What are you accidentally saying to put customers off?

Talemaking - Business communications and marketing

Every day in a thousand ways we re telling our customers stories about our businesses. Let s talk about four common mistakes you might be making in talking to your customers online or in person

Missteps in how you present your business don t have to be as big as this to have a profound effect on business

Listen to this episode if

• Anything you do in your business can be seen, heard or read by your customers

The doctor who put me off my breakfast

I wrote recently about the doctor who nearly made me choke on my yoghurt when he chose breakfast as an opportunity to tell the room a quarter of us would get diabetes. (Are you making your customers feel bad?)

Other ways you might put your customers off

It got me thinking about the other ways I ve seen businesses muddle their storytelling in ways that might put their customers off.

We talk about four of them in this podcast:

1. Making your customers feel bad

2. Telling the wrong story at the wrong time

3. Talking about the wrong person

4. Telling a story that customers don t understand or care about

Listen now

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Podcast transcript

Steven Lewis:

1. Stories that make your customers feel bad

The other week I was at a business networking function. 140 people are in the room. Everybody over breakfast got 15 seconds to stand up and say what they did and what sort of clients they wanted to meet. The microphone went right round the room, and my table was the last table to go.

The last person to speak was the guy who has been sitting next to me during breakfast. But we hadn t had a chance to speak, because of course we were listening to a 138 other people stand up and say what they want.

So, the guy next to me, this older guy in a tweed jacket and Velcro shoes, stands up. He s the last person to speak, number 140. He takes the microphone, he looks a little bit around the room, and he says, I am an endocrinologist. 25 percent of you in this room either have diabetes or will get diabetes. I m the guy you will come and see when that happens.

The moment he was talking, I had a tab of blueberry yoghurt in my hand. I had just finished my bacon and eggs, and I was cheekily having a little extra yoghurt. That turned to cheese in my mouth.

I thought to myself, If this is how you want to make me feel over breakfast, me and 138 other people sitting here, and you, 25% of you are going to get diabetes.’ That s not a nice thing. If that s how you are making me feel over breakfast, I don t think even if I had diabetes I would want to find out how you would be making me feel when I have a serious illness.

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Steven:

You are listening to Talemaking from Taleist. It s the podcast about using the art of storytelling and the skills of journalism to get your business message out there. Am Steven Lewis, I am the director of Taleist and, as you just heard, a business networking person.

The business networking has being really interesting to me because I ve had a chance to meet incredibly interesting people. I joined a business-networking group a few months ago. We meet every Wednesday for breakfast. We start at 6:30 in the morning. If you are a business owner and you are based in Sydney, they welcome guests. Let me know if you want to come along if any of this makes you interested.

I will be honest with you. When the alarm goes off at 5:45, I m never entirely sure that I really want to get dressed and head out of the house and go to a networking event.

Every Wednesday at 8.30 in the morning, when it finishes, am incredibly glad that it has because there is something so invigorating about being in a room with 45 or 50 normally 140 is a very extraordinary number 45/50 people who are running businesses and are really giving it a go. It s incredibly invigorating.

It also gives you an opportunity to hear the way that different people tell stories, and some of the ways that work, and some of the ways that don t. That s what I want to talk to you about in this episode.

This week, it s just you and me. No guest. I m going to tell about stories that I ve heard. I d be really interested to know what you think, because it s my take on these stories.

You might hear that endocrinologist s story, and you might think, That sounds perfectly all right to me. I don t mind hearing over the breakfast about serious illnesses that I might get. Everything s personal, which is, of course, a really important lesson about storytelling: that you are not your audience. Your audience might want to hear different things from you.

That to me is the first thing you could be doing that puts your customers off, which is not thinking about the way that you re making them feel. Perhaps I m being unfair picking on doctors in this but I think it s a complaint that I ve heard about doctors, and lawyers as well that they are so used to practicing in the business of what they do, that they have lost sight of what it s like emotionally for the people who sit on the other side of the desk to be involved in that process.

Maya Angelou is the one who said that, People will forget what you said, and people will forget what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Of course, that applies in marketing and communicating with customers as would anything else. I think it s at least worth suggesting that if you re telling a story, you want to think about the emotional impact it s going to be having on somebody else.

