Kelford Labs Daily: Make the right impression

In Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman identifies “trying to impress others” as one of the situations that can “deplete self-control.” And one of the indications that our self-control has been diminished, he writes, is “performing poorly in cognitive tasks and logical decision making.”

Trying to impress other people is hard. It takes energy and effort.

And, as entrepreneurs and marketers, it’s also part of our job. We want—we need—to impress our ideal clients.

The problem is when we try to impress people who aren’t our best clients, and who never will be.

Like our competitors. Or random strangers on social media. Or our neighbors.

The typical way I see it happen is overspending on social media or advertising because we want to look successful to people who will never buy from us.

And we end up spending more time trying to impress people who don’t like us than we do impressing the people who need us.

Making good decisions often means ignoring the crowd, not following it.

So, ask yourself: Are my marketing efforts focused on demonstrating value to my very best customers, or on demonstrating success to people who don’t like me?

Focus makes your thinking clearer and easier. Worrying about what the wrong people think of you only makes it cloudier.

Spend less energy trying to impress strangers, and focus on impressing customers.

Today’s Experiment

Step 1: Imagine
Action: Imagine you could stop marketing publicly and shift into a direct connection to your ideal customer. You’re having the perfect 1:1 chat and they see your value clearly and quickly, and buy on the spot.
Time: 1 minute

Step 2: Take Note
Action: Now take note of what you’re saying to them in this imaginary scenario. What are you focusing on? What kind of language are you using? What examples, illustrations, anecdotes? Where are you having this chat? Who are you chatting with? What’s the “ah-ha” moment for them?
Time: 2 minutes

Step 3: Focus Up
Action: Take that focused energy and turn it into your next marketing effort. Forget about explaining things about “the industry” or talking to “the public” or “your prospects” and instead focus on the person you’re ideally talking to, who values you the most.