CHAPTER 3

Stay Humble

As counterintuitive as it may seem, it's time to slow back down to a time when all selling, much like politics, was conducted on a local level. Customers weren't “audiences” or “targets” then; they were neighbors, friends, community members, and family. The waitress at the diner remembered your regular morning breakfast order. The butcher knew who preferred which cut of meat before they ever set foot in their store. These people were part of their customers' everyday lives in reactive, mirroring ways that today's brands seem to fall short of.

In the absence of this old-school face-to-face interaction, how do you translate that same personal touch as your local butcher?

1. Be approachable.
2. Focus on your audience's pain points.
3. Know a thing or two about steak.
4. Don't talk about yourself.

Because humility was a large part of that relationship, the focus was outward-facing on the customer, not inward-focused on sales. Being humble means you kill the id. There is no me, me, me. All the focus is on the customer and their needs, and their understanding of the difference you make in their lives.

Humility is defined as being free from pride and arrogance. It is a quality that is often lacking in present-day advertising that beats consumers over the head with the fabulous features and benefits of your products and services. The consumers don't truly care about your pride in your products and services, but more importantly care about how you and your brand improve their lives. They want to know why you do what you do.

Ditch the Id

Being humble begins, as mentioned, with letting go of your ego—that instinctual part of your psyche that screams for you as a marketer to make noise for your products or services. Resist the urge. The id wants to tell the world how great you and your products are, and how great they are for buying them. To be a good storyteller, you have to kill the id.

Killing the id is easy. Simply stop talking about you. Stop selling. It doesn't matter that you might have the fastest-growing company in the industry or that you're the “leader in your space.” Nobody's listening. Instead, harness a different approach—the one that shows your human value as well as your customers'. Provide insight on what you've done to impact your customers' lives rather than what they've done for you. Social media was created around the idea of sharing human currency, not for using it as a bully pulpit for selling.

To accomplish this, you tell stories (Chapter 2)—stories about life, not about you or your origin story, that resonate with your audience's experiences. You then curate those experiences into useful, colorful, and creative applications that engage your customers. With the stories, you build trust, rather than pitch products. When you simply pitch your products at every turn, you become white noise, which begs the consumer to stop listening and tune you out.

If, instead, you ask, “How can I help you?” in every story you tell, the hero of the story shifts from being your products or services and becomes your customers. And your customers' point of view is the only one that matters!

Tell your story to your customers and potential customers— the story of what you and your products have done to improve their lives, the lives of those who have helped you become the success you're today.

Pop quiz:

1. Who are you likely going to enjoy talking to more at a party of strangers? The person droning on about his achievements? Or the one who engages you in a story about his friends?
2. Do you think you learn something from both? Yes, but what is the more productive lesson? Which one are you likely to trust more? Which are you more likely to stick around for just a little longer?

The absence of self is a powerful marketing tool. The things not said about you and your brand in your content and advertising speak volumes about the degree to which your audience can trust you and your brand. Trust builds relationships. Relationships build partnerships. And this leads to another truth.

Don't Pitch. Teach.

Now, apart from noting exactly what you're offering them, customers today also understand what you're not offering them. Audiences today are quite perceptive and notice aspects of your messaging, such as your tone. (Is it prideful or humble?) They also can tell if you're bullying them to buy your product or inviting them in for a friendly conversation filled with relevant information. The point here: Don't pitch. Teach. Be humble, and create human value that inspires your audience to action.

It all starts with teachable stories that show your human value the world. To begin telling your story, consider this: How do your company and your products/services make a difference in the lives of the people you service? Now ask yourself, “What can I teach that solves problems?” As Joe Pulizzi stated in the foreword of this book, you want to “deliver valuable content without asking your audience to buy anything.” Think of your content as an extension of your product line. Nobody really cares about your products and services. They care about how you make a difference in their lives. People want to know why you do what you do, not all the features of your products and services. You teach them by shifting the focus to your customers and prospects, and away from you and your products.

If you've launched your amazing content marketing strategy and it's falling short of your expectations, the shortfall may be a result of your delivery. If your prospects are responding with silence to your efforts, ask yourself, “Did we pitch rather than teach?”

Consumers around the globe are looking for heart, for help, for humanity, for an ideology they can get behind. Are you showing them the “human” value of your brand? Or maybe you just reconstituted your content with the proclamation of “customers come here first”? Your content probably tells your audience exactly what you do or what you sell, but does it tell then who you are?

