How to sell yourself and not sound arrogant
My three tips for overcoming the ‘ick’ factor and beating writer’s block.
Below is a transcript of the video.
Hi folks.
So a question a lot of my students ask is - how can I write about myself without sounding cringey, and arrogant and like I’m blowing my own trumpet.
So what I think we’re talking about here is basically impostor syndrome. And it can certainly hit when you’re having to write about yourself, whether that’s on your LinkedIn profile or your website - and you’re really worried about coming across as sleazy, or boastful or arrogant. Or, worse still, maybe there’s a part of you that doesn’t quite believe what you’re actually saying yourself?
If so I totally get this - I’m a professional writer. My job is to sell things in words. But when it comes to selling myself, I get all ‘icky’ and embarrassed about singing my own praises. So if you feel like this too, don’t worry I know exactly where you’re coming from - and I’ve got three practical suggestions for overcoming the ‘ickiness’ and talking about yourself in a way that feels really authentic and honest - but at the same time attractive and persuasive to others. Something that actually sells what you have to offer to the world.
So my first tip is this…
#1 – LISTEN TO YOUR READER
Now, what do I mean by that? Well, the number one way to get over that slightly ‘icky’ feeling of “Yuck! Do I have to bang on about how great I am?” is to realise that what you think doesn’t matter. How you feel is utterly irrelevant to your audience.
In any sale, the key person isn’t the salesperson - it’s the buyer. And that’s just as true if the “product” you’re selling is yourself.
Whenever you’re selling anything – whether it’s an iPhone, a pair of shoes, a car or of course your own capabilities - how you feel is irrelevant. What matters is how your potential buyer feels. So forget about what you think and feel about your skills or your product or your service. And go and find out what your buyer feels and thinks. Get out there and ask them.
So, for example, let’s say you run your own business, like I do, and you want to relaunch your website to attract more clients. Your best source of inspiration for the words on that site isn’t you, but your existing clients - because they’re absolutely representative of your target audience. So pick up the phone to them and interview them about why they use you.
Now, if you’re just starting out and you don’t have any clients to approach, don’t worry you still have options - which I’ll come to in a moment.
But before then, let me just talk about the sorts of things you can be quizzing your target audience on include things like:
· What challenges do I help you overcome?
· Why do you come to me rather than my competitors?
· What do you most like about working with me?
· How do I add value to your business?
What they tell you in that conversation might become a testimonial where that client is named and quoted.
Or it might form the basis of a longer, more in-depth case study.
Or it could simply be the starting point for your “about us” page.
It’s called an “about us” page, but actually it’s kind of better to think of your “about us” page as an about you page. In other words, an about you, the reader page.
Because if you the seller, the owner of the “about us” page are talking about yourself and your own offering, the most powerful way to frame that offering is to address your target reader’s concerns, your target reader’s needs. So it should explain why you, the supplier (or you, the business or you, the freelancer) are perfect for your reader, the buyer.
And here’s an added bonus of talking to your clients. Whatever they tell you, I guarantee they’ll give you insights about yourself that you hadn’t thought of. Let me give you an example, I tend to think of myself as just pretty good with words. But one thing my best clients seem to repeatedly say about me is: “I love how your brain works”.
I love how your brain works! That’s not something I would ever think of - it’s my brain, I live with it every day, the way it works doesn’t seem particularly special to me. But the way I think things through is obviously something that my clients place a huge amount of value on. To them, I’m not simply a wordsmith but a thinker. And the clients I’m interested in acquiring are ones that value my ability to think, not just my ability to write – so if I can frame what I do in those terms I’m more likely to attract that kind of client.
So listening to your clients can help you see yourself how others see you.
And here’s another thing. I guarantee they’ll be way more positive and effusive about your skills than you’d ever have the courage to be. So if you’re worrying about exaggerating how great you are, talk to someone you’ve helped and just see how much you underestimate yourself!
