Simplicity wins every time

Posted on by Laura

Simplicity wins every timeThe idea of keeping things simple in both life and work has popped up everywhere I’ve turned lately – from social media to business to family and friends. Okay, okay, I can take a hint. 🙌🏼 I get it: It’s worth talking about again.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”

~Albert Einstein

Such wise words and so true. So why is it that we frequently struggle with keeping things simple? Perhaps because our natural inclination is to want people to believe in our businesses and beliefs as much as we do – and that often means we try to make things sound more sophisticated or more impressive than we need to.

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”

~Leonardo Da Vinci

So, how do we keep it simple?

One of the tricks I learned early on in my career was to tell stories as if you’re speaking to a friend. How would you explain your business – and why you do what you do – during a face-to-face conversation?

Would you use formal language and lots of jargon? You could, but then you’d probably be met with confused or blank looks, and you’d quickly adjust the way you’re explaining things, right?

It’s easier to see this when you’re speaking directly to someone, but if you visualize yourself speaking to someone when writing your promotions, your website content and your blog posts, you’ll connect with the person reading it.

Just let your passion shine through. Simplicity wins every time.

Want to learn more about how you can create your own ripple effect? Let’s start today.

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Personality matters!

Posted on by Laura

casualIt’s funny to me how often this notion of personality, style and even how we dress arises in our daily business interactions. Just recently, I had a conversation with peers about dress code and first impressions.

Now, you may be thinking to yourself: How in the world does how I dress and my personality have anything do with how I market my business? That’s not part of marketing strategy…is it? 🤔

Yes. It is. After all, the saying goes…

You never have a second chance to make a first impression.

And, that goes for your business, too. For me, dressy jeans, a classy shirt, nice fitted jacket and heels are the impression I’d like to make. It’s friendly, stylish, casual, fun and, yes, professional. And that represents not only me, but Ripple Effect.

For many, that may seem odd; it goes against tradition. But, it would be odd to me to present myself – and my company – as something I’m not. And, I’m not the suit-wearing, conservative business woman who was once the expectation in the business world.

People are just people. Why should we put on airs? Why shouldn’t we look nice, look professional and…simply show off our personality. After all, personality matters – it speaks to who we are. And, more importantly, it speaks to who our company is.

How can you possibly connect to another person if they look and sound and act exactly like every other person? If every person in the room is dressed in a black suit, where’s the personality? Where’s the fun? Where’s the individuality? How do I know who you are – who your company is?

I crave those differences. I love quirkiness. I want to know what makes you you. What drives you? Why do you wear a compass necklace? Why do you have a tatoo of a dove on your ankle? Why do you choose to dye one strand of your hair pink? Or, even…why do you choose to wear a black suit?

And more importantly, how does that impact your business? How does your personality translate to your company’s voice?

Being true to yourself is important when interacting with prospective clients, crafting marketing messages and demonstrating who you are and what you bring to the table.

After all…personality matters. It’s a ripple effect that infuses life into your business.

Learn how you can create your own ripple effect. Let’s start today.

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Don’t be a stuffed shirt. Infuse life into your marketing.

Posted on by Laura

stuffed shirt puppetOne of the hardest things any of us have to do when marketing or communicating is make our meaning clear. For some reason businesses seem to think that using jargon makes them sound more impressive. Instead, it simply means no one can figure out what the heck they’re saying!

Ragan Communications posted an article a few years ago that perfectly illustrated this (ridiculous) phenomenon. It went something like this:

It’s mission-critical that we circle back on this important matter of corporate jargon in the workplace. Let’s focus on the low-hanging fruit with a small group first and then loop everyone in. Being proactive about our learnings will really incentivize the group to focus on the most critical action items and value-add for maximum impact. Let’s start high level, drill down from there, and circle back after lunch to figure out next steps.

Clear as mud, right? 😳 Ummm, no.

Don’t be a stuffed shirt.

Just because you’re in business, doesn’t mean you have to sound like it. Back to our discussion about telling stories, people connect to others because they’re drawn to their humor, their style, their quirkiness, etc.

So, who are you? Who is your business? Let that shine through in the way you talk about your company and in the way you speak to your customers and potential customers. People will appreciate it and be drawn to your authenticity.

5 ways to remove the jargon & sound like a human being.

1. Your company’s voice is already part of who you are and who your company is. It’s inherent in why you started your business in the first place. It’s just a matter of paying attention to how you conduct business everyday to unearth it.

