Sharewords: the easiest way for us to recommend you

Hi all

My 2 c worth: it’s ALL about productivity. So ditto all the comments on productivity.

When I managed 1st time managers, I just wanted them productive & up-and-running ASAP. That way, their team was functioning to deliver, they weren’t falling over (meaning I had to go in and do fixes – impacting my productivity) and the team was happy and well-coordinated.

I didn’t expect ‘high performing’ – interestingly that’s an expectation I have at higher levels of the organisation. For team leaders and first time managers, I just want the job done, well and without bother.

So Sal, I’d keep the message really plain language and straightforward. It seems to match this level for me – and would answer what i was looking for if I was still in that type of role (which oh so happily I’m not).

Tony, I can’t seem to see your message here, but I did get the email (subscription) – keeping it simple, and as Robin said, also keep it about making sense and attracting the buyer rather than amusing myself.

Thanks Sally.

My target buyer is as follows:

Age: 40s-50s
White collar
Couples
Joint earnings $150k+
Northern Beaches, Lower North Shore of Sydney

They like the finer things in life: gourmet food, delis, luxury items, organic food, fine hotels. They have other ‘help’, eg gardener, cleaner, nanny. They are willing to (and can afford to) pay for ‘help’ so that they can enjoy their life and not worry about the details.

Is that enough information?

Claire

I hope that I haven’t come too late to the party but I would appreciate some help coming up with sharewords for my new biz. Unlike most who have posted here, my biz (personal training with an emphasis on sports performance) is still in the start-up phase & hasn’t officially started trading yet. So I am still bouncing around ideas & trying to refine how I describe it. So here is some background:

Key benefits to clients:
- enhanced movement and performance in sport & in life
- produce results the client desires in a fun & effective manner
- produces (desired) changes to the body quickly (via improved performance and/or decreased pain)
- reduces the risk of injury & helps to avoid the frustration & disappointment that comes with injury

Client’s descriptions:
Given that I am not trading yet, below are a list of words I hope my client’s would use to describe the service:
- designed specifically for ‘me’
- understanding
- enjoyable
- professional
- personal

What is the most unique element of your biz?
I find this element the most difficult to describe because the style of training I use (ie, traditional vs non-traditional) will ultimately come back to the client’s preferences & personality. But I think what will set me apart is the way I look at & train the body. The human body was made to move in a huge range of ways & needs to do so to remain healthy. Unfortunately most people don’t move, let alone train, that way. So my ‘philosophy’ in training is always to give the body what I call ‘intelligent’ movement (ie, moving the body the way it was designed to move) to produce the changes client’s desire & to maintain optimal health, vitality, function & performance

I keep coming back to the concept that the biz will (using somewhat clunky words) ‘redefine strength’ (or “redefining strength”) in terms of people’s ideas and perceptions about strength training.

Target buyer:
- mid 20s to late 40s
- predominantly male (simply by virtue of the proportion of men to women who participate in recreational sports)
- located from lower Blue Mountains to inner west in Sydney
- white and blue collar
- mid to upper class (with some disposable income)

These are likely to be people who are prepared to spend money if they believe it will improve their performance, particularly if it is efficient & effective without large time commitments. These people are time poor with existing training loads. Are unlikely to appreciate the importance of strength training & may, in fact, view strength training as an ‘optional’ component of their training program. Yet they want to remain injury free, avoid the frustration & disappointment that comes with injury

Please let me know if you need anymore information. I’d appreciate any/all comments

Regards
Jen

Hi Jen,
Great to see you here!

Thanks for sharing that background information with us. Seems like you’ve done a lot of thinking about your clients and offering.

I like the words *redefing*, *customised*, *improve performance*, *intelligent training*, *avoid injury*

Can you please describe your *ideal client*? Not target market, just one ideal client. E.g. 30yr old male who competes in ironman events, works full-time, currently trains 5 days/week at a gym and with a PT but wants to improve his place ranking. He has a niggling shoulder injury that is preventing him perform at his best.

As you know, there are lots of PTs out there and many are struggling to make a living. I’m keen to understand the niche you are looking at and what it is that you offer that is different to everyone else (or at least unique in some way). I’m not quite there yet given the description you shared above.

I’m sure others will jump in here too with ideas and probably more questions!

