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All “About” success: Aaron Biebert

August 11, 2011 By 7 Comments

The perfect formula?

Remember the mad scientists of the Middle Ages who thought they could turn common elements into gold if they just got the chemistry right?

To a certain extent, marketers are still practicing alchemy today, and nowhere is the formula more elusive than it is on your “About” page. This is the ultimate laboratory, where words and images are supposed to produce a chemical reaction in the visitor’s brain. When it works — pure gold. But it doesn’t work very often.

With that in mind, I thought I’d start a weekly series on “About” pages that do work, hoping to analyze some of the ingredients that go into the perfect page. I won’t cover my own clients, since that would be a conflict of interest. If I include someone here, it’s because their page worked its magic on me — and might just serve as a model for you.

First victim: Aaron Biebert (@biebert), whom I just discovered this week on Twitter. His whole blog is intensely personal and revealing, and the “About” page is no exception. If your business depends on a deep, personal connection with customers, then Aaron’s page could well serve as a template:

  1. He starts with an attention-getting lead: “I’ve dedicated my life to giving away a Billion dollars and making a difference in the world.” Stops you in your tracks and practically forces you to click on the link, right? Aaron’s actually taking a bit of a gamble here. His claim could come across as braggadocio, but he quickly tempers it with a welcome dose of humility: “Since I didn’t start with much, I’ve got a long way to go. That’s why I usually work until 2am each night.”
  2. He respects his readers’ time. Above the fold is an executive summary that’s barely 100 words long. If you’re in a hurry, you get the quick version of what drives Aaron and what his blog is all about. The typical “resume” section gets pushed to the end. Very smart, very efficient.
  3. He writes from the heart. Some “About” pages are cool and impersonal. Some are actually written in the third person, which is downright frigid. By contrast, look at the warmth of Aaron’s page. He chooses words that convey his personality: love, passionate, optimist, inspired. Admittedly, that won’t appeal to everyone; cynics may find the tone annoying. But Aaron doesn’t want cynics in his tribe, so that’s okay. Attraction and alienation are two sides of the same coin, and it’s always better to focus on the former.

One other thing: Notice that Aaron breaks the oldest rule of selling by never asking for the sale. Other than a simple link to “like us on Facebook,” there’s no call to action here. He alludes to writing, speaking and consulting, but you won’t find a button to “Buy my e-book!” or “Schedule your consultation!”

“My goal for this page is to let people inside what I’m thinking and give them a vision for where I’m going,” Aaron told me. “I intentionally don’t sell anything because I’m trying to connect with people, not sell them anything. If they really like what you’re about, they’ll call themselves to action. That’s what I was going for.”

Is that a good thing? I’m not sure it’s a smart strategy for every business, but the low-key approach does help Aaron stand out from the crowd. By not asking for the sale, he helps to lower my defenses and raise my curiosity.

Personally, I just want to buy the guy a cup of coffee and pick his brain. And after the coffee, I’d probably sign up for whatever he’s selling.

By the way, Aaron is a terrific writer, so he makes this look effortless. But don’t be fooled. The current page is “version 3.1,” and he spent about 2 hours perfecting what you see here.

The lesson: A good “About” page should grow and mature — just like the person behind it.

What do you think? Does Aaron’s page make you feel connected to him? What is it in particular that really works here? And what do you think of his soft-sell approach?

Finally, I need your help in identifying other “About” pages that work. Please drop me a line or post your links below. We’ll be back next week with another installment.

Photo credit: petercat.harris via flickr CC

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Biography building block #3: Drama

August 5, 2011 By Leave a Comment

(Note: This is the third installment in an occasional series. Earlier posts can be found here and here.)

shakespeare, drama, business biographyIf you’ve ever endured a mumblecore film or forced yourself to slog through 100 pages of Proust, you understand why drama is indispensable to a story. Without drama or conflict, there’s no forward motion, and you’re stuck with the status quo, which is Latin for “boring.”

A business biography that focuses only on your personnel and products is every bit as dull. The solution: Spice up your storyline by letting customers know about some of the hurdles and hardships your company has faced.

