to think of words to describe how your customer is going to feel after you’ve worked your magic, here are a few examples from my copywriting phrasebook (soon to be released sign up here if you’d like advance notice) to help you along!

• Ability to cope
• Have fun
• Radiant
• Breakthrough
• Brighten up
• Comfort
• More energy
• Stand out
• Transform from / into
• Proud
• Part of the group

So there you go, now go and rub your customer’s pain better and let me know how you get on!

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One of the most powerful copywriting techniques used is to pour salt on your customer’s wound by painting a vivid picture of her pain.

Bizarrely, this isn’t a mean thing to do.

It might hurt a little, but it's good for you...

It’s part of the famous copywriting formula: Problem – Agitation – solution, and it shows your customer that you care.

Once you have identified your customer’s problem, you describe it passionately and then demonstrate that your product or service is the perfect solution.

The more vivid the picture, the more of a life-saver your solution will be.

Done without due care however, and you can seem insensitive and damage your credibility, so I’ve put together my Dos and Don’ts of pouring copywriting salt into your customer’s wound…

Do not scaremonger

Do not petrify your customer by threatening a whole host of things that could possibly go wrong if they do not buy your product.

For example:

“If you don’t sign up for a life coaching session today, you’ll never get to the root of the problems that are holding you back. You’ll remain without cofnidence, find it difficult to form meaningful relationships and will probably end up a lot like your uncle Peter who spends his time licking lamp posts and barking at the postman… is that what you want?”

Instead…

Do Show you understand the situation

Let’s say you are having trouble finding somewhere to go on holiday with your husband and 2-year-old. You visit website number one:

“Welcome to Holidays R Us, if you’re looking for a holiday, we’ll find you one!”

Meh, not very personal or compelling right?

But if your target market is young families, and more specifically the mums of young children…you can use this to reach out and connect to her in your web copy pretty easily:

“Finding a resort that’s child friendly and still gives you the relaxing break you deserve can be tricky, especially if you’re having to squeeze in your holiday search in your lunch breaks. At Holiday Getaway Search our quick search tool lets you compare results on one page and we provide videos of the resorts and nearby areas so you can see instantly which one will be the perfect fit for you and your family.”

The second option begins to paint a picture of a business which understand its customers, and more importantly, cares about the things that matter to its customers.

Do share her passion for her pain

When your customer has a problem and you can be as passionate about that problem as she is, you establish yourself as a team member in the fight against her pain.

So instead of writing:

“If you want a better night’s sleep, try our new orthopaedic mattresses today…”

Write:

“Just one night’s bad sleep can leave you groggy and irritable the next day, so when you’re consistently being deprived of sleep because of an unsuitable mattress, it’s miserable. If you’re finding yourself exhausted in a morning or frustrated at your lack of concentration and short temper, you’re going to want to know about our latest orthopaedic mattresses which…

You want your reader to think, “That’s it, that’s exactly how I feel, and I’m sick of it and I want to do something about it NOW.”

Because when your customer feels like you know, understand and care about her, she’s going to be much more receptive to the solution you provide.

Do use vivid language

Stay away from words like “bad” and use strong, impressionable language that really describes how your customer’s problem is affecting her personally and emotionally. The following words are some of the ones I have in my copywriting phrasebook (sign up to the Harrisonamy Copywriting Newsletter if you want to find out first when this will be available), use them to spark your imagination:

• Anxious
• Boring
• Disappointing
• Dismayed
• Don’t know where to start
• Frustrated
• Isolating
• Miserable
• Mortified
• Overwhelmed
• Petrified
• Pressure
• Shocked
• Sick to death
• Toxic
• Uphill struggle

Do not make her feel bad about herself

You know the hairdresser who asks who cut your hair last? Or the plumber who embarasses you by telling you your pipes are all squiffy and a total nightmare… don’t do that.

Painting a picture of your customer’s pain is not about making her feel bad about herself. She doesn’t want to feel like it was her fault that she’s having problems, because whereas the hairdresser kind of has you in the chair, and you’re probably going to pay the plumber no matter what he says to you, your customer is not obliged to buy from you. If you make her feel bad, she’s going to walk away and find someone who doesn’t.

It’s a fine balance, so take care when writing this. The picture of her pain should be vivd, but so should the solution you offer. You always want to leave her feeling hopeful and excited about what it is you are offering.
What do you think? What techniques do you use to paint a picture of your customers pain? What has worked, what hasn’t worked for you? Let me know in the comments below.

