The biggest mistakes ...
1) You assume you know what folks want
2) You try to sell & you are not good at it or you hate it.
3) You fail to define/understand that being an expert doesn't assure connecting with & acquiring paying customers.
These missteps are preventable. You can, with a few easy steps & ways of thinking get your messaging right so it does connect with & gain customers.
Try these steps for doing that....
1.People do things for their reason's not yours
If you have not done the in depth homework to see how a target audience thinks, what it cares about, & how to link what you want to what they want so they say "Hey, thats me - lets talk" ... you probably will be disappointed in your results.
2. Its hard to hear folks with a background in messaging and connecting for getting results trying to tell you that. That's because your belief in your direction is so strong in you that you think everyone will agree & want to join in. You get blinded by that belief & it prevents you from being objective about how best to get followers & customers.
Even hearing the communication "experts" saying things like "folks just do not care about that" referring to your pet project, being so caught up in the value of your idea, you resist their expert advice. Its just too hard on you & your deep seeded beliefs, values to accept what they say.
3. You just can not wish things into reality. If the audience has or sees no real buy in reason that, to them, resonates and says "that's me - that's exactly what I need to do and I am doing it" ... your message & recruiting efforts will fail.
There's just too many "you need to do this" messages bombarding us so its critical that you do what is suggested in this step in the way you reach out to folks.
4. Looking at ourselves, our core traits and what we are really good at, we should see what we are good at & not good at and accept it. If we are not marketing types & we want our idea to connect, get the marketing type to figure out how to do that.
5. Its not ego, its pragmatism that should govern how you & your strengths and weaknesses are played out in trying to make something happen. "Why go it alone when you don't have to?" Why risk failure trying to do what you know you are not good at, especially something as important as gaining willing customers?.
This is especially true when you want to influence people, their thoughts, manage your messaging so you do gain traction for your idea or project amongst the many different types of audiences out there.
Knowing precisely how to do this with differing approaches that resonate with differing target audiences is how you get to "yes, that's exactly what I need and I want to do it" from the members of the target audiences you have identified as folks who could benefit from what you offer. If you are not good at that, be brutally honest & let someone who is great at that help you by doing that part for you.
Failure is a learning experience but you can, especially if you want to create active acceptance/participation in something, avoid failure if you can adopt the thinking of what's been suggested here in this post.
And remember this very simple but useful way of thinking as you try to go gain joiners, genuine prospects, customers...
1. "People do things for their reason's not yours"
2. "Imagine the prospect or target audience has a sign on their forehead that says so what!"
Living those two axioms when charting connecting, influencing, getting supporters, getting customers goes a long way to realizing success for gaining acceptance of your idea. It goes a long way for you in getting folks to participate and willingly join in with your "vision" &, for their reasons, not yours, make it theirs as well.
Courtesy of Neil Licht,Chief Advisor, HereWeAre, Growing your business group callhereweare@verizon.net