Don’t Assume People Know What You Do

You work hard to build a business, a brand, and what happens?

People still have the wrong idea about what you do…

I got the idea for this post after reading What I Learned As A Fall Intern by Winston Heckt. Mr. Heckt interned at Stephen Dupont‘s public relations agency, Pocket Hercules, in Minneapolis.

This was the passage that jumped out for me:

When I was in high school I was told the narrative that construction and truck driving are for people who can’t make it in college, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. One of the first people I interviewed was Amanda Gardas, a pipefitter and a military veteran who does complex math off the top of her head while working in an environment where one mistake could have potentially deadly consequences.

It became clear to me that working in these industries requires just as much intelligence, hard work and dedication as it does to get a college degree, and it was fulfilling to know that the work I was doing was focused on changing the false narrative I was given in high school.

I found myself wondering how many of us might be victims of a false narrative. Not in any malicious sense. Just the idea that people– prospective clients, in particular– might have the wrong idea of what we do. They might be making certain assumptions, and jumping to wrong conclusions.

Here’s the scary part: a lot of that might be our own fault. We might be assuming visitors to our site know exactly what we do, and how we work. We might not be giving them enough information because what we do seems obvious to us. We forget others don’t have our inside knowledge.

I can think of another culprit, too: jargon. And/or buzzwords. We try to make ourselves sound smart by using big words. Or we use acronyms, or inside slang. Result: confusion. And I think many times people simply scroll on. They don’t ask for clarification because they’re afraid it will make them look stupid.

Bottom line: we need to be clear on what we do, and we need to speak the customer’s language.

Why don’t I follow my own advice? OK, I will: I just created a new What I Do page, and added it to my site menu above.

It includes links to related samples, and a list of What I Don’t Do. Please check it out and let me know what you think!

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About Mark: I’m an illustrator specializing in humor, editorial, branding, social media, and content marketing. My images are different, like your brand needs to be.

You can view my portfolio, and connect with me on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

Questions? Send me an email.

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