Empathy vs. Credibility
A few weeks ago, when I started this series of blog posts about building your Persuasive Persona as the face of your educational consulting business, I started with a post sharing a key concept:
Balance credibility with empathy
It’s such a crucial concept because your audience wants two things from you…
- They want to know that you know what you’re talking about (credibility)
- And they want to know that you understand the challenges they’re facing and feel their pain (empathy)
Well, they actually want three things from you, the third being…
- They want to know that you have solutions to their problems
But that gets into a different aspect of your positioning–your offer–that we’ll talk about later on in this series. So, we’ll leave that aspect alone for the time being and get back to discussing credibility and empathy.
Now, I talked about a number of aspects of this dichotomy back in that first blog post.
I talked about a whole list of credibility factors you could employ to build up your authority in your audience’s eyes.
And I also talked about how important it was to talk about your audience’s problems and demonstrate that you understand them (empathy).
But I saved the ultimate credibility/empathy tactic for today’s email…
The Origin Story Hack
Because there’s one thing you can do that (1) builds credibility with and (2) shows empathy for your audience at the same time.
And all you have to do is tell a specific kind of story…
A story you already know by heart–because it’s YOUR story…
And that story is the Origin Story of your business.
So, what is an “Origin Story”?
Your Origin Story is the story of how and why you got into your educational consulting business in the first place.
WHY were you called to take the leap and go into business in the first place? WHO are you called to help? And WHAT problems are you ideally suited to solve for that audience?
Simply tell the story of how that all went down and answer these questions in your story. That’s it.
For example, for my business, I tell the story of how I left my job as the K-12 Language Arts Consultant for the state of Missouri to start my own independent educational consulting business.
And how, shortly thereafter, I realized that I didn’t know the first thing about running a business.
Ooops!
But, I figured it out over the 18 years I spent as a full-time ed consultant and ended up with a very successful consulting career.
But then, a few years ago, I decided to come off the road and started a business–Ed Consultant Marketing–helping other educational consultants solve the same challenges that I had to learn to overcome in my own consulting business.
That’s the (very) shorthand version of my origin story. You can read the full story on my About page.
But hopefully, that gives you the idea.
Building Trust With Clients
When you tell an engaging Origin Story, what you’re sharing with your audience is that…
- You were once in their shoes (I was once an educational consultant, struggling to figure out how to run a successful business), but you found solutions to those challenges
- And that now you’re in a position to share the solutions you figured out with them (I know all the strategies my audience needs to know to grow their consulting businesses)
Now, how does this build trust with clients? And how does it tie in with credibility and empathy?
Easy. Once I was in the same position as my audience is currently. That means that I feel their pain (have empathy for them) because I’ve lived that pain.
But I also worked through those challenges and found solutions to them, meaning that I now know how to solve my audience’s problems and can share those solutions with them (which gives me credibility in their eyes).
See how that works? Tell ONE story and you create both credibility and demonstrate empathy at the same time. And doing so also builds trust with your clients.
That’s the power of your Origin Story.
So, if you haven’t yet written out the origin story for your business and made it a central pillar in your marketing message, it’s time to do so. Grab a piece of paper and pen (or a blank doc) and write it all out, stream of consciousness-style. You can then revise and tinker to make it flow smoothly.
Once you have your best version of your Origin Story nailed, start telling it wherever and whenever you can.
- On your website
- In your emails
- In your sales conversations with school districts
- Pretty much everywhere, all the time
Because it truly is the most powerful marketing message you have at your disposal.
OK, that’s it for today. Have fun with it.
In my next few posts, we’ll wrap up our discussion of creating your Persuasive Persona with three Pro Tip fine-tuning tricks.
To Your Success,
Willy
P.S.–If storytelling isn’t your jam, but you realize that your marketing message is falling flat, we can work with you to solve that problem.
As part of our Magnetic Marketing Makeover service, we work with consultants to fine-tune every aspect of their messaging. And one aspect of that messaging that we help with is crafting a compelling Origin Story for your business.
We talk it all out, then we go to work to put it all into persuasive language that you can use in all of your marketing channels.
Sound like something you’d be interested in? Hit us up here…
