Our thanks to author and leadership consultant Jane Perdue for this guest post. Great advice for authors as you go forth to share your book message with potential readers!
Challenge my mind.
Intrigue me.
Pique my curiosity.
Move me.
Make me laugh.
Please just don’t try to sell or subscribe or impress me before you’ve done any of those things!
I’ve been doing lots of research as I write my next book, which means I’m visiting lots of new web sites and blogs. On some (too many!) I was bombarded with popups within seconds of opening the page — Enroll! Subscribe! Buy! Don’t miss!
It was like being in the presence of a carnival barker trying to rack up the numbers. Consultant Steve Tobak calls this behavior “me2me.”
It is a noisy world out there, and we do have to find ways to make our voices heard. Yet, as author Lindsay Buroker writes, “As with most things, there are good ways to go about it [self-promotion] and bad ways; or, as I’m calling them, shameless and shameful ways.” There’s a big difference between tooting your horn and using a 300-member marching band to do it.
Loud isn’t the answer. The pull of the whisper is.
Give me a reason to engage. Being a blind consumer is shameful – why sign-up to receive dozens of blogs only to hit the delete button without reading them? If a site’s content is informative or inspiring, I’ll gladly visit, subscribe, or share. But there’s no way for me to know if your message teaches, tests, provokes or exhilarates me without having first had the opportunity to experience it. Let me savor the flavor before throwing the sales pitch (or telling me how great you are) my way.
Go beyond self-interest. Character-based leaders believe you can be a leader without the leader: being someone who focuses more on “we” and less on “me.” Build a relationship, make a connection, challenge the mind, and inspire the heart. Life is a perpetual teeter-totter ride between selfish and selfless acts. Don’t get unbalanced.
Stop trying so hard. There’s something incredibly mesmerizing about someone who manages to have both confidence and humility. Conversely, someone full of hubris and arrogance is off-putting. One pulls you toward them, the other pushes you away. I’m not interested in the fact (???) that you earned $95,000 last month. I am interested in how your experiences made you a better person or how your ideas made a positive difference for others. Grace and authenticity are irresistible magnets.
Because the world is raucous, people believe they must be loud and pushy to be heard. For me, it’s the pull of the whisper. We all just have to remember to listen for it.
Jane Perdue is a leadership consultant, speaker, writer, and Principal at Braithwaite Innovation Group, a female-owned professional development firm. Previously she was an executive in Fortune 100 telecommunication companies. Her passion is inspiring performance, connection, and power at the intersection of the art of leadership and the science of business.
Interesting article. I struggle with the fine edge of promotion vs. over promotion.I try to share my humorous writing style contained in my books by writing silly humorous blogs, but then to get people to read my blogs, I may over promote with humorous face book and twitter blog promos.. In fact, I may be wearing out ‘humor, entirely. Can you give advice before earth becomes a desolate and dreary place?
Try retweeting/reposting other humorous stuff besides your own… What you’re going to need, sooner than later, is a bit more seamless integration between your website, blog and FB pages – with owning your own domain it’s time you migrated to a WordPress backend where those things can be more easily seamless and get you better traffic and more attention! Can chat at your leisure – email [email protected] to set up a time. (Great eye tats on the FB woman, btw!)
You are so right about those pop-up messages when first going to a site. An estimated 95% of the time, I just close the tab and never return.
The other thing that is so annoying is that when you might actually order something, there is, more and more often, an “automatic renewal” attached to the order that you cannot opt out of. In these cases, I spend my money elsewhere.
I was beginning to think I was the only person who felt this way. Lately, everywhere I look there is someone trying to cram their message down your throat or worse, trying to show you how to cram your message down other peoples throats.
You’re so right, Jon! We tell clients that shouting “Look at me, look at me” is the fastest way to get unfriended and unfollowed. Today’s social marketing is about us saying, “hey, look at them – we like them, how ’bout you?” and providing a conduit for conversation, whereupon folks will realize they want to hang with you, too. Current wisdom in this arena is the 10% rule – meaning, it’s okay to say what you’re about 10% of the time; the rest should be about sharing useful, entertaining and/or inspiring info surrounding the “what you’re about.” Write on!
Excellent piece that provokes thought. Having come from a background in sales and marketing, and having trained a few women to sell, I can attest to a few things. There’s a difference in selling tangible and intangible products. Trying to “sell” your blog or even your book would fall into the latter category and though it might well require a different kind of finesse, it still requires a skillful approach. In my opinion, one still needs to ask for the order. But after reading this, a whisper might well achieve the same goal. I enjoyed this immensely.