Nobody cares about your business.
Wow, that came out kinda harsh. But it’s the truth. Nobody cares about your business except you. And maybe your husband/wife/partner/child/cat who depends on that business to keep them in the lifestyle to which they are accustomed.
Nobody cares about your business, so stop blogging about it already!
“But Lacy,” I hear you whinging through the chambers of the interwebs, “Jenny Shih blogs about her business. And Danielle LaPorte! She talks all the time about what she’s doing with her business. And [insert name of your business superhero here] blogs about her business! It works for her, and I want to be like her!”
But the thing is, no, they don’t.
They don’t blog about their businesses. They tell stories. And most of the time, those stories are about you, not them.
When Jenny Shih uses her business experience in a blog post, she’s using it to illustrate a point. She’s telling you a story. And because of the way she’s built her brand, she is the main character of a lot of her stories.
But the other main character of her stories is you, her reader. She’s telling you about her experiences to directly benefit you.
Danielle LaPorte is definitely the main character of her brand and her business and her stories. Her entire business is built around her story of transformation, so it makes absolute total 100 percent sense that she talks about herself and her business. As her business has been changing direction lately, she has written a lot about it. She told her fans when she signed a book deal with a bigger publisher, when she decided to launch a line of products that compliment the Desire Map, when she decided to launch a magazine, when she decided to KILL the magazine…
But every single one of those announcements was about you, her reader: what it would mean for you, how it would be so much better for you, how you didn’t have to worry about those changes, because she would be there every step of the way.
Are you the main character of your business’ story?
The point here is that none of the successful business bloggers out there (by which I mean people who use blogging as a major part of their business) is just blogging about their business.
But they aren’t just providing information, either.
Information is cheap these days. Google any topic you can think of and you’ll find millions of places to go for information.
So why will people come to you?
It’s because of your story, and the main character of that story.
Sonia Simone of Copyblogger said on a call once that most people’s first niche is “people who love you.” It couldn’t be more true. One of my very first customers hired me right after I launched this website—because she’d been reading my food blog for over a year, and already felt like she knew me.
If you’re a coach or provide some sort of professional service, being the main character in your brand’s story can be pretty easy. But what if you’re selling a product? What if (*gasp!*) it’s kind of a boring product?
You’ve still got a story, you just have to find it.
For a product-based business, a lot of times your story is going to be something you’re passionate about outside of your product. Do you donate part of every sale to fund clean water wells in Africa? Fantastic. Blog about that. Do you have a foosball tournament every Friday afternoon in your office? Perfect. Show us the stats, set up a bracket, take pretend bets on who will win the championship.
Biz coach Sandi Krakowski released a little video clip to her subscribers a while back of her speaking at a conference, and she made a bold suggestion (that I LOVED):
Market your business the way you share your life.
Think about what you share on your personal social media sites. When you find a product you love, or a restaurant you can’t get enough of, or a funny website you can’t wait to share, what do you do? You market it to your friends!
What if you were to do more of that with your biz? What if you Instagrammed what you do every day? What if you raved about your own product or service the way you rave about your favorite shampoo or doughnut shop? What if you carefully catalogued the cool stuff you do for your biz the way you’d preserve a trip to the museum or the zoo?
This is your life. This is your story. People want to hear it.
How can you tell more of the story of your business? Hit me up with questions and ideas in the comments. Let’s blogstorm the hell out of this!!
Lacy this is so true! For the past six weeks I have been caught up in staging/selling my house. It completely overwhelmed my life. Instead of writing about health and wellness topics like I usually do, I took my readers into my world. I told the story of what was happening and how it was affecting my family week by week. People loved it! I have had more response to this true life event than I ever had with my boring eat well and stay in the moment posts. Lesson learned.
Isn’t it funny how that happens? Great work!
Great advice, and something I’m working on improving.
Thanks Amber!