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The more specific you can be in your sales copy, the more impact you’re going to make. When you’re writing copy for your own business it’s easy to overlook details that can be compelling selling points because you assume your customer already knows this.

So I’ve created this checklist for you, so  you can produce concrete copy that demands your custoemr’s attention!

Does it include your personality?

If your personal brand or reputation is front and foremost in your business, then you want to make sure your copy sounds like you. If your customers feel personally connected to you, they are more likely to trust you and listen to your advice when you tell them how you can help them.

Think of the words and phrases you tend to use when talking to a friend and sprinkle them into the copy. Do you say words like awesome and cool? Or are you a little more formal? It really doesn’t matter as long as you can include some words or a few phrases that distinguish you from your competitors.

Are you speaking directly to your audience?

Is it for men? Is it for women? Perhaps it’s work at home moms or retired school teachers. Whoever is in your target market, you need to reach out and show that you understand them by using:

• Situations they are familiar with
  
• Industry words or phrases they are familiar with
• The style of language they use
• The style of language that motivates them
• The ideas and themes that inspires them

For example, if you offer a virtual assistant for work at home moms, it’s important that they feel you understand their situation

“Instead of juggling breakfast with getting the kids ready for school and responding to that customer enquiry on your laptop, imagine waking, feeling rested knowing all your overnight customer enquiries have already been handled. Feel free to enjoy the quizzical look on your daughter’s face as the laptop remains closed over breakfast and you’re able to give her your full attention as she tells you about her test that day. Don’t worry, just how you manage to be a supermom will stay our little secret…”

Are the results specific?

This is where a lot of sales copy can be weak. It’s just so tempting to use words like “improve” “better” or “success” for example, but all those words, whilst positive, are unquantifiable and as  a result, don’t make for compelling reasons to buy.
Consider the previous example. Our supermom knows her biz enquiries are being taken care of. Now, regardless of how many she gets in a day, because you’re speaking in specifics, it will mean something to her. If she gets a few a day, it might not be a big deal, if she’s constantly swamped, you’ve just struck upon the pain point that is going to make her hire you.

So, look at your sales, copy, are you explaining specifically what your product will do for example:

• How much time it will save
• How much money it will save
• Whether it reduces or gets rid of pain
• How it can improve their health
• What administration / business service will they no longer have to deal with

Does your customer know how it works?

Unless you explain exactly how your service works, your customer might think it’s more complicated than it is and not bother hiring you. Don’t assume she will contact you to find out more, instead:

• Explain what communication is involved (if any)
• Explain what effort is needed on her part
• Let her know what format your help comes in
• Tell her what happens after she completes her purchase
  

Sales copy should give your customer enough information so that she can make the decision to buy, or return later to buy. The more uncertainties in her mind, the less likely she is to commit to a purchase.

Let me know how you get on and if you’ve got sales copy that shows good examples of using specifics to convince the customer let us know!

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Is Your web Copy as Effective As This?

Potpourri looks pretty, but no matter how much you’re told it makes a room deliciously fragrant, it doesn’t.

After a while you realise you just have a bowl of nice-looking, dead leaves in your front room.

Now, similarly, you want your business copy to look nice, BUT you also want (and need) it to WORK. Which means: pull readers in, sell your product and build your mailing list.

So, is the copy on your business guilty of “appearing” to be marvellous at the expense of being useful? Let’s find out by seeing if you can spot any of these on your site:

Over The Top Analogies

When you’re in the business of explaining ideas to people, you don’t want it to feel like school. You want to jazz things up. You want your copy to jump off the page and grab them by the eyes… in a very affectionate kind of way.

And you might be tempted to use an analogy or two to help you explain your ideas. You have to be careful though, because if your analogy is too fancy, and hard to make sense of, it’s like adding an extra layer of wrapping paper when all your customers want to do is get to the birthday present (see…)

For example:

Have you ever felt that life is like a lamp? Sometimes you’re on, sometimes you’re off, sometimes your fuse is blown, and sometimes you feel like the filament in your bulb has gone, but you haven’t got any spares, and when you go to the store to get some, you can’t remember if it’s a screw top or a push pin…

You get the picture.

Using Fancy Words

In school you were rewarded for big fancy words. I used to carry my thesaurus everywhere and one word was never good enough if there were ten I could use. Which would have been great if my teachers wanted to give me money for being fancy, they didn’t. And neither will your customers.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Writing directly to your customer in the most straight-forward language, is not about dumbing down. It’s about using your copy so that it’s engaging and easy to understand.

