Aaron Hoos

Businesses produce and publish marketing content and one of the ways that they can make their content more effective is by carefully thinking about what pronouns to use.

Without giving you a boring grammar lecture, pronouns are the words we use to indicate that we’re talking to someone or about someone. I, me, my, you, they, his, her, etc., etc., etc. Those are pronouns. (There are WAY more pronouns and if you really care to learn more about them, you can click over to Wikipedia’s entry on pronouns. I’ve only covered a few of the pronouns used most frequently in marketing).

PRONOUNS COMMONLY USED IN MARKETING
If you are developing marketing content for your business, you do need to think about which pronoun to use, and you need to make sure you use the right ones at the right time.
The right pronoun can make all the difference in your marketing. Here are the common ways pronouns are used in marketing:

I, Me, My: Used in two different ways:

• When speaking as the owner. Example: “I’m not just the president, I’m also a customer”.
• When as a surrogate of the audience (i.e. someone who your audience can relate to). Example: “As a mom, I know how tough it can be to find a meal that my family will enjoy…”

You: This has three purposes:

• When you want to be adversarial. Example: “Think you know how delicious bacon is? Think again!”
• When you want to specifically address your audience. “This phone is all about meeting your needs.”
• When you want to highlight your audience and make them think about themselves: “It’s all about you!”

They: this is a great way to align yourself with your reader by separating you and them from someone else. Example: “They want to charge $100 for this product…”

We, Our: This helps to generate alignment between you and a buyer. Example: “We can be more successful when…”

She, He, Her, Him: For products that are gender-specific, this is a great way to point to someone who either should be emulated or shouldn’t be emulated. Example: “He’s talking to his doctor about…”

Everybody, Everyone: This one is pretty general and should be used cautiously, and only if you are sure that your audience feels the same way you do about the rest of the populace. Example: “Everyone is switching to a lower-cost provider!”

And, of course you can mix and match as necessary:

• “I know how you feel.”
• “It’s you against everybody else”.
• “We’ve found the solution they don’t want you to hear!”

SALES FUNNEL BEST PRACTICES
In general, I would recommend that you take a look at the pronouns you currently use in your marketing and make sure you are using pronouns consistently. It’s okay to use a mix of pronouns, but it’s critical that you maintain consistency throughout all of your marketing: If you sometimes refer to your sales funnel contacts as “you” and sometimes you refer to them as “us” and sometimes you refer to them as “them”, you end up blurring your point.

This isn’t just a problem moving from one stage in your sales funnel to another. I’ve also seen it as a problem in websites and ebooks as well – the site creator or the ebook writer switches from one pronoun to another when talking about the same group of people.

So, figure out what your main message is and how you want to communicate it. Does it require an adversarial approach? Do you want to make your audience think about themselves? Do you want to separate yourself from “the other guys”? Then, craft your marketing with the most effective pronouns.

Businesses need content to sell their products or services: They need marketing material, web content, sales scripts, instruction manuals… and sometimes they need content written which will actually be the product sold (as in the case of ebooks).

Not everyone can write or wants to write, and that’s where a ghostwriter comes in. Ghostwriters are hired by the business to create content that is attributed to the business rather than the writer. It’s a very common practice in writing.

HERE’S THE PROBLEM
When businesses look for ghostwriters, they don’t always know what to look for. Sure, they look for someone with experience as a writer — preferably with experience in a specific industry or with a specific content type — but beyond that, there are just question marks.

Over the years I’ve worked as a ghostwriter for hundreds of clients and I can tell you that each client comes to the table with a different set of ideas and expectations.

If you need to hire a ghostwriter, here’s what you need to know:

THE FIVE ROLES OF CONTENT CREATION
All written work (regardless of what kind of content you want) is put together by five different roles. These roles can be performed by one person or by more than one person. The roles (in order) are:

1. The thinker — The thinker comes up with the clever ideas and catchy elements; they perform content strategy; they consider the audience and the value the audience is seeking; and they solidify the concepts into a workable shape.
2. The researcher — The researcher looks at what the market is looking for and how it’s communicating its needs; they look at the competition and what is already on offer; and they look for opportunities (including SEO, marketing messages, etc.).
3. The scribe — The scribe takes the ideas from the thinker and the research from the researcher and they write it out; they massage the ideas, if necessary, to create a powerful and focused piece of content.
4. The editor — The editor reviews what the scribe has created and makes sure it is aligned with the thinker’s vision and the researcher’s findings; they ensure coherence within the document and between the working document and other content produced by the business.
5. The publisher — The publisher makes the content available to the target audience. It could be as simple as copying the text and pasting it into a blog publishing platform, or it could be more complex like printing and binding a book and setting up distribution.