That to me, first thing you would think about when you re telling a story, is how you re making people feel.

2. Telling your story at the wrong time

The second thing I think is important to think about when you re telling a story in a business context is whether you re telling the right story at the right time. The illustration of that that I like to talk about is

A small example. My wife and I were driving our car on the highway here in Sydney, and we were overtaken by a van with the slogan on the side of the van, Home cheesemaking made easy. We inferred from the van I tried to get a picture at the time, and I wasn t able to get a picture but I just really loved this as a story, because up until this point, ignorant I might be, I had no idea that you could make cheese at home.

It never occurred to me to make cheese at home. I was a long way away from caring whether home cheesemaking could be made easy or whether it was difficult. I needed to be told that cheesemaking was possible at home.

I think I might fall into the target market of a company like this. Firstly, I love cheese, all kinds of cheese [laughs] . I don t think I have met cheese that I don t like. Two, I am the kind of person who will have a go at doing something like that at home.

Chances are, as I remember from buying a pasta maker many years ago, I would have the gut making pastry and I would say that it was easier to buy pastry from the supermarket, but in the meantime, I have bought the pasta-making equipment.

I could see myself as somebody who might buy himself a chair and a couch or whatever else you need to make cheese and have a go at it, but you are telling me the wrong story at the wrong time. So, home cheesemaking made easy is not good to me.

I need to know a little bit about home cheesemaking. I need you to tell me that home cheesemaking is possible and to sell me on the benefits of home cheesemaking before I need to know whether it s easy or difficult.

It might be that lots of people driving on the road here in Sydney are already familiar with home cheesemaking. Maybe they ve given home cheesemaking a go and they found it difficult, and, therefore, this is exactly the right message for your customers.

My guess, however, is that the majority of people who would be willing to try home cheesemaking have not yet tried cheesemaking, so therefore don t have a view on whether it s easy or difficult. That you would be hitting a bigger slice of your target market if you would have a slogan that have something to do with why you would make cheese at home. Healthy cheese or, I don t know, tastier cheese, or whatever that story that might be.

You need to think about how you re making people feel with your stories. Then you need to think about not necessarily in this order, because you have to think about all the things that I am talking about today before you tell the story is it the right story for the right people at the right time?

3. Telling a story about the wrong person

The third thing that I would suggest, that you need to think about when you re thinking about telling a story for your business is, who is that story about?

A good example of this is, a friend of mine who is also in my networking group, his name is Bachir. Bachir has an amazing company that makes extraordinary software and apps that could change your business or could change your life.

Bachir is this incredibly smart, gifted guy who is at the age of technology. Bachir s business needs, really and his idea world, they need, his customers to wake up in the morning and think, I have a problem in my business, or, I have a problem in my life. I wonder if software can solve that problem.

Software can solve efficiency problems in your business or problems in your life more often than we probably think about. Bachir is now this person to go and see. If you do happen to think, I wonder if technology can solve my problem, or, I think I have heard about this guy Bachir, you would go to his website.

What Bachir s website talks about is the kind of company that Bachir wants to build. He is a visionary guy who wants to set right at the age technology, to be the first person to come up with a solution for something for his clients.

What you get is a website that is about the kind of company that Bachir wants to build, what Bachir wants to do with that company, why that s exciting to him, what kind of people are going to come to work for him, and what sort of future he sees.

It s interesting and it s inspiring, but it s not about his customers. If I am that potential customer who woke up this morning and thinks, I have a problem in my business or my life, and I wonder if software can solve it.

You can go to Bachir s website, and you can see that Bachir wants to solve problems with software and technology. You can make the jump to thinking OK. Maybe he ll be interested in hearing from me. Maybe he can help and he ll tell me how he can help when we speak.

You have to be willing to make that connection and as we talk about it now, it s quite easy to make that connection. Bachir is writing a website about amazing technology and a company that he wants to build and how it s going to build amazing things, and you are also thinking, That s right because I am a potential customer. I want amazing things, you want to build amazing things, how brilliant. We should work together.

