The Situation:

Lourdes [not her real name] is designing a line of high quality, fashion forward toxin-free nail polish to sell at market. She has a 12-year track record in the beauty industry and for the past 5 has been studying organic beauty products and talking with chemists who are committed to researching and making ethically sourced, toxin-free products. She’s beta tested small batches of her products extensively on family, friends, and friends of friends for the past year and has solid testimonials to share.

Lourdes is getting ready to bring her new nail polish line to the web. She wants to make sure that she positions the brand in a way that appeals to her intended Right People buyers: high end, eco-friendly boutiques, as well as consumers who are searching for toxin-free beauty products. She’s a capable writer with lots to say and is willing to blog and participate in social media if she knows there’ll be some yield on her time investment.

Lourdes’ Voice Values are Love, Accuracy, Depth, Enthusiasm, and Clarity.

Lourdes is in Phase 2 of her microbusiness brand development, what we call the Avid Adopter phase. She’s hungry, ambitious, and a bit impatient. But at the same time, she’s not hasty. She’s a Methodical Buyer who approaches decisions carefully.

Pop Quiz Time:

What’s Lourdes’ best next step?

A) Hire a web designer and get this brand built! After all, it’s fun to pin color palettes and that’ll be a nice distraction from the drier work of reading lab reports.

B) Start burning the midnight oil writing site copy for her Right Person buyer, leaning on her hunches and her intuition to guide her, plus the real-life feedback she’s gotten from her nail polish beta testers. What was that her neighbor Martine’s sister Kelly said? Oh, yes, “I liked how the Carousel Coral smelled like cotton candy. Nice touch.” [Note: Lourdes purses her lips and emphatically crosses out Kelly’s observation. Cotton candy???]

C) Hire a college student at $12/hour to research online shopping cart options for her. There’s so much to do still when it comes to “branding,” but the practical stuff can’t get lost in the shuffle.

D) Get clear on the Pressing Problem her business solves so that she can articulate her Brand Proposition clearly and powerfully to her web designer, to her copywriter, and most importantly, to her Right Person buyer.

Spoiler Alert!

Choice ‘D’ is the best use of Lourdes’ energy right now. While it’s true that Lourdes already has a product to sell, she’s not ready to do the deep (and FUN!) work of branding her business unless and until she’s clear on her Brand Proposition.

A Brand Proposition is a clear statement of The Value (what your business offers), The Vibe (the style or manner in which you deliver — AKA your Voice Values), The Who (who you serve), and The View (what makes you different — your individuated point of view on the solution you offer).

But before your (and Lourdes’) Brand Proposition comes shimmering into clarity (or mortared in soundly, if that’s more your vibe), you (and Lourdes) must identify the Pressing Problem your business solves.

Your Pressing Problem is the thing that makes you pound your fist on the table.

It’s the issue in your industry or the challenge you see good people facing that gets you all riled up.

Because life/laundry/dog training/living with an autoimmune disorder/throwing a surprise party for your partner shouldn’t have to be so damn hard.

IMPORTANT: The Pressing Problem doesn’t have to be a life-crushing, I-can’t-get-up-off-the-floor-because-of-this issue for your Right Person.

Nope. Not all businesses solve problems that are dire or drastic or grave in nature.

Your Right Person might experience the Pressing Problem your business solves as a minor ache, an irritating lack, or an annoying itch. The Pressing Problem pokes at her just acutely enough to keep her aware of its presence. (Note: The Pressing Problem pokes acutely at her. You don’t have to poke.)

When your Right Person finds you and your solution, she’ll think, “Hot damn! I’d LOVE to get rid of this problem.”

And YOU want to be someone who creates a solution to that Pressing Problem.

What Happens Next

Well, for Lourdes, it’s time to get clear on what words her Right People might think about when they’re looking for products like hers online.

This can be easier said than done.

What might be obvious to us — “Lourdes, they probably are thinking about — and most likely searching for — non-toxic nail polish” — can feel like a mystery to the brand creator herself.

Lourdes is a very smart person. She’s done her research, she’s deeply invested in the product she’s creating, and she wants nothing less than for her online brand presence to reflect The Value of what she’s got clearly and powerfully.

But when she thinks about what her Right Person buyer might be searching for online that would lead them to her and her brand, she thinks like this:

“Well, women want to feel beautiful. They want to feel alive again, light and free in their own skin. They feel a deep disconnection from the mainstream beauty industry, which says to be young and beautiful at all costs. They buy these over the counter beauty products with no understanding of the chemicals in them. Much less, what those chemicals are doing to their bodies from the insides out. They are all endocrine disruptors. Anyhow, I digress. My Right Person wants to feel beautiful, and sexy, and young. Even well into middle age. That’s important to her. I could see educated, savvy women ages 40-65 really liking my line. Although, my Right Person could probably be a teenager, too. So, maybe my Right Person is actually anywhere from ages 15 — or 13? — through 65. Wait a minute! Maybe I need three different Right Person Profiles. I do, don’t I? Three different Right Person Profiles, one for each color story in the collection. But oh, there’ll be crossover in which colors different women like. Oh my God, this is confusing.”