Businesses who hire ghostwriters often bring need one or more of the roles mentioned above, but they don’t always effectively communicate that need.

If you’re a business looking to hire a ghostwriter, look at the five roles above and figure out what you already have and what you need. Then look for a ghostwriter who can perform the roles that you need. You might look for them in a single person or you might assemble a team, depending on the size of your budget and the scope of your project and the skills of your team.

EXAMPLES FROM MY EXPERIENCE
I’ve worked with several clients who have simply said, “I’m starting a business and I want to position myself as an expert. Can you create for me an ebook, sales letter, marketing material, and other sales funnel supporting content?”. These clients hired me to think, research, write, edit, and sometimes even publish their work.

I’ve worked with several clients who have said, “I’ve made a name for myself as an expert in my niche. Here is my content, research, and experience. I’ve got the system in place to take the content you write and sell it.” These clients hired me to be the scribe and editor, and they’ve taken care of the thinking, research, and publishing.

WHY THIS MATTERS
For business owners, knowing exactly what kind of roles you’re looking for in a ghostwriter will help you in the following ways:

• You’ll be able to better manage the project and your budget
• You’ll be able to find a ghostwriter faster and more easily
• You’ll be able to find a ghostwriter who fits your needs
• You’ll be able to communicate more effectively with your ghostwriter
• You’ll end up with a project that is closest to your vision and will help you to achieve your business goals

So the next time you’re looking for a ghostwriter, remember: You’re not JUST looking for a ghostwriter. Be specific about the roles you want your ghostwriter to take on.

No matter how good your business is, you’re bound to get some bad press at some point. It’s a part of business but wouldn’t be so bad… if it didn’t appear on the first page of a Google search result! Somehow, bad news or reviews seem magnetized to the very top of search results, and they remain stuck there as an obstacle to a fast-flowing sales funnel!

I’ve worked with several businesses and individuals who have bad press from their past lurking in Google search results, and we’ve rolled up our sleeves and dug in, trying to take back ownership of their reputation by taking back ownership of their top Google results. Here is the advice that I give them:

You essentially have 2 options:

• You can talk louder and more often than the bad news or reviews
• You can change the story completely

Both will take time and investment (sorry). I have seen both work and can’t say which one is better, although I suspect that the “better” one has to do with how quickly you need the content removed from search results about you and how flexible your prospects and customers are.

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT OPTION ONE: TALK LOUDER AND MORE OFTEN
If you have some annoying news or reviews that aren’t budging from your Google search results, you will need to get more aggressive by talking louder and more often.

Identify the keyword that is the problem. Is it your name or your business’ name? Be certain that it’s the keywords that people are actually Googling to get to you. (If your name is Bob Smith but you have earned bunch of bad reviews about “Robert Smith” that don’t even show up when someone searches for you, then forget about trying to manage it… it’s not disrupting your sales funnel unless your contacts find it in some other way). But if it’s your name (or business name) that is causing the problem, and bad news is showing up on that word when people Google you, here’s how to talk louder and more often:

Own the word: Make sure you own the domain name of that keyword. If you can think of a few different websites, consider buying related domain names. For example, I might own AaronHoos.com, AaronHoos-publishing.com, AaronHoos-writing.com, AaronHoos-speaking.com, AaronHoos-consulting.com, etc., or AaronHoos.net, AaronHoos.org, AaronHoos.info, etc. You can’t just copy and paste the content from one site to another and you should endeavor to keep each site fresh. At the very least, start with one site that is exclusively your name or your business’ name, if at all possible.

Start a blog: Start a blog with that name in the URL. Blogger and Posterous are my favorites but there are several others. If you can manage content across all of them, then start a blog at several of them. (Make it easy on yourself by assigning a function to each blog. Maybe one blog is just a quick blog about books you’re reading and every blog post features another book. Maybe another blog is for casual posts about what’s going on in your life, and it’s tied to Flickr and Last.fm and Foursquare. Maybe another blog is your professional blog. Maybe another blog is where you post your favorite videos. Again, make sure your name is in the URLs: aaronhoos.blogspot.com and aaronhoos.posterous.com, for example.

