If you’ve ever been challenged with writing marketing copy about yourself or your own business, then you know that it is sometimes challenging to talk about yourself, your brand, and sometimes even your service differentiators. We want our messages to be ones our audiences can relate to, but we certainly don’t want to use puffery or gimmickry to draw attention. We should be humble people by nature and can just be too close to ourselves and our own brand…So the fact is, we often speak lightly of ourselves and in overly general terms. This is not a bad trait, it is just how many of us are (and also one reason why clients hire JP Design to refine their marketing messages!
When I need inspiration to refine a message (whether for my own expression or for a client’s benefit), I am often drawn to simple phrases—and sometimes just single words—that I specifically relate to as I accumulate my daily readings. Whether in blog posts, advertising media or just emails between friends and colleagues, I find words and phrases that have the potential to be appropriately reborn for describing what drives passion and energy into a product or service… or a personality! I of course tweak and tweak and love my dashboard thesaurus too, but its funny how an open mind when reading can spark a new idea for something that is completely unrelated.
Additionally, I love the spark that quotes can give to simply inspire clearer descriptions… Below are some of my favorites this week as I think about what continues my passion and energy to do what I do each day:
“Make the small stuff your business.” –Denise Lee Yohn
“You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” –Jeff Bezos
“…stop chasing the money, and start chasing the passion.” –Tony Hsieh
“Play the work with no innuendo – just honesty. Trust will follow.” –James Kerr
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence wins championships.” –Michael Jordan