Keep at it Jen, it’s worth going through a few iterations.
Suellen

Thank you Yvette, Sally, Robin, Suellen, Cat & Kate for your feedback; I truly appreciate it! And my apologies for not responding sooner; not only is the silly season in full swing but to be honest I have found some of the questions (and trying to get the answers out of my head and onto paper) very challenging!

Robin, Kate – to answer your points, I believe that the ulimate
outcome or benefit is twofold. First being that my client’s will avoid the frustration & disappointment that comes with injury and/or being unable to achieve a goal. I have experienced this a great deal over the years. And it is probably my greatest driving factor in my decision to choose this ‘niche’; I want to do all I can to stop people from going through what I have gone through. Secondly, to experience satisfaction, a sense of achievement and the ‘high’ that comes from achieving a goal which once seemed impossible

Suellen, I would describe my ideal client as a male, mid-30s, participates in triathlons and marathons, existing training load of up to 20 hrs per week, has a history of lower leg injuries which seem to (always) occur during heavy training loads or the weeks leading up to a major race.

Now to answer Suellen’s question about what makes my service unique or different – I hve really struggled with one. And I thank you for the question Suellen as it has really forced me to drill down into the essence of what I believe & what my philosopy is in a way I
haven’t previously done! Unfortunately I haven’t yet been able to distill this down to a concise explanation so here is a slightly verbose one (apologies in advance!) -

Traditionally strength training for sports performance has either been thought of as unnecessary or a waste or time, particularly for sports like marathon running). Alternatively it has only targeted the particular movements involved in that sport & has often ignored the body’s ability to move in other ways. By way of example, runners have rarely, if ever, do any lateral or side-to-side
movements because it is thought of as unnecessary & a waste of time.

But the human body is designed to move in a huge number of ways (gait, sitting, pushing, pulling etc) in different directions (forward/back, side-to-side & rotational). The body needs ALL of these different movement types & directions in order to achieve optimal health (for a long list of reasons ranging from the chemical reactions in the brain that are triggered by movement/exercise to lubrication of the joints etc).

My belief therefore is that you can’t achieve peak performance (in sport or in life for that matter) without first having a ‘healthy’ body; and I use the term ‘healthy’ here to refer to the usual things of good nutrition, getting enough sleep and hydration but importantly for my biz, movement (ie exercise) in all the different ways the human body was designed to move. This is what I think of when I mention ‘intelligent training’ or ‘redefining strength’. I guess in some ways it comes back to Kate’s reference to ‘alignment’ – ensuring the body’s needs align with the desires (goals) of the mind. To create a body that can do what the mind wants it to do.

A good analogy in my mind is that trying to participate in sport without first having a healthy body is like trying to drive a car with the handbrake on; it will still work but not very efficiently or effcctively and in fact may eventually break down.

I hope this all makes sense! I welcome any comments/feedback/thoughts. Thanks in advance

My thoughts – it seems essential to include the words “strength training” as that seems to be a core of what you want to provide. I like Strength Training Solutions but it needs something else added to it. You have mentioned wanting to have the solutions aligned with your client’s goals. Words like ‘personalised’, ‘customised’. ‘tailored’, ‘designed’, ‘focused’, ‘goals’ are what come to mind … but I am sorry I can’t yet put this all together. This may spur someone else on to create something else!

here is a question for you.

The moment I got to this blog, the first thing that i saw was the tweets and the number of comments. Would you like to comment or write an article on how you get so many comments and shares.

I am currently running a warm water pool, sauna and massage and use ‘relax repair, recharge’ but am about to extend into shop nex door with a gym and aerobic studio. I am wondering if I should look for new sharewords?

Jason
Continuing on down here as it looks like we ran out of ‘replies’!

I liked your dialogue, and I needed it to actually follow what you meant and get my head out of the instant negative I experienced from ‘smuggle’.

Based on your dialogue example, you move ideas through the funnel, through the bottle neck, through the sticky into realisation. I don’t interpret it as smuggling; smuggling makes me think you do something underhanded and I’m hoping that’s not what you mean

Is ‘liberate’ the word you’re not happy with? If so, can you drill that down a bit and explain.

(Going out on a limb here, Robin ‘put me in my place’ – nicely – by reminding me that the sharewords are about helping others recommend you. Sure, they need resonate with you and it’d be great to get a buzz from them but most importantly they need to do their job of recommending you. This is a process, maybe try out a few over the next weeks and then see what happens….Robin can confirm this but I’m confident the sharewords community is here for quite a while yet!) Too harsh? Sent with care

Sally – Fast Tracks Manager Productivity

Hi everyone,

Annalisa Holmes just directed me to this website and it’s awesome that so many people keen to help others with their sharewords!