The reality is that when people visit your website, they are not actually paying that much attention. Think of yourself when you go and visit somebody s website. How often are you in a quiet place, where you can concentrate entirely on that website, and you have decided that you are going to concentrate entirely on that website?

Versus a number of times where you ve got half a mind on the website, you ve got one tab open. You re also looking at something else, you re waiting for another tab to open, you ve got one eye on your email, maybe on another screen. Your mobile phone could go off at any moment.

That s the more usual situation. Which is why when we re telling a story online, when we re writing anything online, we need to be connecting the dots as closely as possible. One of the great things about doing anything online is how measurable everything is. This is the sort of thing that has been tested.

Time and again, people have tested that if you write the words click here where you want people to click, they are more likely to click it. Than if you just say, there s more information and you, say, highlight the words more information.

Of course, we re all smart people. We ve all used the Internet. We understand, I can click the link that says, more information.’ But if you tell me to click here for more information, I am more likely to do it, because I m not actually giving you that much of my attention. If you connect the dots for me and give me a direction, I m more likely to take it. There s no arguing with the numbers on that one.

Bachir doesn t need to make a huge change to the story he s telling. He needs to make sure that that story that he s telling is not just about him, but it s also about his customers. They have a problem. How is he going to help them with this problem, with the amazing, visionary company that he s building?

To recap, you ve got to be thinking about how are you re going to make people feel. Are you telling them the right story at the right time? In Bachir s case, for instance, when I come to the homepage of your website, maybe I want to see something that s a lot more about me, and my problems. People like me, and how you ve solved those problems.

The about page of your website, which will be the second most visited page on your website in most cases, that tells me about you and your vision. The company that you re building, whilst still connecting the dots to, and what does that mean for me, the customer.

Then of course, that third point which Bachir illustrates is, who s the story about? Make it about your customers.

4. The wrong story for your audience

Then the fourth one and the final one for today, that I wanted to talk about is, when your story is about the right person, but it s not really for the right audience.

This is one that I see commonly, because lots of my clients and lots of the websites that I just look at in the ordinary course of my day, as you look at websites in your day these people are experts in their fields. They know everything there is to know.

Like the doctor and the lawyer that I mentioned earlier. They re experts. They do this all the time, and they ve lost sight of what you don t know. What the customer doesn t know and what the customer needs to know.

To me, a great example of that is a guy called Bryan. Bryan is also in the networking group. As I say, the networking group has given me a lot of insight into the way that other people tell stories. Bryan is a great example because Bryan sells photocopiers and office equipment.

You re probably thinking, as I would have thought, that that s not really the sort of job that you can imagine anyone being passionate about. Really, deeply, passionate and caring about. Then you meet Bryan. Bryan has this palpable, you can touch it almost, passion for getting a really good result for his customers.

When Bryan hears a story of how somebody else in his business has stitched a customer up into a really bad three or five-year contract, you can see in his face, how frustrated that makes him. Because he hates to see people stitched up into a bad deal. He hates to see the wool pulled over their eyes. He genuinely wants to get out there. He wants to give you advice on what you need.

The way that Bryan has structured his business is different from a lot of people in this area. A lot of people in the area of, say, selling photocopiers, they make a commission on selling you the physical photocopier. Then they make money selling you the supplies that go into the photocopier. They make money every time you photocopy something, on top of the money they ve made from selling you the photocopier.

In Bryan s model, essentially he doesn t make money selling you the photocopier. He thinks it s reasonable to get one bite of the cherry, which is, you buy your photocopier from me. It s going to be cheaper than getting it from the manufacturer because I m not actually looking to make a big salesperson s commission on the machine.

That means that I can sell you the machine that s actually correct for you. Because if you go to somebody who s incentivized with a commission on selling you the machine, it doesn t matter if you re a one-person business in a hole in the wall, that salesperson is incentivized to sell you the biggest possible machine, [laughs] that he thinks you can be convinced to buy.

Whereas, because Bryan is only making his money when you actually print something, it doesn t matter to him whether you ve bought a giant machine or not a giant machine. Because it doesn t make any difference to his end of the deal. He really prides himself in giving people great advice and not selling them more than they need, or less than they need.