So, are you using words such as “accelerate” and “sufficient” when “speed up” or “enough” would do? Writing can make us put our “professional” head on, and you want to be writing copy like you’re talking to a good friend, not your college professor.

You give them rice cakes when they want steak

“State of the art” “first class” and “leading company” are just a few examples of empty words that do nothing to make an impact on your audience. They look important, but don’t actually do anything, (much like a guy I knew who had a silver briefcase that only had a packet of gum and a ruler in…)

If you want to do some research, Google “marketing companies” and read through the copy on a handful of sites that come up.  I will guarantee that you find the same empty phrases cropping up. And because everyone’s using them, no one company gets to stand out. (Just to note, I have nothing against marketing companies, it’s just the first industry I found on Google where there were a lot of these “empty” words ocurring.)

So, are you making any of these mistakes? Have you been tempted to be over-flowery in your web copy and then realised it’s not worked? Let me know in the comments below.

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Trust is everything when it comes to buyer persuasion. If a potential customer doesn’t trust that you are who you say you are and can do what you say you do, their attention and purchasing intention will disappear.

Unfortunately, BEING trust-worthy isn’t enough. You’ve got to communicate this effectively, particularly on your website.  People make decisions within split seconds and since anyone can put up a website these days, visitors need more reassurance that you are reputable and amazing at what you do.

So take a look at your website and see if you’re doing the following3 steps, if not you might just be making potential customers too suspicious to hire you…

Show off the skeletons in your closet

If you know that there is something that your customers might see as an objection, don’t ignore it, include it in your web copy and use it as an opportunity to build credibility and trust.

If you take the initiative to be transparent about how you operate your business, you will appear much more confident than if you are on the back foot.

For example, I was talking to a client who manages to keep their overheads down by working from home. His company deals very successfully with large corporate events and with his latest marketing push, he wants to explain why they are competitive in price, without appearing low quality compared to other companies. This is a perfect example of something you would want to be up front about, so that you can turn it into a selling point, for example:

“By having an experienced mobile team, when you bring your event to us, you’re not paying for our office, heating bills, our coffee, or our computer maintenance, you’re paying for the best quality event that we can deliver. By operating efficiently in this way, we are able to save our customers on average 25%-30% compared to the same service from our competitors.”

Feel free to boast – but back it up…

If you claim to be a multi-national huge corporation but your website is: http://littleunred.wordpress.com/ your customers aren’t going to believe you.

Think also about the kind of service you offer, if you claim to have the best web design business this side of the universe, make sure your own website is fantastically swish and suave.  I know that as a business owner, you’re going to put all of your energy into your client work, but you do need to take time and give your site and marketing materials the best design and copy you can.

Think of it this way, if you have an amazing service, but can’t convince your customer, they’re not going to benefit from the wonders your business can bring them, and that would be a huge shame.

Show them you’re sticking around for a while

What do we do when we think about hiring someone? We look them up on Google.

If nothing comes back, we might not mind, but isn’t it much more convincing when you can find articles written by them, conversations through Twitter, blog comments etc. Your reader is going to feel less likely that you could do a bad job and disappear when your reputation is endorsed by so many others on the web.

That doesn’t mean to say that Google is the be all and end all of visibility, any kind of positive visible interaction between you and other business owners, clients or blog readers will reinforce trust in your business.

Also, If possible, have a photo of you or your team on your website. It will look more authentic and give customers the feeling they’re getting a glimpse behind the scenes, and there are real people peering back at (in a non-creepy kind of way).

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Give your customers a reason "why"

Copywriters use a number of different psychological techniques and triggers to convince people to take action.

I want to share one of these copywriting tips with you because I know that you will only use it for good and that your customers will benefit when they are more convinced to use your service.

So, Today’s quick copy tip is:

“For everything you ask your customer to do, give a reason.”

Sound simplistic? Well a reason is a powerful thing and I’d like to explain:

In the 80s, Harvard social psychologist Ellen Langar conducted an experiment by asking people waiting in line to use a photocopy machine if she could push in front.

She would ask using 1 of 3 different ways:

When she asked:

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox Machine because I’m in a rush?”

she was able to jump the queue 94% of the time.

When she asked:

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I use the Xerox machine?”

her queue jump rate dropped to 60%.