I was wondering if I could draw on everyone’s help to come up with some sharewords for my photography business. To give a bit of background, I specialise in kids/family portraits and my website is http://www.mishkoh.com

Robin, here are my answers to your 4 questions

1) What are the key benefits that customers get from your service/product delivery (in your words)

- I genuinely love kids and that passion is translated to getting along with kids and being able to put them at ease which enables me to capture their beautiful childlike spirit
- Personalised experience. I find out about their family and what they are like and customise the whole photography session to suit their family.
- Capture precious family moments to photography products that they treasure for a long time

2) How do your most satisfied customers describe the experience of dealing with you (their words)?
(I have uploaded my client testimonials at http://mishkoh.com/index2.php#/text_3/)
- exceed their expectation
- captured their kids personality/essence well
- memories that will be cherished forever
- get along with kids – made them feel comfortable
- fun, relaxed session
- creative
- professional service

3) What is the most unique element of your business that truly differentiates it from anything else out there?
- warm personality and ability to get along with kids
- give them a fun memorable and relaxed experience at the photoshoot

4) How would ‘fans’ of what you do currently recommend you to their friends/colleagues? i.e. “Robin, you should use (insert your name), he/she…(insert words)”
- produces beautiful photos of my kids far beyond our expectations
- captures precious images that are show the true personality of our kids and we will cherish for life

Thanks all in advance for your help!
Mish

Hi Mish

I play around in here quite a bit and I’m absolutely gob-smacked with the brilliance that happens in here…

Your sharewords are so others can recommend you: aiming for something that does set you apart from others but also can explain what you do or captivate the other person to want to know you more.

(I hope I explained that well Robin )

I like you “…cos family matters” when I read that I also thought “because memories matter”. I like Linda’s use of ‘capture’ as well.

Sally | Fast Tracks Manager Productivity

Love this last one from Robin …

Captures your once-in-a-lifetime moments – forever.

I like Suellen’s comments

Mish captures enchanting moments
Mish makes magical moments last forever
Mish captures the spirit of you

I also agree with Leanne that everyone uses the word capture, I just can’t come up with a better replacement

Ha, typos. I meant to say that I really think Suellen’s suggestion is great.

oops! I typed dozens incorrectly. I hate that! I also neglected to add (help) after my post. apologies everyone!

1-4-0-0!

This is awesome! Great facilitation Robin and to all who have played in here.

What a wonderful collaboration!

Hi Suellen… thanks for joining in… great suggestions!

To answer your question:

What don’t you like about what you’re currently saying? Do HR Mgrs relate to your offer?
* Yes, HR managers relate to the offer

Things we use at the moment and why we’re not happy with them:

Self-driven employee engagement
(doesn’t fully capture what we do in an exciting/inspiring action orientated way. “Driven” sound like too much hard work)

The self-responsibility approach to employee engagement
(too long and not inspiring action orientated enough)

Activating Engagement Everywhere
(doesn’t sell our unique self-responsibility factor)

Engagement: for life
(doesn’t sell our unique self-responsibility factor, uninspiring and could be seen to be too work life balance focused)

Hi Ian

I’ve dropped the comment down here so that the ‘reply’ stream doesn’t get too congested.

I like some of the suggestions put forward so far because I would be comfortable using them to recommend you, which is the premise of sharewords… making it easier for me (or RobinD) to recommend you.

To capture absolutely everything a company does in the one sharewords might not be possible; to capture the essence I think is more likely. With that, I’m not saying we given in and go for the lowest common denominator, rather keep in mind, what others will perceive and receive when they see, hear the sharewords.

I’m not a fan of the word ‘profitable’ being in the mix as, in my mind, isn’t that a given with respect to what companies want – profit.

*Employee driven engagement* is something that makes sense to me. Simple, what, I interpret, your organisation as offering (how is a total other conversation).
*Employee activated engagement* – so so
*Employee driven ‘something’* – I just looked up ‘engagement’ in the dictionary and I wonder if there is a much better word for what we mean by ‘engagement’ here????

As an exercise: what words would people use instead of ‘engagement’ (to replace yet mean the same)?