Welcome to Connectable #005 🧑🤝🧑
I am so thrilled to have you here!
I want to help your business succeed. I want to inspire change. I want you to question your current processes and align yourself with the needs of your audience / community. I want you to attract the right people, solve the right problem and create superfans.
The medium? Email.
Don’t be afraid to say no ❌
Wow, it’s been busy over at my end. I hope you didn’t miss me too much last week. Apologies for not sending a newsletter through, but I simply could not find the time.
Some time management guru could have probably looked at my week and found the time, but even if they had, I don’t think the inspiration would have been there for me to create anything worth reading.
Reminder: creator burnout, or any kind of burnout, is real. Never sacrifice your health.
I am feeling much better now and am sitting all snuggled up at my sister’s house back in the UK. I haven’t seen my family since last Christmas, so when the Netherlands finally ended quarantine for UK travellers and the UK finally got rid of day 8 testing, I hopped on a plane a fast as I could. Sometimes all the mind and soul needs is to be around people who love you unconditionally (I acknowledge that I am extremely luck to have one of these families).
But enough about me, let’s have a look at today’s newsletter. 👇
You are not the hero, they are
I want to clarify something. When I talk about your customers or your audience being your superfans, I don’t mean that that then makes you the hero, who they adore and worship. This dynamic is wrong.
You are not the hero, they are.
The best businesses find success by positioning themselves as the helping hand, the aid in giving their customers the agency to be the hero of their own lives.
Human beings like to be in control, they like to make their own decisions and, especially in our current noisey, click-baity world, they do not like to be told what to do by someone with the ‘magic potion’.
You are not here to ‘save’ or ‘rescue’ your potential customer from their current state, this places them in a fragile and weak setting (a place no one wants to think they’re in), instead, you are here to help them become the hero of their own story.
How? I think it boils down to two main points:
Pay attention to language:
Not great: "We recently saved ‘X company’ a million dollars. To learn more about our products, don't hesitate to contact me."
Much better: "I recently worked with ‘X company’ to save them a million dollars. If you're interested, I can tell you how they did that."
Master your storytelling so you can create compelling narratives that make consumers want to integrate your product into their lives.
"When I give presentations to prospects, I don't explain how wonderful we are or why what we do works. Instead, I tell how Warren Buffett, when asked why he's successful, gives two reasons: 1) value investing, and 2) learning to communicate at a Carnegie seminar." - Peter Handal, CEO of Dale Carnegie Training,
Peter's story focuses on how Buffett, and by extension their customers, transformed into a hero through his/her own ideas (value investing) and with Carnegie playing a supporting role.
🌟 Takeaway: Your customers are the hero. Of your story as well as theirs.
Newsletter of the week 📖
Welcome to a new segment of Connectable!
As I won’t have a Q & A to share every week, I wanted a new segment which I could include in each newsletter. I wanted something useful and inspirational, which fit the theme of connection.
As such, I have chosen to share a new newsletter every week (because there really are so many good ones out there) and tell you a bit about it, link some of my favourite posts and give you the opportunity to learn more, connect with some wonderful creators and get a different perspective on relevant topics. 👇
For my first newsletter I have chosen: How to be Self(ish), by Lauren McMenemy
This newsletter is not strictly email, copywriting or connection related, but rather an honest exploration of mental health, and that’s why I have chosen it as my first one.
I have plenty of emails landing in my inbox telling me about the best new copy tricks or email segments that could send me into my next burnout, but when I read Lauren’s newsletter, I instantly feel less overwhelmed about all my small work stresses and reminded of the fact that we are all simply human beings, trying our best.
I am reminded that life is more than work and I am more than my work and this funnily enough helps me be more present when I do sit down to do my work. I wanted to share this newsletter with you today, so that I can remind you that we’re all just trying to figure things out - but it’s so much better when we do that together.
Here are some of my favourites:
Episode 31: The ultimate question of life, the universe and everything
In which our protagonist’s inner activist awakens and contemplates what really mattersEpisode 21: On shame and belonging
In which our protagonist relapses into seeking external validation from the crowd, and comes up wantingEpisode 19: Living by design, not by coincidence
In which our protagonist tries to get her head around her future, and her future-self
Article of the Week 📜
The Four Dirty C-Words of the Internet
- Paul Jun
Key takeaways:
As language becomes diluted, we struggle to use it clearly: four c-words have become very problematic: content, culture, community, and creator.
“When you can avoid calling your work “content,” you give yourself a fighting chance to build something significant.”
Today, almost any group of people is labelled a ‘community’ - this is false and needs to change.
Calling people who download your app a community sounds cooler than calling them users - but it’s only a buzzword that helps you feel part of the “culture.”
“There is nothing so depraved as labelling someone a creative when the reality is every human being is creative or has the innate capacity to be creative.”
Tweets(perations) 🐦
That’s all for this week, thanks so much for the support.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please give it a like or share it with your friends/on Twitter. I’m still a newbie, so any help would be awesome! 💚
If you have any questions, want to say hi, or want to feature in my Q & As - my DMs are always open @LisanneNausner.
Have a fabulous week full of connection!
- Lisanne 🌻