Communications 101 – Sharing Your Heart

How Can You Achieve Truly Powerful Communication With Your Target Market?

I used to be a big letter writer. With friends and family scattered over the globe, it was a truly joyful thing to sit down with a particular person in mind and compose words expressly for them. One of my favorite things to do when I was done writing was to decorate the envelope in a collage of magazine picture cutouts, just to add one more touch unique to that person.

Now, I must confess, I’m lucky if I get Christmas cards out every other year!  While Facebook and e-mail have certainly made it easier to keep in touch, they’ve encouraged some laziness in me on that end as well. That’s because writing a personal letter is significantly different than dashing off an e-mail or a wall post.

You’ve got to sit down with a pen and paper (ever noticed how actually writing for a significant amount of time gets harder on the hands the more you get used to the keyboard?). It may be special paper that you’ve picked out – something that has meaning for you or for the recipient.

You’ve got to think about what you will say, how you will put it, remember all the details, the inside jokes, the references to things only the two of you will understand. You want to draw some sort of emotion from the person receiving your letter – joy, memory, shared sorrow. All of that takes some serious thinking!

You might include something else along with your words – a photograph, a newspaper clipping, a child’s drawing. It’s a significant attempt at really reaching someone else.

Once it’s written and ready to be sealed, you’ve got to make sure you have the envelope, the stamp, the address. A trip to the post office might be involved. As busy as our lives have gotten, even these simple tasks and expenditures can seem like a lot!

Finally, you send it off. What’s your feeling when that mailbox closes over your precious cargo? You’ve created something important – something that will hold special meaning for a fellow human being - something they may keep over the coming years as a reminder of you and your relationship.

I know when I receive a letter in the mail, it’s a special day. I wait until I get home before I open it. I examine the envelope, think about who it’s from, prepare myself to really soak in what that person has to say. When I first read it I run over the words quickly, wanting to devour it all at once. Then I go back over it more slowly, feeling my joy through the big smile that is on my face.

Over the next few days I’ll think of that person more. I’ll feel singled out and special to have heard from them in such a way. I’ll talk about them more to my husband, put the pictures they may have sent on the fridge, start thinking about what I might right back to them.

It’s a profound journey – this writing of a letter. Even when it comes to someone you’ve known for years, it still takes a significant amount of effort. You hold a picture of that person in your mind as you write – a vision of them that allows you to be incredibly specific and meaningful to that person.

In business, you’re also writing letters all the time, but it never seems to even get close to the power of a real letter, written to a long-time acquaintance. Would it ever be possible to achieve that same kind of connection with your market through a letter written by you?

Who's your confidante?

From the time I was young, I got used to moving around a lot. I’ve traveled much of this glorious world (though not as much as I would have liked – yet!), and I’ve now lived in three different countries.

Growing up I sometimes felt envious of people who had known their group of friends since kindergarten – I early sensed the richness of having access to that kind of companionship.

All the same, I have been blessed with many lifelong friends, some near and some scattered around the world. These are the kinds of friends that you can pick up with right where you’ve left off – whether you saw them last week or 5 years ago. These are the kinds of friends who are worth their weight in gold!

One of the reasons I value this type of friendship so much is that I witnessed my parents being torn from their own roots when we moved across the country to where we mainly knew no one. And while family is beautiful, it makes it very tough on the existence of young parents when there doesn’t seem to be anyone around to confide in, to share the everyday joys, troubles, and even hum-drum experiences of life.

Human beings were meant to exist in community. Withdrawing yourself from this community for an extended period of time only causes problems – unhealthy introspection, loneliness, depression, limited perspective, defensiveness, lashing out…we just aren’t meant to be alone!

Having friends from various walks of life to confide in broadens your perspective. It provides a safe, healthy outlet, refreshment, joy – even correction when you need a little help in steering your course.

In my life I’ve witnessed a few groups that are very prone to excluding themselves from a community of confidantes for a period of time – young married couples, new parents, and home based business entrepreneurs seem especially prone to this mistake. Sadly, by the time they come to realize it, it can be too late to salvage what they had before.

There are many different kinds of confidantes for the different areas of life. There are friends you can tell anything too, coaches you may call upon for a certain aspect of business, therapy, mentorship, spiritual counsel. Those who value and take advantage of these kinds of relationships the most are often the most successful – they’re usually the ones you look at and wonder, “Just what is it that they have?”

