You know how the advice you get from bloggers, copywriters and Sonia Simone is to write your copy and your blog posts as if you are writing to one person. A very specific person. With known qualities.
Some of the advice even says to make a profile of this person. What they do. What they like. What they do when they aren’t working. What they believe in. I thought all of that was crap, until now.
See for a while I thought I had to write for all these different audiences:
- the facilitators who I team with
- the corporate folks who hire me for their meetings
- the environmental public policy wonks who are my peeps
- the cool people who are in my realm on Twitter and Facebook
- the creative entrepreneurs who come to me for visioning and brilliance.
It was confusing. I didn’t know who I was talking to and connecting with. I was trying to serve everyone at the same time. Tiring. Overwhelming.
I’ve solved that issue, here’s how.
It’s recently been brought to my attention that someone is reading my blog who is my ideal client. And this person gets me, like really gets me in the way that my friend Amna describes when she wrote,
Your complicatedness, that you thought was the source of all your suffering in life and that you would never transcend? That complicatedness is a gift.
Well, yes. It is.
So I’m going to write to that one person who really gets me and my complicatedness. Who is actually fascinated by my complicatedness and loves me for it. It will simplify my life drastically and free up the muse.
The qualities of my ideal person who I’m writing for.
This person has depth and substance, and can totally swim with me in the deep waters of my inner landscape, some of which I share here.
This person gets the value of visual thinking and creative processing. And how important the constructs and containers are when you bring a group of people together to make decisions.
This person share’s my goal of liberating the human spirit to do great things in the world. To soar to the heights. And to do that you need structure and freedom. Awareness, honesty, safety, vulnerability, trust, love. Stuff like that.
This person values my contribution to the world. Sees me as I truly am in all my fascinating brilliance and mystery. Understands that sometimes it’s in the depth of stillness where the most powerful change comes from.
This person is imaginative in their thinking about how they might use my abilities because there are many ways I could show up with my magic to be in service.
- I could, for example, lead a wisdom circle to tap into the rich wisdom that exists in all of us and is dying to be utilized.
- Or do a wonderfully wacky kinesthetic modeling session, which really needs a more descriptive name because the insights that come from visualizing in 3-D, essentially playing and designing with random stuff and then describing it, are really amazing.
- Or teach about visioning, finding your essence and mindmapping. Using those tools, and my superpower of clarity, to dig into the deeper furrow of your consciousness to see what wants to emerge into the light.
This person sees the High Priestess in me. (more on that later…)
This person is a bridge like me. Someone who can travel seamlessly through diverse situations and audiences, and find their home easily in all of it.
This person is open to the endless depth of wisdom that is the self.
This person sees all the facets of me. The facilitator. The visionary. The visual thinker. The artist. The strategist. The healer. The mystic. And it all resonates. This person would only want me to show up fully in my magnificence or not at all.
This person reflects back to me the best parts of my self.
This person allows me the safety to be fully present and totally on.
The island priestess casts her net.
I need more people like this person in my life. So I’m going to write to this one person and trust that in time many more will show up. The kind of people who I can shine for and we can do magical stuff together.
See, I collect interesting people. So from my tropical island, standing on the shore with my sarong billowing in the breeze, I’m casting my net. Let’s see who I can catch.
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
I can’t tell you how much I love this! I, too, am a complicated person (in the best sense of the word) and, when you add to that having a successful writing career long before niches or platforms were needed, thus having this wide body of work, and lots of interest, wow, the whole who is my ideal person makes me want to scream scream scream. I love your take on it Julie, really useful. I will use this in Taos this week when talking to writers. Thank you!
.-= Jennifer Louden´s last post … When the Facts Liberate – But Only Everytime =-.
Jen, I’m honored. Thank you. I know you get it. And next year I’m coming to your Writer’s retreat.
Thanks Julie. I really resonate with this piece.
In this whole “branding” “find your niche” “who are you?” world of platform building and business building, I feel like I’m often being asked to reduce my complexity to a tag line, to give up on all the many things that inspire me, that i love to write about and talk about, and pick one so I can be the “it girl” on that thing for the next five years.
That doesn’t work for me. In fact, it makes me want to run for the hills.
I’m a little stuck here – because I also get that labels help…that focus helps..etc.