That’s not to say that your business biography needs to read like a soap opera in order to be interesting. Drama comes in many forms, and even small conflicts can drive a story forward. Chances are you’ve experienced the drama of:

  1. Recession. Everyone knows the pain of the last few years, and shuttered storefronts are proof that small businesses felt the pain, too. When you share your story of survival, customers will feel more inclined to stick with you during the good times.
  2. Competition. Big-box stores may have low prices, but mom-and-pop shops have emotion on their side. You’re David in this story, so share how it felt when Goliath came to town. Don’t worry about bringing the giant down. Just standing your ground makes you the good guy, and it makes for a great story.
  3. Disaster. Fires, floods, earthquakes — nobody wants to experience that kind of drama, but when disaster does strike, be sure to make it a part of your business biography. It worked for Trae Wieniewitz, who uprooted his financial planning service following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, moving hundreds of miles away to Knoxville, Tenn., where he didn’t know a soul. Initially viewed as an interloper, Wieniewitz used his survivor story to help connect with the locals, and his business grew seven-fold.

Drama works because it humanizes the players and gives us someone to cheer for. We identify with struggle. We connect with emotions such as fear, uncertainty and disappointment.

You don’t have to be a Shakespeare to harness the power of drama; you just have to be honest, vulnerable and human. For instance, take Erika Kotite, the founder of a brilliant and beautiful online magazine called Toque. I’ve enjoyed Toque from the start, but it took this newsletter item to get me truly emotionally invested:

Toque was hacked two weeks ago. Seems a gang of phish-farmers decided they wanted to harvest some bank customers and chose one of my sites as control central. It was like having bad case of head lice: miserable and damn hard to get rid of.

In her newsletter, Kotite recounts the struggle to get Toque up and running again, shares some of the lessons learned, and then closes with this:

Adversity builds character, crisis tests resiliency. Although worn out from the drama of resuscitating Toque, I am gratified to realize that it’s well worth saving.

Kotite’s little drama won’t make the evening news, but it will likely make readers rally to her cause — and therein lies the power of a story well told.

Photo credit: tonynetone via flickr CC

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Telling your story on Twitter

August 4, 2011 By 1 Comment

I confess to having a love-hate relationship with Twitter. It can be a huge time suck, it’s more demanding than a crying baby, and it tends to encourage a certain superficiality in communication and relationships.

For all its drawbacks, however, I’ve slowly come to accept that Twitter might just be the single best place on the Internet for telling your story.

How’s that again, you say? Everyone knows that you can’t pour out your heart, share your resume or write your biography in 140 characters — and that’s precisely why Twitter is such a great storytelling medium. The maddening, arbitrary limit of 140 characters forces us to dole out the details slowly, a bit at a time, just like we would in real life.

Or just like we should in real life. We’ve all met people who never learned when to shut up about themselves, and we know from experience how tedious those folks can be. Yet too often we do exactly the same thing in our business communication. The result? Websites and social media profiles that read like a dense, self-congratulatory application for “Who’s Who.”

Zzzzzzz

With its 140-character limit, Twitter helps to enforce the rules of good communication, like the helpful friend who kicks you under the table when you’re monopolizing the conversation on a double date. With Twitter, you say something brief, put it out there, and then sit back and listen to what others are saying. Compared to reading through a long “About” page, Twitter is actually a far more natural, conversational way of learning about someone.

The key to telling your story on Twitter is to reveal yourself little by little, dropping in occasional revelations throughout the online conversation. Sure, people will miss many of the details, but that’s okay — you’re not that interesting, anyway.

What percentage of your tweets should be “all about you”? In much of social media, the 80/20 rule seems to work, but I actually think 20% may be high when it comes to Twitter. A couple of tweets a day is probably enough; over the course of weeks and months, those daily hints will add up, and casual followers will start to get a good idea of what you’re all about.