2. Play up your personality. As the owner of your company, your personality is infused throughout the culture. It’s in everything you do. So, who are you? Proper? Quirky? Funny? Offbeat? Find ways to incorporate your personality into all of your communications. It makes them authentic.

3. Choose short over long. Often times people think using longer words is better. No. It’s just cumbersome for your readers. Use is better than utilize. Change is better than modify. Etc. Keep it as simple as possible to get your point across.

4. Keep your audience in mind. Who are you writing to? Are they engineers or sales people? Astrophysicists or teachers? Your audience plays a key part in how you communicate – in which words you choose. Always read whatever you write or push out as a promotion with the same lens your audience would.

5. Be you. Be authentic. Above all, you have to be you. You’ll notice that while I said you should choose short over long, I still used words like cumbersome and inherent. That’s because that’s how I speak. And if you ever met me, you’d hear me use similar words. You have to be authentic to who you are. Never change that.

Just those five simple things will infuse life and personality into your marketing efforts. Your clients and customers will appreciate the fact that you don’t sound like all of your competition – and instead, you sound like, well, a human being they’d like to get to know. And a company they’d like to do business with.

Want to learn more? Find out how you can create your own ripple effect. Let’s start today.

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How to tell a story that compels instead of sells

Posted on by Laura
How will you tell your story?

Have you ever thought about how often we tell stories throughout the day?

“You’ll never believe what happened to me this morning!”

“Hey, guess what?”

Whether at work or at home, stories connect us to others, make us human, show our personality. They enable us to share ideas and experiences with others.

But, I can’t tell stories for business, can I?

Why not? How is telling stories for business any different than sharing them with our friends and family? After all, we’re all drawn to interesting people, scenarios and stories. And we shouldn’t discount the power that has to make people want to partner with us.

Besides, simply selling our products and services isn’t enough to make people want to connect with us. And…if we ‘sell’ too much, it can even work against us. I mean…how do you like it when people constantly try to sell you? 😝

How to tell a story that compels instead of sells

The good thing is, there’s an excellent way to think about the stories you tell – whether verbally, in a blog post or a marketing slick – however you’re connecting with your customers. It’s the simple anatomy of a story, and it goes something like this:

1. Once upon a time…
(I finally did it! I started my own company.)

2. Suddenly…
(Now what? I have people asking me when I’m going to get a website, get on social and have some information about my business. But, I don’t know where to begin.)

3. Luckily…
(Thankfully, I talked to Ripple Effect, and they helped me map out my entire marketing strategy and develop a few easy templates I can use for my marketing efforts.)

4. Happily ever after…
(Now, I have a plan and the tools I can use to market my business.)

The same approach can be taken for your business. If people are looking to you for answers, it means they have a problem or challenge they need to solve. And they want your help. So…

…tell your story. Your way.

(Psst…If you’re still unsure how to start, Meet Bob. This follows the anatomy and – hopefully – piques the interest of those seeking marketing strategy and communications help for their business.)

Don’t forget the ‘happily ever after’

With all of that said, don’t forget how important it is to make sure your audience understands their next step. After all, all of us in business are there to provide a product or service. And if we don’t ask our audience to take action, we’re doing ourselves and our potential clients a disservice.

So, what’s next?

If you’re ready to learn more and want to create your own ripple effect, give us a call at 847.245.3236 or shoot us an email today.

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The forest for the trees

Posted on by Laura
See the forest for the trees
Source: Rachel Olshausen

Why is it that it’s so easy to fall into the trap of focusing on only one tree when there’s an entire forest around us? It happens all the time. We get caught up in one thing we’re trying to accomplish and forget to broaden our view a bit to take in the big picture. And when we do, we miss the forest for the trees.

So, how can we stop doing that? 🙂

How to see the forest

  1. Before you start any endeavor – whether a simple meeting, a new project or a new marketing piece – ask yourself: What is my objective? What am I trying to accomplish with this meeting? project? communication piece? This will help you realize that while you may want to check off a single task, each action item has a ripple effect.

2. Then ask: What do I want the meeting participants/project participants/audience to do? What action do I want them to take? In other words, what is your overall objective?

Simply keeping those two things in mind can make the difference between seeing a single lovely tree – or a realizing there’s a huge, beautiful forest all around us.

Ready to learn how to create your own ripple effect? Contact us today.

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