When you’re working from home, the need for people to confide in only becomes greater. You need both personal and professional acquaintances you can be honest with – people that you don’t need to keep up the show around. You need people to sharpen you as iron sharpens iron, lest you get lost in your own perspective, harming your spirit and your business.

Does your message come across boldly? Or as a timid whisper?

I’ve always been a reader (since the age of four I’ve rarely been seen without a book in my hand) and it followed that English was always my favorite subject in school. My mom is an English teacher too, so I suppose it was all a bit of a natural progression.

If you think back to your school days, you’ll probably agree with me that English teachers are a bit of a different breed. One of my high school favorites was a teacher who had friendship with the students down with a perfect mix of still getting them to learn, something that can take years to master.

I came to her class after she’d been in the position for over 30 years. I remember her telling us stories about her crush on Mel Gibson,  mildly risque incidents from the Renaissance Festival she brought her classes to every year, and being allowed to watch Monty Python & the Holy Grail in school, which my friends and I thought was just the coolest thing ever.

But what I remember most from what she taught me – above the fun times and the more serious lessons – was a simple rule in writing that literally changed my entire perception around communication.

In the world of books I had lived in from a young age coupled with a great love of learning, I was ahead of many of my peers when it came to writing. But through various life circumstances, I lacked a very important quality in what I wrote – confidence.

My main downfall was using the words, “I think” – and I used them a lot. “I think this play, this author, this work, is teaching us…etc.”

I didn’t really see it as a big deal, but the truth is, I was afraid to make any kind of statement in my writing. I always had to temper it with something – to tone it down – to apologize for what I wanted to say. “In my opinion…It’s possible that…I think…”

My English teacher was having none of it. Oh how the red pen flew across those pages! She crossed out weak sentences, showing me how they could be stronger, bolder – completely unapologetic.

At first, I was upset. I had been coasting along, believing I was right. I was a good student. Why did she have to pick on me so much? At any age or stage in life, it’s difficult to take criticism – even from a person whose experience is much more vast than your own.

But in the end, I listened to her – and I am still thankful for it.

I refined my writing, making a conscious effort to be unapologetic. I saw the power those words held when I no longer confined them to the realm of my own ‘unworthy’ opinion. I even saw the power I was placing into the hands of the reader, who would now have their own decision to make of whether or not to take my words at face value – and I had to give them that right.

That one simple principle assisted in leading to more confidence in other areas of my life, showing me how just a little shot of confidence can go a long, long way (and how having an honest critique can make more of a difference than you’d imagine!). I see it now as one of the steps that led me into being a freelance editor with the desire to assist others in learning this very lesson.

I recently had this message confirmed to me in a lesson from a very successful Internet Marketer. She taught me that however you market, it’s important to position yourself as the expert. A trap many entrepreneurs fall into is the “we/our” syndrome – bringing themselves to the level of their market in the effort to identify with them.

The truth is, people don’t want someone who seems mired in the same problems they have to help them – they want someone who is above it – someone who can offer the solution. “I have the solution for you” vs. “There is a solution for all of us”.

What sounds more powerful to you?

If your mind is starting to drift toward a natural objection now, let me answer it by saying: This is not arrogance. If you are an expert with a product or service to sell, it is not arrogance to make bold statements to proclaim yourself as the one with the answer.

In fact, if you’re not doing that, why should I trust you?

Pearls of Wisdom & Wonder

One of the world’s authors who has spoken the most wisdom into my life is Madeleine L’Engle.

Whether I’m reading her books written for children or those written for adults, my heart always responds to the love that permeates all of her works. As any great author must do, she expands my world through the words she’s written, so that I am inspired to think beyond whatever I may have done before.

That is why for many years, my favorite quote from her has been this:

“But if I knew everything, there would be no wonder, for what I believe in is far more than what I know.”

I don’t believe it was really even meant to be ‘quote’ material – it’s simply a sentence spoken by the character Poly from a scene in the book, An Acceptable Time, buried among the rest of an excellent story.

But the first time I read those words, I was struck by them. I highlighted the sentence in my book and have pondered it many times over the years.

There is so much in this statement to unpack and draw from, but what I gain the most from it right now is to understand that life – and effective communication within community – is an ever-learning process.

Communication can come to a halt when we begin to think that what we ‘know’ is all there is. The truth is, I can never know all that there is to know about you, and you can never know all that there is to know about me.

The real wonder of this world is that we do not know everything, which means that there is always something more to discover and enlighten and empower us – if we choose to allow it.