Not surprising at all, in the first instance, she’s explaining with a valid reason that the person can understand, why she should be allowed to go first.

But wait,

When she asked:

“Excuse me, I have five pages. May I used the Xerox machine because I have to make some copies”

her queue jump rate was 93%.

There was no compelling reason, but there was a reason.

Now, I’m definitely not advocating that you provide any old reason when you ask your customer to act, but I do want you to realise how providing a reason can make your customers more receptive to acting.

So, where can you provide a reason in your web copy to make an impact? Consider these examples:

“Please re-tweet this article so your community can use it to help their own business.” or

“Sign up to the newsletter because that’s where I share my hottest tips.” or

“Download my report today because it will only be available for free today.”

Even if you’ve already mentioned these facts, boost the effect of the request by following it with a reason immediately after it.

Now it’s over to you, are you offering a written reason at every opportunity in your written copy? Are you missing an opportunity anywhere on your website where you can give an extra gentle nudge to help them take action?

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Pushing, without persuading is not a good way to win over clients.

But no pushing means nothing pushes back.

The reality is that the things you desperately want are not going to just be put in your lap, no matter how great your site, product or offer. At some point you’re going to need to push and promote your business, but you can do it without alienating or upsetting your customers!

Here’s how to use just enough push to persuade.

Remind yourself you are pushing for a good reason

What motivates you about your business? Is it moving towards a goal like, getting more clients or having that holiday by the beach drinking Pina Coladas? Or is it moving away from something like going hungry, going homeless or going back to the cubicle? Remind yourself why you have to make it work, why you have to go after it and why a possible rejection isn’t worth a damn when compared to it.

Ask

Simple but often overlooked is the simple action of asking for something. Asking works well in two ways. You can ask for something you want, and you can ask someone what it is they want that you can offer. If you’re worried you’ll make a fool of yourself by not asking perfectly remember this:

• The more you do it the better you will become
• The more you do it the more confident you will become
• You miss every shot you take

I’ll stop here to tell a little story about my mum.

In the seventies when my dad moved to Saudi Arabia to work, my mum needed to  provide an income, but there were limited opportunities for women, mum couldn’t drive so interviews were hard to get to, there was no Internet, and only a few people in those days had phone lines.

A lady over the road who had a phoneline, was going away for a few days and told mum she could use it if she needed it, as well as her driver. As soon as she left my mum headed over, armed with a phone directory and steely determination. She worked her way through the companies offering them her very limited computer skills.

The first few calls mum sounded nervous, was unsure of herself and was not very convincing. Unsurprisingly, no-one was interested and she found nothing on the first day.

She couldn’t give up. She made more calls, practiced her responses and began sounding a little more confident.

Time was running out, without the phone and the driver, setting up and getting to a job interview could take weeks to arrange. Suddenly mum became a lot more confident.

She found a job by the end of the second day.

My mum is not a pushy person, but the combination of the importance of the task and her willingness to ask again and again, produced amazing results. I know that you can produce even more amazing results by reminding yourself why you want your business to succeed and beating your fear of asking.

Don’t wait till everything is perfect to ask

A lot of people keeping things under wraps until the perfect time, I’ve done it myself, convincing that someone, some client or some organisation is far too big for me to get in touch with them just yet. Don’t wait. Do it. It might be too soon, but you’ll learn a lot from approaching targets you think are out of reach and if you get even one acceptance, you’ve earned your right to squeal with glee.

Keep pushing – but politely

Don’t hear back straight away? Give them a bit of breathing room but don’t be afraid to ask again…and again if necessary. If you’re being polite and respectful then they shouldn’t get hacked off with you and if they do, then there’s a good chance your personalities aren’t going to work well together. You want people to know that you’re passionate and keen to work with them, for them, help them out whatever, but you don’t want to beg or be desperate for it. If you do, you will find price haggles, unreasonable requests and a pain in the neck.

Disguise your pushing by using different ways to communicate

If you send someone email after email after email asking the same thing, that can turn into a hassle not hustle. If you can reach them in different ways then it’s a creative hustle! Use your powers, whether it’s email, phone, in person, blog posts, conversations with other people, free samples, creative gifts. Remember point one. If this is really important to you, it’s worth trying different ways to skin that cat.

How far is too far?

Any kind of legal action…

What about you? Have you pushed yourself to hustle harder and been surprised by what you got? Is there something you’d love to ask for but want to wait until the time is right? Let’s hear about it in the comments below and get some hustling encouragement going!

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