But above all, talking to a client is a way to see yourself and present yourself in a way that resonates with your target reader. Resonates with their point of view. And that’s always going to be a compelling sales proposition.
Now you may be thinking, well I haven’t started out yet, I don’t have any clients to talk to. In this situation, I have two suggestions:
One: find potential clients to talk to. Identify someone who’d be your perfect client and get in touch and ask them what they’d be looking for if they were looking for someone like you. And that exercise isn’t just a great exercise in market research, it’s also a way of selling yourself to them, a way of getting yourself in front of your target market. So a double win!
Two: Find out what people say in reviews of your products or services- or similar products and services from your competitors. And these reviews tell you exactly what your target audience’s concerns, and motivations and pain points are. So when you’re writing about yourself, can you use that information about those concerns, and motivations, and pain points to describe your products or services and frame them in a way that reflects back to your reader what they have said matters most to them.
So that’s my first tip: get out there and listen to your reader.
#2 – MIRROR YOUR READER
My second tip is a natural follow on from that first tip, and that’s to mirror your reader’s language closely.
You may have read research on non-verbal communication that talks about how mirroring someone’s body language helps build rapport with them.
Well, it’s not just true of non-verbal communication. You can also mirror your reader’s words to build rapport on the page.
So after you’ve interviewed your client or your potential client. Or after you’ve read what your target audience is saying in reviews, you can take those comments and use them (and here’s the key) word for word in your own writing.
And again, this is a great way to overcome the writer’s block that can come from having to blow your own trumpet - because it’s not you having to come up with these exact words, it’s your target audience.
And by using their actual words - by speaking their language back to them, you are going to make your reader very, very comfortable with the idea of doing business with you.
Let me give you an example of this kind of verbal mirroring. I once had a client who was a nutritionist and she came to me for help because she knew that her website wasn’t resonating with her target audience - busy, stressed working mums.
So I took a look at the site and let me tell you - it was full of cold, corporate jargon, and that’s probably because before she was a nutritionist, she’d worked in banking. She was still speaking the language of banking, the language of bankers. It was all about efficiency and performance and leveraging this that and the other.
So I asked her a simple question: what do your current clients say about you, knowing that it wasn’t going to mention leveraging stuff, and her answer was simple. She said: “That’s easy, I was talking to a client the other day and she told me: you help me get my shit together”.
So totally not the language of bankers. But also, by asking that question, we uncovered a deeper understanding of the value she provided. She wasn’t just someone who helped busy, stressed working mums with their diet. She helped them get their shit together. She helped them feel in control and empowered. We both agreed that that was the kind of language she needed to speak on her website, not the language of bankers.
So that’s point two - don’t simply listen to your target audience, but write down what they say, word for word if you can.
#3 – PAY SOMEONE TO DO IT FOR YOU
My third and final tip for beating the block, and this is for you if the idea of selling yourself still feels too hard or just too ‘icky’. And that’s: pay a pro to do it for you. And I’d say that’s true even if you are a copywriter yourself. It’s something I’ve considered because of that ‘ick’ factor. This isn’t a sales pitch in any way, I’m not looking for copywriting work at the moment, but paying a professional copywriter is a really great way to put some distance between you and your self-image.
I’m not affiliated with them in any way, but here in the UK at least, my first port of call for finding a copywriter would probably be the Professional Copywriter’s Network, and this has a list of copywriters for hire.
So a decent copywriter is probably just going to want to talk to your clients or read customer reviews and write down what they say word for word, but hiring a copywriter is a great option if the idea of asking others about how great you are is still too painful. Or if your time’s better spent on other things - like doing actual client work.
So those are my three tips for overcoming the’ ick’ factor and beating writer’s block:
1. Listen to your reader
2. Write down what they say in their words
3. If it’s all too much, pay someone to do it for you.
For more proofreading advice, enrol in the full online course, Proofread Like a Pro, available at the Doris and Bertie Writing School.
