Can I get a whoop whoop from all of those who love shoes!!?

Can I get a hells yeah from those of you in the crowd who love a good handbag!?

What about those of you, I see you, who LOVE to feel great and amazing in what you’re wearing??

Ooooh yeaahhhhhhh!!!!!

I see you!

I had my hair done today for the first time by a different hairdresser. I was a client of my previous HD for something like the last maybe 15 years!!! FIFTEEN. YEARS! That’s a whole lotta time, right? There were a few times where things didn’t quite work out for my hair the way I wanted or envisaged it, but, I trusted her, implicitly, with my hair. (And yes, those times where perhaps it wasn’t quite right, she fixed it!).

So today was a big deal for me. I was nervous. A bit scared. A bit, well, apprehensive! I mean, it’s MY HAAAAAIIIIIIIRRRRRR!!!!! The hairdresser I went to see, however, came highly recommended. I told her I was a bit anxious and scared. I also told her, very honestly, that this was the reason for the delay in getting my very black roots taken care of! Ha!

She was great. She asked a bunch of questions and, I felt like she was taking some time to get to know me and to learn a bit more about me. She was building rapport. It was fab. I got to talk a bit about me, a bit about what I do for work, and then when we started talking about skating. Well, firm friends from here on out – and yes, I told her that she’s stuck with me for at least the next 15 years. Joking not joking!

What I liked about this experience, was that I felt like I was heard and understood. I explained specifically that I’m on camera every day. That I have a photoshoot coming up. That I want to grow my hair. All of the things!

She did a bloody brilliant job at helping me to feel like I could get to know her a bit. I felt engaged. I felt like I was important. I felt like I belonged there.

This is what your audience is looking for, right? Connection. To feel that they belong. TO feel that you understand them.

When it comes to creating content, you don’t have the pleasure of having a client sitting in your chair being your total focus, though. You don’t have the ‘luxury’ of striking conversation with each individual person who follows you and looks at your content, your posts, your videos, your page. Plus, most of the time, they tend to do it more anonymously rather than overtly! Sneaky sons of guns!!!!!

The first point that simply must be made is that in order to create a connection with people online, you have to know who it is that you’re talking to – and it can’t be someone between the ages of 0 and 85 like a photographer once told me…

….I remember running my first BIG in-person event in Melbourne in 2013. I called it Sales & Marketing Spy School because I’m secretly an undercover agent – a wanna be Jennifer Garner from Alias. Anyway. At this particular event, I had a lady who attended only the first day of the event. She was a photographer and when asked who her niche was, she stated very emphatically that she could work with anyone. That everyone wants their photo taken and that her ‘market’ is someone from 0-85 years old.

I asked people at the start of the day to play full out. I asked permission if I could challenge their thinking. They all said yes. Oh, hell yes – because they weren’t getting results online that they wanted. I was and my clients were, and they wanted a bit of something something like we were having!

I asked an important question: “Who actually buys the photography session from you?” to which she replied anyone from perhaps 16-85 years old. I asked the kinds of sessions and she said “Anything. Family photos. Boudoir shoots. Branding shoots. Modelling portfolio photos. Newborns. Couple photos. Anything”.

I asked how much her sessions were and she said somewhere in the vicinity of $250+. I suggested that perhaps a 16-year-old wouldn’t be the one to make the financial decision to invest in photos. I suggested that perhaps people of that age would have their parents pay for something like that. There was no way as a 16-year-old my daughter would spend that kind of money on a photography session.

I asked her to think of her best clients – the ones you could clone – and she said, “any of them”. How old were they, I asked. She said all ages.

This was like pulling blood out of a stone.

What we ended up coming to was this: To make your marketing easier, it’s better if you choose a niche of people to focus on initially. This can be PROBLEM/GOAL based or it can be AGE/LIFESTYLE based.

For example, a problem might be that a family has no professional family photos taken for 10 years. They feel guilty that their kids have grown up and they haven’t captured anything with everyone for some time. A goal is that they want an image capturing how their kids are right now and to not wait another year to get something done. The age/lifestyle could be that they have a newborn and if you don’t capture that now the moment goes.

Upon explaining this, this woman started arguing with me, stating that she would not be changing anything with her marketing, that she will continue to market to 0–85-year old’s and that I didn’t know what I was talking about, because her industry is different.

Human behaviour is human behaviour no matter what industry you’re in, and if someone reads marketing that’s not at all relevant to them, or they feel disconnected from it, nothing will get them over the line.

But I digress…..

Arm’s length marketing is dead.

Trying to strong-arm people into buying is not going to cut it anymore.

Creating connection is exactly where it’s at.

Here’s how you do it.

1. Know who the people are that you want to work with. Specifically! Come up with perhaps a 5-year age range, so you can imagine this person in your head when you’re creating your posts, your blogs, your content and giving some advice.

2. Engage them
The way the hairdresser did this today, was to ask me questions. She seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me a bit more.

Ask questions through your content, your live streams, your blogs. Ask questions of your clients! Then, when you hear their responses to certain questions you can use this info in your marketing – anonymously, of course! This is more about inspiration than about using their information, their stuff or their thinking. Don’t do that! Use it as inspiration only.

3. Activate them!
Get them doing something.. be overt in telling them what it is that they need to do. You can offer a 3-step solution to a particular problem or 3 steps to helping them achieve a particular goal.

This works really well when you know who they are first!

Remember no matter what, people want to feel like you understand them. They want to feel like you can empathise with them. They want to feel like you understand them. This helps to build trust. It helps them to see you as an expert in them, which is the key to a great relationship!

Remember I was talking at the start about loving a good shoe and a good handbag? The shout out to those of you who enjoy looking great and feeling amazing? Every single one of my clients resonate with this. They love feeling good in what they’re wearing. They love great shoes. They love feeling like they’re rocking it out. I do, too! This is why we get along so freaking well. It’s not about the cost of any of these items… it’s about feeling like you’re being the best version of yourself every day and enjoying some of the material things that can make you feel good at different times. This is one connection point I have with each of them – and perhaps you! There are of course many many MANY connection points… this is just one that seems to be quite common!

And on that note, I’m off to get my kids from school! Who else loves the shit out of a school run?! Bueller?

Get out there, my friends! Help some people by creating connection with them. Have fun doing it.

And always always ALWAYS remember: The World Is Ready For Your Brand of Awesome

Nic