One final note: There’s an interesting discussion at Tech ‘n Marketing about how to decide which of your followers is worth following back. Hillel Fuld  says that bios and interests are two of the five criteria he uses, but researching that kind of personal information often requires you to leave Twitter, which can be a pain.

If you want to tell your story within Twitter itself, try giving readers an easy way to follow that storyline. I’ve started experimenting with the hashtag #aboutpenpointer. Anyone who looks at my timeline can easily pick out my more personal tweets, and they can do a quick search if they want to know more.

I think the #about[yourhandlehere] hashtag is an easy solution for teasing out biographical tweets from the rest of your timeline. But I wonder if anyone else has found a better way — or if you think such a step is necessary at all?

Photo credit: wiselywoven via flickr CC

Filed Under: Social media Tagged With: , ,

How to get publicity of biblical proportions

July 28, 2011 By 2 Comments

What does this story remind you of:

A burned-out Internet entrepreneur decides he wants to spend more time with his family, so he opens a small retail shop that sells and services Apple products. He makes a decent living, eats lunch and dinner at home every day, and life is generally good — until Apple announces plans to open one of its sleek corporate stores in the same sleepy Georgia town.

Rather than run away, the entrepreneur fights back. He adds more services, more workshops and five times the number of accessories carried by the typical Apple store. Lo and behold, the giant fails to crush the little guy. In fact, PeachMac grows to a mini-chain with five locations.

Even if you weren’t brought up in Sunday School, the words “David and Goliath” might spring to mind. I couldn’t help but think of the analogy this morning as I read the story of scrappy little PeachMac and its improbable battle with the retail giant. That got me thinking about other stories that resonate far beyond the church pew — and the lessons they might hold for business communicators.

David-vs-Goliath is one of those universal stories that everyone can relate to. We’ve all felt like “the little guy,” so we love it when the giants fall. Customers aren’t immune to that feeling, and neither are reporters. Everyone wants to see the little guy win, which means you can’t lose by emphasizing the David-and-Goliath aspect of your story.

Here are three more biblical phrases that have found their way into common usage, along with suggestions for applying the universal themes to your own business story:

  • The patience of Job. Sounds vaguely familiar, right? In case it’s been a while, Job was the one who lost everything through no fault of his own. Even in poverty, sickness and personal tragedy, he never lost his faith — and in the end he was vindicated with more than he ever had before. How it applies to you: Everyone loves a comeback story. Rather than hiding your hardships, make them part of your narrative. If customers can identify with your struggles, they’ll be more eager to contribute to your success.
  • Walking on water. This phrase comes from the story of Jesus walking across the waves to save his followers who seemed certain to perish in a storm. How it applies to you: Everyone wants to believe in miracles. Sometimes success can be so fast or so improbable that it boggles the mind. That makes for a great story — provided you handle it with care. Walking on water should be slightly bewildering, even for those who have done it. If you appear to take it for granted or take full credit, you’ll just come across as arrogant, and your reputation will sink like a stone.
  • A good Samaritan. The biblical good Samaritan took pity on a robbery victim who had been ignored by previous passersby. He interrupted his own journey and spent his own funds nursing the man back to health. How it applies to you: Everyone loves a “good guy.” We identify with people and organizations that help others and make the world a better place. Find tactful ways of establishing your Samaritan credentials and letting others know what you’re doing. Just make sure it’s sincere — no one likes somebody who exploits the less fortunate.

I’m sure there are plenty more examples I’ve overlooked, plus similar stories from other faiths. Feel free to contribute below.

Photo credit: humancarbine via flickr CC

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When to share, when to shut up

July 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Sometimes on the tennis or volleyball court, I’ll get a shooting pain in my left knee that forces me to stop and bandage up. When my opponents ask what’s wrong, I always give the same reply: “Old soccer injury.”

That answer is 100% accurate – even if it’s not 100% complete. I did tear my ligaments playing soccer and spent weeks hobbling around on crutches. What I don’t normally tell people is exactly how it happened.

I’m not especially proud of the rest of the story, but it may hold some lessons for business owners who wonder how far they should go in sharing their personal tales.