So, sitting with the question till the answer shows up.
Thanks for writing about this!
Tara
Tara, keep your complexity and write about what you love. Screw the niches. Your people will love you for everything you write about if it’s truly from you. And diversity rocks.
(That would be my answer–use it if it helps.)
Julie, I GET YOU and though you don’t know me, you’re getting me.
This is everything I want to write about, explore, muck about in…it’s everything I’m in conversation with with my Self and want to be in conversation with others about. I had a one on one Fire Starter session with Danielle LaPorte (whitehottruth.com) yesterday and call it irony, call it prayers answered, call it opening my heart to receive but one thing we talked about was me seeking – and finding – a community of like minded Get Me Get You people. And here you are. And here I am. Nice to meet you.
Jenn, thank you so much for getting me…and for letting me know that you do. I love Danielle, and in fact, I’m having a session with her in about a week. Can’t wait to see what comes out of it. Find me on Twitter, I’m @juliestuart. I can introduce you to a bunch of fine peeps you should know.
I’m following you now Julie
Thank you – and you’ll LOVE working with Danielle.
Blessings and all…jenn
Hi Julie,
I found you through Danielle’s tweet. Happy to meet you, and looking forward to swapping stories.
Susan
.-= Susan T. Blake´s last post … What Is Like a Muscle =-.
Julie, love how I hear the beauty and power of *you* as I read this.
I have a friend who completely gets the rich, tending toward invisible parts of me, but I decided not to write to her because she’s not my ideal client. She’s not online! Turning your lovely post over in my mind, I’m starting to believe she is still the person to write to. Thanks for pointing the way.
I just love this post. Trying to write to that one person forces me to examine myself and some fears I have but also gets me a real place in my core ( yogi here) that I actually need to be.
Thank you
Susan, yes. Looking forward to swapping stories.
Mahala, my person may not be reading either and that’s okay. It’s like the concept of unconditional love (which I know you know): you just give and don’t get hung up on if the love is received. It doesn’t stop you from the giving.
Ericka, yogi here too. Yes, the real place of your core is where it’s at. Rock on.
Sure, YOUR complicatedness shines… it’s complex, colorful, mindful… it’s a whole buncha neat qualities and facets that GO TOGETHER because they’re all YOU.
Mine’s just… well, more like Fibber McGee’s Closet~ !
I love this walk-through-of-a-how-to-approach-the-maybe-thinking-about-all-this, now, to DO it~ thank you!
GirlPie….mwah! You crack me up, always. Your facets go together like a slinky little Prada dress.
Fantastic post. I find it a lot easier to write something to someone in particular, and if that ‘person’ can encompass our complicated nature, it does the job. Very well put.
Julie, that is the most beautiful piece I have read in forever. Heartfelt, inspiring – your inner self really shines through.
Sandy
Jon, yes, I think it’s going to help me a ton.
Sandy, love you!
I love this, too. I don’t write in my blog precisely because I don’t feel like I’m going to be gotten. But the problem is that I’ve been imagining the wrong people. It takes the right listener to bring out what’s real in you…this is really a brilliant idea.
Sandra, “the right listener” yes, that’s key for me too. It’s freaking fabulous when you can get the right person to reflect back to you things that you don’t automatically see for yourself because they are so integrated in you. I have a stickie in my office that says, “Ask a friend to tell you what they think of when they think of you.” It’s a powerful exercise.
ah ms julie … you and the indescribably delicious amna have brought a smile to my step this day
.-= joyce lukaczer´s last post … Lyon =-.
Such a beautiful post, Julie.
A perfect reminder not to get hung up on niches and target markets and just be ME.
.-= Victoria Brouhard´s last post … A Fuzzy Decision Prescription =-.
Joyce & Victoria…my posse….love you guys!
I love this post. I’d like to think I meet your criteria for your “ideal person”. I do know that everything you have to say resonates with me and touches me. I never leave one of your posts without some thoughtful contemplation and quite often some great ideas…
.-= Robyn´s last post … what do you value =-.
Robyn, because my posts resonate with you, you are my ideal person. Hi. *waves*
Julie:
This is YOU!!! This is the YOU I’ve come to know over a few years and admire so much and I’m so proud of you for claiming it here. What a beautiful post.