Get social: Open a Twitter account. Use your name as the Twitter ID. Create a personal Facebook page and a business Facebook page. Change the URLs to your name. Create a LinkedIn profile and business profile (if applicable) and change the URLs to your name. Create a Foursquare page. Find other social media relevant to your niche and do the same. Get active on those sites… and own your name at each site AND make sure your privacy settings allow for being crawled by search engines and published to the web.

Post content at offsite content channels: Find 5 or more article publishing or distribution sites and get actively writing and publishing articles there. Use a combination of article distribution sites (ArticlesBase.com, Isnare.com, EzineArticles.com, etc.) and article publishing sites (Squidoo.com, HubPages.com, Suite101.com, Technorati.com, etc.)

Post news: Find an online news site that caters to your niche market and report the news in your industry or niche category.

Make your own news: Write a report – just something smallish like a 5-page PDF – and then write a series of press releases. Publish them at press release sites (and consider spending the $300+/- for a press release at PRWeb.com). Host the PDF on your site (where search engines can crawl it) but submit it to PDF search engines and ebook sites. (Scribd.com is my favorite).

Create profiles: There are several sites that allow you to create and/or manage a professional profile about yourself. They have various functions but include some of the following: GoogleProfiles, Twellow, PeoplePond, DandyID, just to name a few.

Post your resume: Create an online resume at resume sites. Depending on your industry, there might be industry-relevant sites that allow you to create a portfolio page. For a broad range of services, Guru and Elance are good examples.

And remember, the key here is to always use your name or business name (whatever the critical keyword is whose reputation you’re trying to “clean up” in Google) prominently – in the URL, the page title, subtitles, and content.

Once you’ve done all (or a majority) of these, you need to manage them: Cross link them, push RSS feeds from one to another, refresh your content, and add new content. Obviously it’s too much for anyone to do in a day or even a week, but it is manageable if you plan to write a blog every day, an article every week, a series of website refreshes every two weeks, and an update your profiles every month. Not everything has to change all the time but a good cross section of it should be refreshed regularly so that there is always something new being posted somewhere. In my opinion, there is no such thing as too much. If you can produce content – a lot of content – and that content is high quality and consistent, you will eventually claw back your reputation.

REPUTATION MANAGEMENT OPTION TWO: CHANGE THE STORY
If the above list of opportunities is too much time or effort, or if you have to move quickly and aren’t afraid of shedding a few of your prospects or clients along the way, simply change the story. Find a new, related keyword that you can use and start marketing with that one aggressively.

If you are Bob Smith and there is some bad press out there, start marketing yourself as Rob Smith, for example. If you don’t have a name you can shorten (like Aaron), switch to your initials or even a pen name or professional name. Lots of people use pen names or professional names, and not just for reputation management. If you are “Fast Web Designs,” change your name to something else and aim for another related keyword… “Quick Website Builders”.

SUMMARY AND ADDITIONAL RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT TIPS
The internet gives entrepreneurs an advantage and a disadvantage: The advantage is rapid deployment of marketing to quickly build and fill sales funnels with contacts. The disadvantage is rapid spread of news and reviews (which tends to more likely to be bad than good). Like any other asset, your online reputation needs to be monitored and managed carefully. And if you ever find bad news and reviews creeping onto the search results for your business, you can talk louder and more often or you can change the story.

Last night I received a call from a friend of mine who is contemplating a move. He is an independent consultant affiliated with a national organization and he’s been offered an interesting opportunity with another organization. His current position offers a higher potential cash flow (although a big payday hasn’t happened yet) and the new position offers a lower overall income potential but the cash flow is more immediate and the marketing investment is substantially less.

Then today I met with another friend of mine who has a job but is thinking about developing his own business on the side and building it up slowly.

I think both of these people are in a similar situation and have a huge opportunity that they can take advantage of. And I thought I’d write it here because I know of several other small business owners who may find themselves in the same situation at one point or another in the life of their business.

THE PLATEAU
The situation is this: Both of my friends have reached a plateau in their professional lives. I don’t mean that in a bad way (the way some people use the word “plateau”). In fact, I mean it quite positively: They both have the opportunity to take on higher risk/higher paying ventures but they are momentarily accepting the lower risk/lower paying “safer bets”. Consider it an intentional or strategic plateau; a place to run on autopilot for a season.