None of that comes across particularly well on his website. He s working on his website at the moment and he showed me a draft version of his about us page. Which I remember, vividly, began with the words, In an era of digital disruption. This is a website essentially about selling photocopiers.

Now, when I was at high school, to digress for a moment, I got together with a group of my friends. We produced a school newspaper, on a then fairly primitive Macintosh computer, but with what was then cutting edge desktop publishing software. We printed this newspaper. We took it down to the photocopying shop, which was a woman who owned a few photocopiers in a hole in the wall. She printed them out for a few cents a page.

The news would be out a few days after it happened. We made a profit from our first issue and the other school newspaper never came out again. That was an example of a photocopier digitally disrupting a market, and that was 1988. Photocopiers have had their time in the era of digital disruption.

That story doesn t make any sense to a photocopying buying audience. It might make sense but is it about what they need to hear? It isn t. The story is about the right person. It s about the right company but it s not for the right audience. Bryan needs to show his audience, why they should be buying their office equipment from him, not direct from the manufacturer.

The reason is, well there are many reasons, and they are utterly compelling reasons, but he s not actually done a very good job of putting that forward. Because he knows it, and he feels it, but he hasn t communicated it in that story.

In the examples that I ve given you here, they are all people who have great stories. The doctor, who made me feel terrible about my blueberry yoghurt, probably at least has the potential to make the lives of his patients with diabetes much better than they would be if they didn t have access to a doctor, and if they didn t have access to a doctor of his level of qualification.

But that s not the story he told. He could have stood up and say, Hey, diabetes is a national epidemic here in Australia. Unfortunately, that s not going away, but it doesn t have to be a death sentence or it doesn t have to be a condition that s not manageable.

It doesn t have to really affect your life if you have the right treatment and I am the guy who can give you that. If you know somebody who has the unfortunate news and they re diabetic, send them to me and let s work out how we can maximize our opportunities. Positive story out of some bad news.

The home cheesemaking people, I m sure they ve got a great story. As I say, it might entirely be that this home cheese-making thing has just passed me by, and actually lots people know about making cheese at home. They ve considered it, and they think it s difficult, so home cheesemaking made easy is the right thing to say.

Bachir has a phenomenal story. When you hear the story of the software that he s made, and the technology that he s developed, it s all there. It s all there for him to tell. He s got a great story but he s just gone off, in my opinion, on a track that is not going to connect him as well to his customers as it could do.

Bryan also has an incredible story. I have never met anyone, I never thought I d meet anyone who was as passionate about office equipment as he is. I am not saying that facetiously, I am saying it s one of the reasons that I love getting up early in the morning on Wednesday and going to this networking group. Because you meet people who ve all kinds of different interests and really care about what they re doing.

It s an inspirational thing to be part of. Again, I ve mentioned already, but if you ever want to come and you happen to because in Sydney, let me know.

We all tell stories all the time and we do it in big ways, and we do it in small ways. You re not just telling a story when you start with the words, Let me tell you a story. In this podcast, we ve already told you about that. You tell a story with the clothes that you wear. You re saying something about yourself every time you get dressed.

You re telling a story with your branding, with your logo, with the way that your sales material look. You need to look at all of that messaging and just ask, How else I am going to make my customer feel? Am I telling them the right story for this moment in our relationship?

Is the story of obvious relevance to the customer? Can they see themselves in this story? Am I telling them the right things about themselves? The things I m telling them might be true but are they the things they need to hear at this moment?

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Steven:

As you might have known, from the fact that I pulled all this stories from things I ve seen in the last couple of weeks just going around, I love stories, and I love stories about stories. If you ve got a good story of a company telling its story well or badly, I d love to hear it.

If you ve got any questions I d love to hear them too so that we could answer them on our future episode of Talemaking. You can reach me, Steven Lewis, through the Talemaking page at taleist.com. That s tale, as in telling tales.

While you re there you can sign up for subscriber library. A number of our guests very generously donated bonus material for the subscriber library. I ve also put some things in there myself. There are some really cool stuff coming up. You get it all for free when you subscribe to our mailing list at taleist.com.

I m Steven Lewis, and until the next story, thank you for listening.

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