My friend Mike Figliuolo over at thoughtLEADERS convinced me to spill the beans in a guest post for his blog, so please head over there for all the embarrassing details.

Just promise you won’t think less of me.

Photo credit: jbelluch via flickr CC

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5 ways to get a reporter’s attention

July 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

(Note: For part 1 in this series, please click here.) press, media, media relations

It’s not yet 9:00 on a Tuesday morning, and I already have more than 150 requests this week from reporters seeking input on stories they are writing. I’d say 100 requests per day is pretty average, and the emails from HARO and Reporter Connection come five days a week. So the math is simple: If just 1/2 of 1% of those queries are applicable to you and your business, that’s more than a dozen chances every month to share your story with a much bigger audience.

How big, you ask? So far this week I’ve seen requests from USA Today, CNN, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, NBC News and TheStreet.com, just to name a few. That, as they say, is the kind of publicity that money just can’t buy.

Naturally, plenty of other business owners have caught on to this little secret, so you’ll have to work hard to ensure that your reply stands out from the rest. Based on 20 years of writing for the small-business press, I have a few suggestions for doing just that:

  1. Wait for the right opportunity. Reporters are usually very specific about what they’re looking for, so there’s no point in responding if your story doesn’t fit their criteria. You’ll only waste your time, get discouraged and quit too soon, before the perfect opportunity comes along.
  2. Be specific. Every time I post a query as a reporter, I get multiple replies along the lines of: “I have a great story to tell you; please contact me for more information.” Uh, thanks but no. I’m getting dozens and dozens of replies, and I can’t possibly follow up with every one. The ones I do follow up with are the ones that show they understand my angle, and they have the kind of information I’m looking for.
  3. Offer anecdotes. The No. 1 rule of good writing is, “Show, don’t tell.” That means reporters are looking for anecdotes rather than sermons or platitudes. If you want to catch a writer’s attention, give a concrete example from your experience as a business owner. Leave the sermonizing up to the consultants and B-school professors.
  4. Offer additional resources. Most journalists — aside from Larry King — like to do their homework before conducting an interview. If you give me details about your website, blog, Facebook page, Twitter stream and so forth, I’ll probably be more comfortable about contacting you.
  5. Start small. The best-known media outlets always get the most responses to their queries. You’ll stand a better chance of getting noticed if you reply to posts from lesser-known blogs, regional magazines, industry journals and so forth. Bonus: The audience may be smaller, but they’re usually better targeted and more engaged.

If all of this sounds like a lot of work, then give yourself a pat on the back — you’re a very discerning reader. Keeping up with queries and sending well-crafted replies can be a time-consuming task. Yes, the payoff can be huge, but it probably won’t come right away, and you may run out of steam before you start seeing results. At the outset, try limiting yourself to just one story per week. That should help you get the hang of the process without risking burnout.

Can you hire a professional to take care of all this for you? Sure, marketing and PR firms can monitor daily feeds, alert you to the best opportunities and approach reporters on your behalf. Just remember: The higher the retainer fee, the less pressure there is on the agency to actually produce. The best arrangement is a nominal monthly retainer, plus an additional fee each time a media outlet picks up your story.

At PenPoint Group, we’re not actively taking on new clients at the moment, but I’d be happy to share our fee structure with any business owner who’s trying to collect some baseline pricing data. Just contact us here for more information.

(Photo by flickr user Simone Ramella)

Filed Under: Communications, Marketing Tagged With: , ,

How your story can make a reporter’s day

July 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Help a reporter tell the story of your business

As a reporter, I’m always looking for good stories to tell. As a business owner, you should always be looking for new places to share your story.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out there’s a huge opportunity here.