So again, Lourdes, what’s the Pressing Problem your business solves?

Many of us can relate to Lourdes, including me in one phase of my brand development. It’s a normal transition when you’re moving from passion to clarity — and it can occur even after you’ve launched your website and sold your first product.

Sometimes, we feel the urge to launch already, and at the same time, we still sense we’re not seeing the (very rich and well-groomed) forest for the (very distracting) trees.

If this is you, it’s time to get clear on the Pressing Problem your business solves.

The Voice Bureau’s Beta Empathy Marketing DIY helps you do that and more. From identifying the Pressing Problem to understanding your Right Person reader and buyer to articulating what makes your solution more desirable to your Right Person from a range of available options (including the option to do nothing), then you may want to check it out.

All the DIY details are here and your password for the page is: innerwork

If you’re reading this before June 8th, 2013, there’s still time to enroll for the very first Beta session. We’ve just opened up five more seats and we’d love to have you with us.

And oh, hey, if you happen to know Lourdes, feel free to invite her, too.

In the comments, we’d love to hear:

Have you been in a phase of business or brand development where you couldn’t see the forest for the trees? How did you find your way through?

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Every business has a Right Person — an ideal client.

This is a marketing concept most values-based microbusiness owners buy in to. After all, we can’t serve everybody, and — stop me if you’ve heard this before (you have) — when we try to talk to everyone, we end up talking to no one.

We believe it’s important to be authentic, to differentiate our brands from the pack, and to develop offers that meet true needs, rather than fulfill trumped-up desires.

Most likely, you’ve been focused on doing all of those things over the past however long you’ve been running your business online.

Maybe business is steady. Maybe business is slow.

You have some readers, you’re serving some clients, but could things be better?

How can you gauge if your efforts to understand your ideal client have been working? How can you know if you’ve been slowly and consistently drawing your Right People to you, or whether you could be missing out on a whole lot more of everything?

Here are 7 signs you’re ready for a closer relationship with your business’s Right Person:

No. 1

You actually enjoy blogging — at least sometimes — but despite your intention to connect with real readers, it often feels as if you’re blogging in an open-air theater, with no butts in the seats. (Crickets Forever, anyone?)

No. 2

You’re ready to receive more emails and contact forms that say, “As soon as I landed on your site I knew you were my Right Person. I’m ready to work with you — today!” instead of ones that say, “Hey, I like your work. Any chance you do X, Y, or Z. [You don’t.] I’m not sure if you do exactly what I’m looking for.”

No. 3

You write heartfelt sales page — then tweak them and tweak them and tweak them — and your friends and colleagues tweet them and share them and give them huge high fives . . . but no one (or very few people) buys.

No. 4

The prospect of creating content on a regular basis to answer your Right Person’s questions sounds very appealing to you, because you love to teach and to share. If only you knew where to start, or how much to give, or how to partition your expertise into ‘bite-sized’ content.

No. 5

Even your favorite (so far) clients have raised some issue with your prices — and you know you aren’t exactly high-priced for your market. You sense a disconnect between the value you’re delivering and the value they’re perceiving.

No. 6

You catch yourself spiraling into feelings of frustration, shame, and hopelessness about your business. You’ve tried to design a business that draws from your deepest well of gifts and strengths, and yet, you continually feel drained.

No. 7

Something feels ‘off’ with your brand’s visual vibe. Your content is good, but you know it’s compromised by the way your visual brand looks. You’d love to fix that, without investing thousands of dollars in design guesswork.

Getting to know your Right Person — your business’s ideal client — is far from a fanciful, nice-to-do-but-not-really-that-important exercise.

Here at The Voice Bureau, we see clients’ businesses lighting up every day because of their renewed relationships with their Right People readers and buyers. And we practice what we preach. We’ve designed our site, our sales pages, all of our offers, and all of our content, with our Right Person squarely in mind. (Psst — she’s not actually that square.)

Tami and I would LOVE to support you, in a very hands-on and in-depth way, in your getting-to-know-your-Right-Person work. The price of our popular 2-to-1 Empathy Marketing experience will increase on June 1st, 2013, from $1800 to $2700 USD. You can book a start date in late June by putting half-down before June 1st, and secure the lower rate of $1800 total.

Click here for all the details, and to get started.

In the comments, we’d love to hear:

Which one of the 7 signs above is most meaningful to you, in terms of wanting to connect more deeply with your ideal client?