As for me, I too am talking to lots of people when I’d really love to talk to that one person as you are doing who really values a relationship with her healthcare provider that is a true partnership where all minds come together to work for her/his best interest. They tackle what’s in front of them and all the many changes together . . . . with mutual respect, understanding, attention to detail including subtle changes, and modify things as things change. When the healthcare provider and this person see each other, they pick up their professional relationship and mutual admiration where they left off – each one learning about life and dealing with health issues together.
This person really values honesty, facing life as it presents itself, humor, and accepts that health – like life – presents us with opportunities to face our challenges with knowledge and with grace.
This person loves learning – about themselves, about health, about healing, about communication styles, and treasures life.
Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to think this through.
Thanks Char! This sounds like the beginnings of a blog post….
Love it! I just love that this is both focused and expansive – complicated indeed! And freeing too!
I can’t tell you how many biz courses I’ve been in where I’ve twisted myself in a knot trying to find the one sentence, the one word, the one thing that expresses what I do. It was so painful I just knew it couldn’t be the only way. Now I think of clarity more like a diamond: brilliant, dazzling and multifaceted.
Getting clear doesn’t have to mean losing the detail or dumbing down or leaving parts of our gorgeous selves out in the cold. Thanks for shouting it from the rooftops. I’m inspired!
A dazzling diamond is the perfect metaphor, thanks for that!
I get you, I really get you…
You’re not only a facilitator, a visionary, a visual thinker, an artist, a strategist, a healer, and a mystic, but you’re also a fab friend. Shine on Julie! Your net is gonna be full of all kinds of wonderful sea creatures.
Thanks sweetie!! xoxo
Interesting that I had followed a link for Twitter to get here yesterday. Then I didn’t read it because I got distracted doing linear and creative things that are my work.
Then today I awoke with a brutal headache.
I got my head clear while reading in one of my Animal Communication books.
I set an intention to find answers to “how can I use all my intuitive, animal communication, palmistry, numerology, psychic, mediumship stuff in a practical, applicable fashion to help the creative mini-business owners I’ve been coaching for the past 6 years.” Because I’ve been so grounded in “marketing techniques” and truly believe that being specific is easier than not when it comes to marketing your mini-business, I’d been struggling to bring all my creative, out-of-the-box-ness to the practical roadmaps I’m known for among my clients.
Lots of sighing here.
Then my dog got up from the couch and walked upstairs and sat below my desk – as if to say, “get back to work.” I climbed the stairs, sat down, and read your post.
That’s what I call synchronicity and magic. Your post is glorious as it sets us free from having to be in a box. And sparked a few ideas of my own for making “all” of me available and useful for my clients.
Thanks for that.
Happy weekend!
Wonderful! I’m all about synchronicity and magic…in case that wasn’t obvious….hehehe
Hi Julie, I just had to make my way back here today and tell you that this post has been reverberating in me for days and I can’t tell you how many conversations it’s influenced!
I’ve been in the same dialogue for a little while and I was feeling an opening somehow or something creative and alchemical trying to happen. It feels like you’ve touched on something in the “field” that we were all feeling already and put wonderful words to it.
I’m glad we’ve connected up on Twitter and I look forward to wherever the signs lead next! = >
.-= SusanJ´s last post … Discover the Wisdom of Your Resistance for FREE =-.
Thanks for saying that. It’s been reverberating within me too. Interested to see where this all leads….for both of us!
Hi Julie,
It was such a pleasure to meet you the Sunday before last at the Bagel palace, with an amazing group of amazing women.
I took a look at your blog, and so enjoyed this post. In fact, I blogged about it, here: http://www.contentfactor.com/blog/how-shine-b2b-personas-case-study.
You not only set a perfect example of the marketing technique we espouse at the Content Factor (left-brain), you do it with great verve (right-brain) and, moreover, uniqueness.
I hope to see you again soon. -Veronica.
I just love what you wrote about complexity. Don’t we all dream about somebody seeing us and not judging us for it. Simplicity be damned; up with complexity. Love your site and it’s brightness from all angles! Love, Uma
I see that I’m a little late posting here, but I just got a link from Tara. I’ve been wondering how to focus all the things I do and now see that they all make up a beautiful tapestry. It’s called having a life.
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