You can — and should — tell your story constantly through your website, blog, brochures and other media that you control. But when someone else tells your story, it’s even better. Consider just a few of the benefits:

  • You gain legitimacy. Reporters don’t have a stake in your business, so when they suggest that you know what you’re talking about, people tend to believe it.
  • You gain links. Most reporters will link back to your website if you ask them to, and that can provide a big boost to your search engine rankings.
  • You gain endorsements. No, a reporter isn’t technically endorsing you by quoting you as a source, but the effect is much the same. You can use pull quotes throughout your site or simply note that you’ve been featured in X,Y and Z.
  • You gain engagement. Readers who find you in a media story and click through to your site are generally more engaged than those who stumble across you via search or some other means.

So you’re convinced that you need to get yourself interviewed by a reporter. That used to be a costly and time-consuming chore involving blind press releases or paid listings in big, fat directories that got updated once a year. Fortunately, the Internet has made it all cheaper, simpler and much more targeted by turning the process on its head. Instead of experts going out in search of reporters, sites like Reporter Connection and Help a Reporter Out (HARO) allow reporters to post the specific stories they’re working on.

The variety of stories is huge — there is literally something for everyone on any given day. Here’s a tiny sampling of topics I’ve seen recently:

  • How to set goals for your small business
  • Looking for successful restaurant ad campaigns
  • How has your executive MBA helped your career?help a reporter
  • How has flex time worked at your small business?
  • Seeking expert on antique appraisals
  • Seeking business travelers
  • What “toys” do you have in your office?
  • The best new smartphone apps for moms
  • What sites do you use to improve your job skills?
  • Small business leadership success stories

When you see something that looks like a fit, you can pitch directly to the reporter, making your case for why you should be included in his or her story. But be warned: The competition will be stiff. For a story in AllBusiness.com, I recently posted a query seeking very specific anecdotes from business owners who had tried daily-deal websites. Even with a narrowly defined topic, I still got more than two dozen responses in just the first two days. At that point, I stopped reading.

How do you break through the clutter and really grab a reporter’s attention? I’ll cover that topic in my next post. For now, though, do yourself a favor and sign up for a free membership at both HARO and Reporter Connection. Get a feel for the topics, get familiar with the process, and get ready to tell your story to a broader audience.

(Photo by flickr user Shavar Ross)

Filed Under: Communications Tagged With: , ,

We Who?

June 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Don't be a nameless, faceless "we"

Sweeping generalizations are usually a waste of time, but here’s one that’s worth carving in stone: A small business should never hide behind “we.”

We is faceless, generic, bureaucratic and impersonal — everything that a small business does not want to be. We is the kind of pronoun you use to shift blame or protect your anonymity. We is for Walmart, Warner Bros. or some other giant corporation where interchangeable, middle-aged men in suits make decisions by committee and focus group.

Small business, by contrast, is all about personality and connectedness. Whether you have a shop on a Main Street or a virtual storefront on the Web, customers want to put a face on your business — and they can’t do that when you’re hiding behind a “we.”

Case in point: This morning for SmartBrief on Small Business, I was trying to write a little item that featured a company called Ebookling, which helps authors publish and promote their e-books. I like their business model, and the site is written in a light, cheeky tone that I find appealing. I was intrigued enough that I clicked through to their “About” page in order to find out more. “Hey, I’m a writer,” I thought. “Maybe this is someone that I’d like to work with in the future.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t find the someone that I was looking for. Instead, I got a very corporate-sounding overview with phrases like:

  • “Ebookling is…”
  • “Our aim is…”
  • “We hope to provide…”
  • “If you have any questions … shoot them along to the Ebookling staff”

The Ebookling staff? When I read that, I envisioned hundreds of drones toiling away in cubicles. If I want a big, impersonal publishing site, I’ll just go with Amazon.com, thanks.

I mean absolutely no disrespect to the folks at Ebookling; I just wish I knew who they were.

What’s your background? Why did you start the business? What drives you? What do you hope to accomplish? What are you all about? Those are the questions that every small business should be answering in order to create a connection with their customers.

Answer with a name. Answer with a photo. Answer with an “I,” not a “we.”

