Don’t display, demonstrate — Kelford Labs Weekly

Three great things happened to me the other week:

1) A reader reached out with a question about a recent newsletter.

2) He accepted my invitation to hop on a call to discuss it.

3) I didn’t immediately know the answer.

This is the dream for someone who runs a consultancy and writes a newsletter like this one. An opportunity to improve based on real, specific feedback and questions.

So what was the question? And what, ultimately, is the answer?

A Personalized Process 

This particular reader has an extremely specialized business: He makes high-end, custom jewellery.

But more than that, his specialty is his process.

In fact, his Google reviews overwhelmingly acknowledge his personalized approach as the key element of his quality.

It’s less about the final piece itself (stunning and packed with meaningful memories though it may be), and more about the personal process of getting to the final piece.

His clients feel welcomed, listened to, and understood.

But simply showing off a final ring on a sales page doesn’t get that across at all. It doesn’t demonstrate the actual value, it merely displays the finished product.

So the question he came to me with was this:

“If I’m supposed to be creating content as a ‘middle step,’ to demonstrate my value to my clients, how do I demonstrate ‘personalization’ in my content?”

But then he shook me a little bit with something else:

“In fact,” he noticed, “this is the way in which our businesses are similar.”

Think about it this way: Simply showing you some final copy that I wrote for a client for their website (or bragging about a client’s sales bump based on our work) doesn’t really demonstrate our value. It displays the end result, but it doesn’t demonstrate the process.

“So how would you,” he asked, “demonstrate the personalized approach you take to your work?”

How would I indeed?

Thinking about that question, and pondering my own lack of content about my process and personalized approach, led me to create a new technique for doing exactly that.

So, thanks to this particular reader (you know who you are!), and thank you to everyone who’s ever reached out with a question or comment.

Let’s work this out:

What, How, Why

To begin, I did what I do anytime someone asks me a marketing question:

I went up a level of abstraction and tried to see the problem from a more familiar perspective.

Marketing, after all, is merely demonstrating value at a distance. So if we want to demonstrate personalization at a distance, what would we have to do?

Well, I suppose we’d have to find a way to more than simply show a final product. We’d need to demonstrate the process to create it.

It’s funny how a new question can trigger an old idea. Because, it turns out, I’ve sort of tackled this problem before, but from a different angle.

I’ve written about the need to write down and celebrate your accomplishments.

Specifically, I’ve said that you should record What Happened that you’re celebrating. Then, How it Happened, as in, what you actually did to make it happen. And finally Why it Happened, the principle you can derive from the event and your actions that inform what you should do more of in the future.

Why does this work? Because it forces you to consider more than the simple event itself, the final product. It gets you to think about the specific, repeatable actions you took to achieve it. And then it asks you to codify or formalize the reason you took those actions into a set of principles you can adopt and maintain.

And, boom! The whole thing revealed itself. The answer was staring me in the face.

If you want to demonstrate a personalized process instead of merely the final product, you can do three things:

1) Identify What you did, and Who you did it for, specifically.

2) Demonstrate How you did it, through a specific and repeatable process.

3) Explain Why the process works, and why you’ve chosen it.

That’s one way to demonstrate the value of a personalized process.

The only way? Certainly not! But a way I think we can all manage, maintain, and get better at all the time.

So here’s how it works:

What did you do, for whom?

Let’s say you’ve decided to make some content as your “middle step” between a customer stumbling upon your website (or brand, or ad) and eventually buying.

This is the content that reveals unique insights about your work and industry that makes them more comfortable to get one step closer to your business.

And let’s say, to keep our example going, you provide a personalized service, anything from custom jewellery to marketing consulting to specialized compliance support.

The first thing we want our content to do is demonstrate What we do, and for Whom.

The important thing is that you’re super specific about the thing you did, in the customer’s own words, and as specific as you can be about Who you did it for.

Like how in this very newsletter I told you I had a one-on-one discussion with a newsletter reader, and I told you as much about that reader as possible without violating anyone’s privacy.

The more specific we can be, the more likely our audience will see themselves in the description.

I could have said I was “counseling a business owner,” but that doesn’t give you enough information to be relatable. Nobody wants “counsel,” they want the answers to their questions. And nobody sees themselves as a mere “business owner,” they see themselves as specialized providers of unique products and services.

But since I was specific, you can kind of see yourself in the description, no?

Okay, you’ve identified the What and the Who. Now, How:

How did you do it?

This is where you show more than tell.

You hold the audience by the hand and you practice your process on them.

You demonstrate the value of having a repeatable way of getting to an ideal final result for your clients, even if what they get at the end of the day is different every time.

The process you follow remains the same, and that’s why they can have confidence that, even though they’re getting something different from everyone else, it will be just as excellent.

Our jewellery designer, for instance, could create video content showing real client calls but with only his side of the conversation.

Just the questions. Just the thoughtful answers. Just the presence and presentation of his process.

If you’re a custom service provider, you could create blog content that are more than simply case studies, they’re case demonstrations. They ask the reader the questions you asked your clients, so they can get a taste of what it would be like working with you.

That’s kind of what I’m currently doing. I’m showing you how I approached this question from a reader, so you know how I would approach your question if you asked.

I’d go back to first principles, provide a personalized answer, and give you specific ways to implement it.

Why does it work?

It’s not quite enough to talk about What you did and demonstrate How you did it.

You’ve got to present it on toothpicks. You’ve got to connect the dots.

Our jewellery designer friend could create that video content we mentioned above, where he shows off his side of the personalized process conversation, but during the conversation it cuts away to show the actual final product. More than that, subtitles or labels reveal the specific things about the product that specific parts of the conversation determined.

Show the actual question you asked that determined a real element of the final piece.

This is where you demonstrate Why your process works.

And this is where I’ve been doing exactly that, right now.

My jewellery designer reader now has an answer to his question, “How do I demonstrate the value of a personalized process?”

The exact piece of content I describe above is just an example. If he doesn’t like it, he has more than a prescription. He has a process for thinking through other ideas, other tacks he could take.

That’s why my process works, I think. It gives you more than a direction, it gives you a compass.

It shows you the way to always knowing what to say, instead of merely telling you.

So, that’s how you demonstrate a personalized process:

1) You create content that specifies what you do, and who you do it for.

2) That content demonstrates the process you follow so your quality and client success are repeatable and reliable.

3) And you connect the dots by revealing why that process works, so your audience will crave experiencing it themselves.

So, do you have a question?

Simply reply to this email, and we’ll both get to learn more about demonstrating our value at a distance.

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