This is a great post and advice I have been giving a lot lately. It’s so easy to get in a blog about your business pattern and doing that means you miss the real opportunity. You are right information is cheap you have to tell a story that resonates with your readers so they connect with you!
Nice
Great minds, Nicole! 😉
I LOVE this! It really reinforces bringing in the fun and personality into your business which something I’m definitely working on! Really great info, thanks for sharing!
My pleasure! Glad you liked it, Victoria!
Thanks for a great post!
Most valuable thing I got from this is to market my business the way I share my life. For some reason I always freeze a little when it comes to this…
Meeeee too! I had to really ruminate on that one…
Love this article! I just wrote a post that asked people to be the main character of their careers- kind of a similar concept although I’d never thought of it in this way. I love when that happens! I’m going to share the things I share with my friends and family on my social media platforms- challenge accepted! Thanks Lacy!
Awesome! Thanks Anne!
So so smart! And so so true. I always post from all of me, and I’ve gotten unsubscribes here and there especially when the topic sort of stirs the pot up. I used to get upset about it, and now I embrace authentically all of me. Thanks for this great reminder.
Keep on bein’ you, Claire!
I loved this, it was a swift kick in the pants for me. I don’t blog about my business, but my posts are generally strictly informational. I really need to put more of myself in there, tell more of my story, and weave it with the good information. Thank you!
People LOVE to learn from a good story! It’s actually more effective than just straight up teaching, too!
Oh Em Gee! I HEART this post. I am thinking about my sites in a whole new way. The whole idea of marketing the business the way you market your life is brilliant. Yep, bookmarking this post for sure.
Woot! Thrilled to hear it, Cam!
Great advice. I stepped out of my comfort zone a few months ago and shared my struggle with food sensitivities on my blog and the response was HUGE. I was blown away by the response and felt more gratitude than ever for the awesome people that are on my list. Some of those folks actually ended up working with me to heal their unhappy tummies too, even though attracting clients wasn’t my intention in sharing that journey.
Amazing! I love that, Lily. Proof positive that it works.
very good insight. I just started my blog and I am learning to open up and tell my story as it would benefit my readers. It’s not always easy but it is so satisfying and incredibly rewarding when someone tells me they were inspired by what I wrote. If I can make a difference in one person’s life each day, I will be happy. thank you for making a difference in my day today!
Thank you, Christina! That’s so nice of you to say!
GREAT point, as usual Lacy!
Thanks Suzi!
Great post! The way you told YOUR story made me think about mine. Now I got some work to do. Thanks so much!
Thanks Melissa!
This makes so much sense! Now.. back to my blog drafts to really tell my story – not just the neat, formal bullets 🙂 Thank you!!
Excellent, Liane! You might enjoy this post, too: http://ghostblogger.co/how-to-write-with-emotion/
I hear the truth in your story and its a bit scary for a newbie. in fact i have yet to write my first blog! thanks for the advice though i have a feeling its going to be a cathartic journey: gulp!
You can do it, Susan! Don’t be scared. The first one is the hardest. 😉
Thanks for the reminder to insert me into my posts and not just info. In the end I am what gets them to buy, not the info.
SO TRUE, Beth! They’re buying YOU!
I’ve really been working on the storytelling element in my blogs. I like to dish just the information because I know people are busy -but the truth is that information means nothing without a story.
Oh, I get that! But I would think story would be a big part of your brand, because you are such a compelling character!
Hi Lacy, thanks for your post, I am about to launch my blog tomorrow telling nothing but my story so your words were what I needed to hear. I guess I am putting my horse before the cart or is it my cart before the horse? I want to blog first then work on my business.
Well, don’t work on that blog TOO long, Fiona! Your blog should be in service of your business (unless it’s a personal blog!). 🙂
Thank you for this advice. I often find myself thinking of things that I now realise would be a great post, just need to get it out of my head and onto my blog!
It's funny you say that, my first story was about how I got started based on me almost killing someone but after that I let my members pic topics and bloggers they like to here from so it's never about how I do business.