Being found from far away — Kelford Labs Daily

When an ideal prospect has a need we can solve, but doesn’t know who we are, I like to think of them as “Far” from our business.

And it’s our job to help them to take one step closer.

How?

By already being where they go when they look for help for that problem.

So if they go to Google, we need to already be there and turn up in search results.

If they go to ChatGPT, we need to already be there and turn up in the pre-training data or its inference-time web searches.

If they go to a friend, colleague, or contact, we need to already be there and be known and recommendable by that person.

But what do we say, or what do we want them to hear, while they’re still “Far” from us?

Well, it’s too early to try to sell to them because they don’t even know who we are yet. Our job at this phase, at this distance, is about making it easy for them to get one step closer to that conversation.

Which means they need to find information that confirms we can help, and that we have overlapping values with them, so they know the type of help we provide is aligned with their perception of value.

All of this means that we need content that is “Far”-facing, that is informational, easy to understand, and low-pressure.

That’s how we attract and help prospects who don’t know about us yet to learn enough that they lean in, just a little bit.

Until they become “Close” to our business, and we provide them with a different type of content.

Which we’ll talk about tomorrow!

Reply to this email to tell me what you think, or ask any questions!

Kelford Inc. shows communicators the way to always knowing what to say.