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This post is part of a blog hop series on Social Media Consciousness, organized by the lovely and oh-so-conscious Heather Day of Vital Being Wellness. Click here for a list of all the posts in the Social Media Consciousness series. And if you tweet this post, please include the hashtag #SocialMediaConsciousness.

Most everyone I know who does anything intentional online wants to find their social media voice.

Of course, there will be those who read the title of this post and scoff. Pshaw, they’ll think. Ain’t no thing as a ‘social media voice.’ I’m just me. Let’s not get too self-conscious about it.

But I’d like to challenge that.

Allow me to paint a little scenario.

Most of us know what it’s like to open Twitter or Hootsuite or Facebook or Google+, and collect our thoughts, fingers poised over the keyboard. We want to connect. We want to add value, contribute meaning, be part of an Important Conversation. And, if we’re on social media at least partly for business networking and marketing, we want to generate some sort of interest in who we are and what we do.

And with that loaded pistol of creative expectation pushed into the back of our neck, we start typing.

What comes next is anybody’s guess. Maybe we write the most brilliant status update of our life; it gets 149 likes and 16 shares. We go to bed that night still high on the Social Media Validation cocktail we felt lucky enough to sip that day.

Or maybe, we write the most heartfelt blog post of our life, the one we feel perfectly marries the values we stand for, the work we have to offer the world, and our own poignant personal story. We push Publish. We perch like an expectant mama bird, waiting for her delicate, speckled eggs to hatch. Refreshrefreshrefresh. And — crickets. Crickets forever [great new band name by the way — somebody please steal that]. Two months later, still not one comment.

What does this mean? Does it mean that you, your voice, your essence, the ideas you care about, are not wanted, not desirable, not share-worthy? Not pruned and primped up enough for digital culture? Not spotlight-ready?

Maybe that is the case, if you see yourself as a fledgling content creator trying to navigate the thicket of social media without a clue, desperately wanting to find the magic Social Media Strategy That Makes An Impact [!!!!!!!!].

But probably not, no — not by my standards, at least.

Every voice, and every Voice Value that it might embody, can be authentic.

There is a realer (can we make that a word?) version of your voice and a less real version of your voice — even when you’re strongly identified with your Voice Value’s particular verbs, adjectives, and metaphors. I can be all Clarity/Power/Excellence/Depth/Legacy on my On Days and my Off Days. I can be writing and crafting social media updates from an authentic inner stance or not, depending on the context, whether or not I’m triggered, or how hormotional I am (let’s definitely make that a word).

How do you get to a stance of owning your authentic social media voice? Of not shrinking and shimmying into someone else’s brand language just because it’s the style of Call To Action, or it’s the phrase of the moment, that gets the most shares?

I’d like to offer this: finding your social media voice, as a thinker and a creator and a human being conversing in the digital marketplace, is about finding your intention.

And finding your intention has to be 100% about you, not about them.

I’ll clarify.

You might have a high Helpfulness value. You can write a blog post trying to be helpful. You can share something on G+ trying to be helpful. But your desire to be helpful, and your act of helping, has to be enough. Enough reason to share something in the first place, enough reward on its own. You can’t hinge your success based on whether or not someone responds and says, “My God! That was helpful. Thank you.” Well, you can hinge anything you want on external validation, but it’s not going to feel very good in the long run. (Trust me. I know from whence I speak.)

Let me make this about me for a minute, lest I start to sound didactic.

My relationship with social media? Well, it’s a charged one.

I love social media — that it exists, what it can do. There are days when I love being myself on social media, and days when I hate being myself on social media, oftentimes in equal intensity, almost always within the very same 24 hours. Definitely always inside of every 7 days.

I’m one of those people about whom other people say, God, I don’t know how she keeps up with so many relationships and connections. Seems like she’s everywhere, all the time. How does she do it?

Truth? I’m a whiz at creating what this digital culture calls “valuable free content” — which is the stuff social media thrives on. I can give and give and give, and whether or not I get more business, I just keep creating and giving. Instead of building my next thing for sale (which would grow my business’s bottom line more quickly than will asking thoughtful questions in my private G+ community), I think of the next value-packed blog post I could write, the next color palette from Design-Seeds I could link to one of the 16 Voice Values, the next free call I could co-host with my collaborative partner. I think of adding value, almost to the deterrent of my own extraction of value (read: getting paid).

And if you look at my tweetstream or watch my Facebook page for a day, it looks as if I’m always on. Always there. Quickly hitting Like on nearly every comment someone posts on my Wall. Never failing to reply to a tweep. Plus-one-ing on G+. Pinning the shit out of everything on-brand for me.

But hey, this hyperconnectivity is not necessarily something to emulate.

(Have I mentioned I’m an introvert?)

Why do I do social media the way I do it?

For me, it’s a control mechanism as much as anything. [Ohhhhh, here we go . . .]