Think about it. You, like everyone else, make snap judgments every day. You look to visual clues, voice tones, facial expressions, speech patterns, the clothing and the body language of those you meet to decide if you can trust them, relate to them, or have a connection with them. Your audience is doing the same thing with the brands they come in contact with on a daily basis. Knowing that, take a look at your content from the thirty-thousand-foot view. Are you sharing the importance of your brand's human value? Are you making an attempt to improve the lives of your customers even a little bit? Further, what are the handshake moments your brand is making, regardless of the channel in which it's delivered? Each is just like a face-to-face encounter, and you need to know that you're projecting your human value in every encounter, no matter how brief.

If you're teaching and not pitching, you give your audience something to talk about and start the conversation. You need to tell a true story that speaks to your human value while you engage customers “eye to eye,” revealing the identity and the humanity of your brand.

Telling the Right Story

Most of the time, telling the right story (Chapter 2) is eclipsed by giving the wrong messaging. Consider this scenario. You sell insurance. You publish a blog post about the difference between term and whole life insurance. Then you go on to write that if they “click” now, they can get a free, in-home consultation.

Really? Your customer can get that same information from a quick online search. So, how does the information in an article that merely defines two types of insurance inspire action? Although the topic may be important, it's unoriginal, and asking for the sale without a concerted effort to connect emotionally with the audience is not honoring the readers' time with you.

Most people understand why they need home and car insurance. But facing mortality, let alone the value of your life can be difficult, particularly for someone in their twenties. A better approach might be to discuss some of the benefits of life insurance for the living! Farmers Insurance created Farmers Inner Circle to address such topics. One article from the blog did so without ever asking for a sale. In fact, you won't even find a call to action in some of the articles, such as “How Life Insurance Can Help Provide Stability for Millennials.” The branding here is passive and inferred. Farmers wouldn't write an article about a product it can't sell that would put it at a competitive disadvantage. It exercises humility and educates its audience with a twist on how to use life insurance now, not later for its intended purpose. Now, I'm intrigued.

The point is, you have to write to your audience, not simply fill a page, and address your customers' needs. You're addressing their pain points and serving them by solving a problem, sometimes problems they don't know they have. In this scenario, your potential customer just needs information right now. The sale will come later. When prospects are viewing and reading your content, captivate them with it. Give them the opportunity to take action on their terms, even if it's only getting more information. If you're having a problem remembering what their terms are, it's simple:

1. Don't talk about you. Talk about me.
2. Don't sell me anything.
3. Do educate, entertain, or delight me with something meaningful.

To Be Humble Is to Be Human

Let's take a few minutes to explore the human value in you, your brand, and your business. Begin with this question: How does your company make a positive difference in the world through its products and services? As you consider your response, remember it's not about how great your products or services are. It is not about how you're better than the competition.

What is it about, then? It is about your humility and your human value—all the ways you, your company, and your brand contribute to making the world a better place whether at the local, national, or international level.

Let these critical strategies guide you as you tell your story, engaging your audience with education, information, and inspiration.

• Highlight your vulnerability to your customers and win their appreciation for your honesty. Speak human and be humble, and they'll return the favor tenfold.
• You don't need to shout your story with megaphones, slogans, or noise. No matter how big you are, there are people meeting you for the first time. Be mindful of what you say and how you say it, always displaying your humility, openness, and truth. Everything else is simply noise, to be tuned out.
• Customers don't grade on a positive curve because you're bigger than the competition. They expect humility and don't respond well to “corporate-speak.”
• Speak to your audience as if you were one of them; always focus on them, not you. This makes you approachable to your customers so it's easier for them to reach out to you when they need your help.
• Provide cures for their pain points, even if they don't involve your product. All good content strategies ultimately lead to trusting you as you focus on their needs, not yours.

Icebreaker

Great conversations are about sharing, not bragging. Think about the last cocktail party you attended. Remember that one guy who couldn't stop talking about himself? Sure, there was lots of talking, but he never really said anything of value. Well, this could be you, if every third sentence you speak or write is about how great you, your company, or your company's products are.

You can easily tell if you're humbly teaching or pitching arrogantly by taking an inventory of your existing content and performing a self-assessment (“self” meaning your company). Take any article, white paper, or video script you classify as “content” for public consumption and count how many times your product or company name is mentioned. One or two is ideal, but in all likelihood, you have more. When you get to three or four mentions, your customer is likely shutting you and your message down.

Try to rewrite it as a short, educational blog post without mentioning a thing about your company, product, or service. Don't sell. Just teach.