There are a variety of reasons for choosing to run on the plateau for a while, but the bottom line is that both friends now have a relatively easy and consistent road ahead of them for the short term. It’s beneficial in some ways because it helps to reduce risk and increase time and cash flow, which are occasionally necessary in the life of the entrepreneur.

This is an exciting opportunity that I think can lead to even greater things. A plateau is a place where you can run on cruise control for a while, which gives you the opportunity to invest time and money and effort into…

THE SPRINGBOARD
When business owners/consultants/freelancers/etc. find a nice, easy gig that will sustain them for a while, it sometimes feels like the Nirvana of entrepreneurship: You get the own-your-own-business income without the sweat of marketing aggressively. That’s the plateau.

The mistake would be to just coast. To just take in the scenery. To just sit back and enjoy the ride. But I think there’s an opportunity to turn the plateau into a springboard. I think there’s an opportunity to enjoy the fact that one aspect of your professional life can run on autopilot with less risk and less time (and yes, slightly less income) while you pour your efforts strategically into another place: The future you.

Your plateau can be your springboard — the opportunity for you to market yourself very aggressively. And, because you aren’t marketing yourself aggressively to win business today, you can market yourself far more strategically… positioning yourself for where you want to be when you’ll reach the end of your plateau.

Here are a few ideas:

• Select keywords and start producing content for those keywords. Yes, you won’t reach the top of Google tomorrow but that’s okay because you don’t need to achieve that result tomorrow. You have time.
• Start building assets, content, products and services for where you want to be in 2-3 years (or whenever your plateau is going to end).
• Start networking. But remember: Network with the people that will help the future you, not the present you!
• Refine your brand so that it’s no longer expressing who you are today, but rather who you will be when you have to go back into the marketplace to get more clients.
• Revise your business plan to reflect “tomorrow’s” business.
• Build a following/subscription list/fanbase. Do it now when your business isn’t depending on it.

Chances are, you may be at the same point now or in the future, too. It usually comes with long term contracts or with employment. If taking on more work isn’t right for you, then using some of your downtime to create the “you” of tomorrow is an investment in your long-term success.

A critical part of every sales funnel is the conversion of prospects into customers.

It takes work to convert your prospects into customers: There are the intense marketing efforts needed to compete in the marketplace, as well as the preliminary research and prospect-qualifying efforts. But when it comes time to pitch and close the deal, the biggest obstacle is objections that your customers raise. You’ve probably heard your fair share of them: Price, speed, quality, prior vendor commitments, upper management approvals, you name it. These are sales killers. Piles of books have been written about this topic.

HOW SHOULD YOUR BUSINESS HANDLE OBJECTIONS?
Rather than facing the possibility of objections with dread, embrace objections like collectable sports cards. Collect objections like they’re going to be worth millions someday (because they could be).

Start by sitting down with your sales team (or with a coffee if you happen to be the sales team, CEO, and janitor all rolled into one busy person) and listing all of the objections you’ve heard in the past. Some of them will be common, others will be rare, and others could be ridiculous. Write them down. Write each objection on its own 3×5 recipe card.

Then, brainstorm the answers. Yes, answers – plural. Try to come up with as many answers as you can for each objection. Write them on the same recipe card.

Soon, you’ll have a big pile of objections and answers. Review them regularly. Use them as flashcards. Pin up the most confounding objections and work tirelessly at adding responses to them. Sometimes you’ll need to hunt down data, and sometimes you might have to actually retool part of your business processes in order to effectively resolve an objection.
Then, jump back into your sales funnel with confidence: You’ll either meet each objection head on, or you’ll hear a new objection that you can go back to the office and add to your recipe card collection. Dare your prospects (without actually explicitly daring them, of course) to give an objection that you haven’t heard before.

DON’T STOP THERE
Don’t wait for your objections to be raised by your customers. Address them earlier in your sales funnel through marketing and through prospect qualification. Embed the objection-countering answers into your presentations and brochures and blogs. Casually counter potential objections while building rapport.

OBJECTIONS ARE AWESOME
Objections can stop sales cold. But if you shift how you think of objections – thinking of them as something valuable to be collected, rather than something annoying to avoid – you’ll create an arsenal of objection-countering that can help you close more sales.