I love having a multitude of conversational tools and portals at my fingertips (literally). I love having the personal power — yep, I said it — to dip in and out of other people’s lives, to converse in slices, to convey huge support or fierce love or kooky wink-wink nudge-nudge humor in 140 characters, on my own timing, in my own way, and then to walk away. I like how social media allows me to connect, from a place that feels safe and relatively free, because nobody from Twitter is going to just come over to my house unannounced, and very few of my online connections have my phone number. I like looking as if I’m always watching, because to not always watch leaves you [me] unguarded, and vulnerable, and out of control. (High Power value, much?)

And this, my friends, is the most valuable vulnerable I think I’ve ever been on social media. Right here, in this blog post.

So lately, when I’m on social media (or my fingers are itchy to pick up my iPhone and get on social media), I do an intentions check.

I ask myself (in my head, not out loud):

• Why do I want to use social media right now?

• Why is that reason important to me?

• Can I use social media right now, for that reason, without expecting anyone else to do something, say something, be a certain way, or respond to me in a way I’m pre-anticipating?

And if the answer to the last question is NO — and the truth is I need some kind of external validation — then I try to go find something else to do. Make a smoothie. Walk my dogs. Take a nap (but not really). Or pin some shit.

Now over to you.

In the comments, I’d love to hear:

How do you connect with your authentic social media voice? How do you check your own intentions?

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Once we published The Voice Bureau’s service pages for web copy and content writing, I felt a deep, settled, relaxed yes sink down into my bones.

CLICK HERE to see a round-up of our most popular writing services, with rates.

You’re even sitting differently, my sweetheart told me, giving me the once-over as we pulled out of the driveway on one of our short country roadtrips through the Walla Walla Valley. I feel it, I said. It’s getting that services page up. It just feels right.

(Apparently my puppy could feel my deep relaxation, too, as he fell asleep with his chin in my hand.)

Our ‘official’ web copy and content writing services have been a long time coming, given that the site has been live for seven months now, as of the date I’m writing this post.

We relaunched the site as The Voice Bureau in November 2012 (I formerly did business as a one-woman show, Abby Kerr Ink; our Facebook page still bears the old name due to some sticky re-naming rules of Facebook’s).

We soon after rolled out Empathy Marketing, Tami and I, which is our premier service and most holistic marketing solution for values-based microbusiness owners.

And if you follow my work closely, you know that I’ve been at work on the Voice Values Profiles, beautiful digital dossiers that help you understand how you show up for your community of readers, prospects, and clients when you communicate from your voice of natural ease and power. My goal is to release the Voice Values Profiles into the world Summer of 2013.

And yet, somehow, I never found the time to get our copywriting service page launched.

Despite all this other marketing activity at the forefront, we never stopped writing copy for our Right People.

In the background, we’ve been running client copywriting projects that came in via referral, helping solo-owned businesses bring new brands online, or revamp and realign existing ones. With the support of my team, I’ve been busy building out systems that would allow us to serve many more clients each month, each quarter, each year, than I’d previously been able to handle writing copy for on my own — without having to keep people on a waiting list (tapping their toes), or raise prices too crazily high.

I think we’ve found our sweet spot when it comes to copywriting.

I haven’t always felt this way about it, though. In previous iterations of my business (back in my Abby Kerr Ink, one-woman show days), I’d lopped copywriting off of my services menu more than once, out of sheer frustration. I’d get exhausted by how far out of project scope I’d have to go to get a client some good results from what we created together — because as we all know, words on a web page are never just words on a web page. They create a world, and if the world is one in which you’re asking someone to buy something, there’d better be a strong foundation under that world.

In other words, I ended up teaching clients (many times new-ish business owners, or new to doing business in a digital marketplace) a lot about their own marketing approach, their signature brand voice, and the Important Conversation their Right Person wanted to have with them online — stuff I never billed for, never set out to offer, but realized part-way into the copywriting project that to leave this fundamental stuff OFF the table would be doing the client a disservice.

I needed to figure out how to marry all of this into a complete approach, and so I built out other pieces of The Voice Bureau’s core infrastructure before publishing the services pages for copy and content writing.

The end result: we’ve built a framework for copywriting that starts where you and your brand are today, and ushers you elegantly into the next phase of your business.

You’ll arrive there, standing on your own two feet, with copy that is clear, and optimized with empathy, so it moves your Right People site visitors from chemistry — that initial spark of ah! resonance — into conversation, which leads to better conversion (i.e. selling more of your products and services).

And the next time I head out on a country drive, I’ll be thinking about the next thing we’re working on to help you connect with your Right People more intentionally and meaningfully. Because there’s room for that now.

Please come on over and see if our approach to writing web copy and content is a great fit for you and where you want to go in your brand conversation this year.

In the comments, I’d love to hear:

What’s the THING in your business that, when you finally got it done/shipped/published/off your plate, made you feel a deep, settled, relaxed YES in your bones? Tell me about it.

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