An imaginary interview with a business struggling to find its voice:

How do I know what my voice sounds like?
Don’t worry. You’ll know when you hear it. After you know, and start to broadcast yourself, everyone else will be telling you what a nice voice you have, too.

What will my customers be listening for?
With a few exceptions, most people will not be actively listening for anything. Potential customers just need to believe they are your one true love. Your voice must convince them of this.

So I want to trick them, isn’t that kind of unethical?
Oh no. Your true voice won’t be a lie. Once you find what defines you, and express that openly, convincing them of your loyalty won’t be a problem. Honesty, integrity and your passion to make your customers happy have always been ingredients for successful relationships.

In other words, you must actually believe that each and every one of them is your own true love.

I don’t get it. How can everyone be my one true love?
It’s not easy, but remember that no one wants to be part of a crowd. Everyone wants to be the FOCUS OF YOUR ATTENTION… so show them that they are.

What is the secret?
Great question, glad you asked, but I already told you, it’s in your voice. Your beautiful, unique voice.

What if I have a great voice, perfect and unique, but I don’t know where to start singing.
It’s important that you don’t speak clearly in the wrong places. Your potential sweethearts won’t hear you. A good social media program can make a good voice shine, but there’s no easy path through Facebook or Twitter. No golden road that only a few know about. No treasure maps with big red X’s.

The beauty of social media is that it raises the unique voices and buries the rest. That’s the way it works and there’s nothing you can do about it. The only way to the top is to find the right voice for your business and then start singing. You know you’ve got the right venue when they start lining up at the door to buy tickets.

So, they’ll love me just for who I am?
Only you can answer this question but if for some reason the answer is “NO”, you could be lonely for a while. When it comes down to it, your products and services are THE differentiating factor that makes your business unique. Everything else is superficial. Your customers are going to stay with you because they love what you give them and, as a result, they’ll love you.

What’s the Bleepin’ Point?

In case you’ve missed the subtlety of my message, I’ll just say it. The value your customers are looking for is in your business. It’s the people you employ, your products, your services and your prices. Your voice is how you relay that value to your customers. When you find it, sing it loud and clear.

This is based on an article from Marketing Profs about an eBay experiment to educate customers about their services.

eBay invited six French fashion bloggers to engage in a crafty campaign called Wardrobe Commando.

The objective: The bloggers were to select one reader each for a full-on fashion revamp. Hailing from different regions of France, each blogger created a video of herself consulting with her reader of choice. Then the fun began.

Phase one: Each blogger convinced her “ugly duckling” to sell items online that actually made her look like a total fashion victim! In the process, each girl learned how to photograph and post items on eBay, complete with catchy salesgirl language.

Phase two: eBay footed the bill for hot new duds that turned the presumably dowdy ducks into sultry swans! The campaign likely drew thousands of readers—at the very least those who followed the work of the bloggers.

I believe this eBay experiment is fascinating. They’ve managed to give their customers a great time while sneakily teaching them to use their complex auction seller forms. If you’ve ever used eBay, you know that this is no easy task. The complicated terms and settings that they use in their forms are a huge barrier to using the services. If eBay wants to collect their fees and commissions, their customers need to understand how eBay fits into their goals.

Just like the love of your life won’t marry you until they understand how you fit into their future; the eBay customer needs to understand what they are doing or eBay won’t get the commission.

Show them how to use it

Listening is key, but demonstrating is king. Allow me to give an example from one of my own clients. Beauté de Maman has a wonderful skin care line for pregnant women. It’s natural and herbal and contains nothing toxic for the baby or mother… exactly what Beauté de Maman customers are looking for. But what we learned along the way is that not only do pregnant women want safe products, they want to know how to use those products for the best results. Questions like “Should I put on the stretch mark cream at night or should I put it on in the morning after my shower?”, helped us to understand what customers wanted to know about successfully using the products, before actually buying them.

Show your customers how to use your products down to the finest detail. The more customers know about how to use your product, the happier everyone will be.

Read the Original Article: Calling All Ugly Ducklings