Who ARE You?

June, 2021 * Volume I, Number 6

Dear All-Seeing Reader,

In this edition of America’s favorite new-free newsletter, you’ll see things you’ve never seen before, and learn to see things in a way you’ve never looked at seeing.

More importantly, I hope this edition will get you to see the way people see YOU. Do your ideal prospective customers see you as the fun, likeable person you are? Or, like too many ex-girlfriends, are they seeing someone else?

Joking aside, THANK YOU for reading… for not opting out just yet… and for making Firewords Creative Copy your go-to source for the words that win and the funny that makes money. I am humbled by your support, and seriously grateful for your business.

Meanwhile, in this edition of Word PLAY...

Who ARE You?

Word PLAY… Playful Monthly Commentary
On Persuasive Copy For YOUR Business

If you really are a boring, overly-serious, “formal” type of person, maybe your marketing copy – the words you send out into the world on your website and in your sales campaigns – should reflect that boring formality.

However, you probably aren’t that person. You’re probably a person who takes their business very seriously, but who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.

Why do I guess so? Because I know that most business owners and marketing people have had a serious sense of humor beaten into them over the course of their careers, what with all the obstacles they’ve had to overcome, which have included all the seemingly-deeply-troubled people with which they’ve had to deal.

So if you’ve been in business for a while, you’re probably a jovial, friendly, happy-go-lucky type of person just about anybody would like to meet and get to know.

And, as the saying goes, “People buy from people they like,” so if you can convey that golden likeability to your ideal prospects, they’re gonna be predisposed to trust you, and to do business with you.

THAT is the kind of thing you should be conveying, and THOSE are the kind of words you should be sending out into a fun-hungry world of potential paying customers!

Too often, though, I come across a fun, likeable business person whose marketing copy absolutely does NOT match who they are.

On their website, or in their email campaigns, or in their printed ads, they say the same boring and formal stuff everybody else says, and they don’t give readers any indication of how they stand out from their boring and formal competitors AS PEOPLE.

A few years ago, I was sitting in the exam chair and talking to my eye doctor, who was giving me the boring and formal run-down on the photorefractive keratectomy (PRK) surgery he was scheduling for me.

I interrupted the boring presentation by asking, “So, Doc, what do you do for fun?”

And here’s why: PRK is basically a form of laser eye surgery for people like me whose corneas aren’t thick enough for the simpler (and far less expensive, I’ll add) LASIK surgery all the cool kids get.

With PRK, the doctor was basically proposing that he could take a laser and “grind down” my eyes into the proper shape to allow me to see things farther away than my own eyelashes, which was what I was hoping for. Kinda like shining a bowling ball, he explained, but with a stinkier burning-flesh odor.

This doctor was recommended to me as the absolute best in the biz, and over time I came to acknowledge that he was top-notch. But before I let anyone shine off layers of my eyeballs, I wanted to know that they were a real person who might (oh, I dunno) CARE about other people.

Especially those whose eyeballs he was grinding.

Turns out Doc was, in fact, a real guy who liked to do other things for fun when he wasn’t grinding eyeballs. For instance, I learned that he liked to play in a recreational basketball league. I believe he also mentioned that he enjoyed shining basketballs into the shape of footballs using a laser. But I might be misremembering, or simply making up, that last part.

Anyway, in eye surgery, as in marketing, the old saying holds true: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.

And your ideal prospects are much more likely to do business with you, and not with your competitors, when you let them know up-front that you are much more fun-loving and likeable than the fuddy-duddies over at Brand X.

Customers can’t usually spot the differences in competence between you and your competitors. But they can see right away the difference between a flesh-covered robot and a real, fun-loving person.

So take a look at your website and other marketing materials. Could you funny them up, at least a little bit, and tell the world who you really are?

If you can’t see how a little humor injected into your marketing materials can help you kick your competitors’ butts and make yourself come across as more likeable, you might need to re-examine your assumptions about what marketing is all about.

And you might want to get those eyes shined up, too.

Key Take-Aways From This Edition

You’ll see even more amazing stuff in next month’s edition of Word PLAY!

***

Discussion Questions

Send your answers to michael@michaelhume.net... The most creative, inspirational response will be eligible to win a PRIZE! *

(* Prize is at the sole discretion of Michael Hume, his heirs and assigns, and a recently unemployed eye surgeon who will have all entries read to him. Top prize this month will be greater than or equal to the top prize. Odds of winning are just like your ex-girlfriend… one in a million!... unless we see an entry we like better. All offers are void, at least in some respect, if you really think about it. While you’re really thinking, why do they call it a “parkway” when you drive there, but a “driveway” when you park there? How does THAT make sense? Deadline is next Thursday, or possibly the Thursday after that. How should I know? I have no idea when, if ever, you’ll get around to reading this. Boring, lackluster, or unimaginative entries will be ground into the shape of footballs and thrown deep for a fourth-down incompletion, when all you needed was a yard and a half and you should’ve run the ball up the gut. Please do not copy off your neighbor. Good luck!)

Last Month’s Grand Prize Winner: Paul S. of Evergreen, Colorado won with this: “Staying out of trouble, or looking for it?" This likely had nothing to do with the contest, but was nevertheless the most exciting and creative response we received. Well done, Paul! Call to claim your prize. Operators are standing by. Meanwhile, you people should be ashamed of yourselves. Seriously.

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I write HUME-orous marketing copy for happy clients who take their professions very seriously… but whose customers like and trust them because they (the clients) don’t take themselves too seriously. Want more info? Get in touch…

Call me: (303) 478-8702
Email me: michael@michaelhume.net
Investigate me: FirewordsMedia.com
Shine my eyeballs: 195 South Rancho Vista Drive, Pueblo West, CO 81007

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Copyright 2021 by Michael D. Hume, M.S. All rights reserved.
Word Play is packed with glucosamine, making it a joint venture

FireWords Creative Copy, 195 South Rancho Vista Drive , Pueblo West, CO 81007, United States