(Photo by flickr user victoriapeckham)

Filed Under: Communications Tagged With: , ,

The problem with business (super)models

June 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Chances are, you know someone who’s at least mildly afflicted with body dysmorphic disorder, or BDD. No matter how strict their diet or how intense their workouts, they can never be happy with how they look. Some psychologists believe the rise in BDD can be attributed in part to the impossible ideal of physical beauty that we get from the modeling industry. (Let’s face it, no matter how often I hit the gym, I’m never going to look like Antonio Sabato Jr.)

Don't distort your business imageThe funny thing is, some entrepreneurs suffer from a similar affliction — business dysmorphic disorder, for lack of a better term. Facebook, Groupon and other fairy-tale startups are the supermodels of the business press, and venture capitalists are the tastemakers who decide what a beautiful business plan looks like. Instead of cheekbones and chest measurements, we obsess about pre-money valuations and product/market fit. If you don’t have a billion-dollar exit strategy, it’s easy for a lifestyle entrepreneur to feel ugly and unloved.

When hyper-growth is the model that gets all the “oohs” and “ahs” and catcalls, some entrepreneurs try to project an image that doesn’t really fit. They tell their story in such a way that they look bigger or more ambitious or more aggressive than they really are. After all, isn’t that what customers want?

In most cases, I think the answer is no. Big and fast-growing is what the press wants. It’s what venture capitalists and policymakers want. But customers generally want to deal with someone that they’re comfortable with, someone they can relate to.

When telling your story, don’t be ashamed of humble beginnings or modest ambitions. Don’t pretend that your business is the sum of your life. Resist the urge to create a myth. Instead, acknowledge the help you got from others, or the boost that you got from dumb, blind luck.

How does that look in practice? Take a look at Tim Berry’s account of why he started his business:

When I left a good job at Creative Strategies and started on my own, in truth it was not because of something I wanted to build, not because of a creative vision, but rather because I thought I could make enough money to keep my family whole and do what I wanted.

In other words: “I was running away from boredom, not building castles.”

Humble, charming, open — this is someone that you want to cheer for and someone that you’d consider doing business with. It’s not the kind of story that gets you in front of VCs or onto the cover of Fortune magazine, but it’s precisely the kind of story that attracts new customers.

And that’s a model worth emulating.

Filed Under: Communications, Lifestyle Business Tagged With: , , ,

When disaster strikes, tell your story

June 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

fire extinguisherPsychologists say talking through your feelings is a good way to recover emotionally following a disaster — and maybe economically too, as it turns out.

In case you missed it, Bruce Buschel has a heart-rending account of the Memorial Weekend fire that shut down his new restaurant, Southfork Kitchen, just when things were starting to look good for the summer season. Buschel is careful to count his blessings — no injuries, quick firefighters, good insurance and the like — but his pain is apparent in every sentence. Take these, for instance:

Behind the stainless steel wall, in the cavity behind the ovens, inside the fire-rated dry wall, spreading to the two-by-six wooden studs, something was smoldering. Behind the steely façade, in the fatalistic part of the psyche, somewhere between my heart and my wallet, something was smoldering all right.

For any small-business owner who’s endured a tornado, flood, fire or some other disaster, that smoldering anguish is something you can surely attest to. But the shock of recognition isn’t limited just to entrepreneurs. In the days after Buschel’s blog post, dozens and dozens of ordinary readers reached out with condolences, advice and support. When Southfork reopens — and we can only hope that day will come soon — the restaurant will no doubt enjoy new reservoirs of goodwill.

The irony is that Buschel may have squandered some goodwill earlier this year with a series of earlier posts that seemed to attack the PR industry. I noted at the time that he had lost control of his narrative, veering into an ugly and very public shouting match that did nothing to advance his business.

Through it all, Buschel kept blogging, got back to his original narrative and rebuilt his brand. Now that he’s opened a vein and shared the pain of his restaurant fire, only the most jaded cynic would continue to bear him any ill will over the earlier dust-up.

Thanks to his candor, transparency and eloquence, Buschel has more than regained the love he might have lost earlier — proof that good storytelling is not only therapeutic, but also redemptive.

Filed Under: Communications Tagged With: , ,
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