Stop Writing to Everyone

As a service professional, it’s human nature to want to serve anybody and everybody. You keep your marketing communications broad and inoffensive, so nobody feels put off. End result: Content so bland that it excites nobody, moves no one, and quite frankly gets remembered and used by nobody.

Trying to please everyone is how you reach nobody.

One of the most important marketing lessons I ever learned was to be polarizing. Emails, blog posts, social media posts, books, videos, podcast episodes — all of it should attract those whom you want and actively repel those you don’t want. In short, if you’re not repelling the wrong people, your content is too bland to move the right ones.

Here’s what most practitioners do:

• Water everything down to avoid offending anyone.

• Take no positions, name no enemies, hold no strong opinions.

• Blend into the background and get ignored.

What to do instead:

• Take a real stance and own it.

• Name what you’re against, and what you’re for.

• Accept the fact the repelling some people is the price of attracting others.

Write in a polarizing manner (hmmm, I’m probably doing that right now). Pick a belief that you actually hold that some people in your world would push back on — a common practice in your field that you think is wrong, a piece of conventional wisdom that outright reject.

The people that agree with you will feel found; the ones who leave were never going to become clients.

In my previous tax career, I did this often: Calling out the fly-by-night tax resolution firms, actively reminding unlicensed tax return preparers that they can’t legally do tax representation, vehemently positioning myself against the “pennies on the dollar” nonsense.

So say what you believe. Write your next blog post or video script with a specific strong stance, and own it.

What stand are you taking? Let me know in the comments below, and I’ll respond personally.