It’s been a busy summer so far and I’ve got much to catch you up on dear readers! Let’s start off with some key insights from a webinar I recently delivered to interior designers, through Interior Designers of Canada (IDC) called ‘Communicate Value with Every Point of Contact’. These lessons are transferable to all professional sectors.
Professionals, you know that you deliver value to your clients.
Your clients know that you deliver value to them.
Even your referral market knows that you deliver value.
But how sure are you that you perceive that value in the same way?
In this age of empowerment, clients are using their voice to make their satisfaction (or disappointment) heard through very public ratings, recommendations and testimonials. If you read these carefully, you’ll notice the striking difference between how clients describe the value they receive from the way professionals promote that very same value (through their website and other marketing materials).
As with all professionals, interior designers get excited about their education and experience (and it was hard won, so who can blame them?). Clients on the other hand, not so much. Instead, they get stirred up about having had experiences with interior designers that don’t make them feel judged or have the ability to just about read their minds.
Fascinating.
Imagine how much faster you’d connect with prospective clients if that gap didn’t exist?
On a related note, this morning I read You Are (Probably) Wrong About You by Heidi Grant Halvorson. The author talks about how “our surprising self-ignorance makes understanding where we went right and where we went wrong difficult, to say the least” and how self diagnosis is nearly impossible.
So if we accept the premise of this article, where does that leave us in terms of our ability to communicate value in a manner that resonates with our audience?
Think of it like this.
Getting an objective, professional perspective on your value statement can be akin to translating your text into another language… the one your clients speak . That’s not to say that your marketing should read the way your clients write… that wouldn’t work for a whole other set of reasons!
Related articles: Communicate Value with Every Point of Contact
