by Lake

The Most Important Skill for Marketers & Writers Isn’t What You Think

If you ask a room full of writers what skill matters most, you’ll hear a lot of talk about craft-related proficiencies: concept, character, three-act structure, description, pacing, and, of course, the ability to twist a sentence in an emotionally appealing way (aka voice).

Ask a group of marketers the same question, and they’ll give you a different set of proficiency-based answers: strategic thinking, positioning, segmentation, compelling copy, and all things digital; SEO, SEM, CRO, and on and on.

All of those skills are important. Most of them are essential. But none of them are the most important.

There is one skill that anchors both honest writing and marketing. It’s the skill that powers character development and customer connection. Without it, you don’t need any of the other tools because you don’t have a lot worth listening to.

The skill is empathy.

Writers:

It’s easy to think that writing well means writing beautifully. But gorgeous prose without emotional truth is like a guitar without strings.

Stories don’t mesmerize us because of their sentence structure but because they gut us. They allow us to step inside someone else’s pain and to experience their journey. For a reader, it’s a magical ride.

Only writers who understand people on a deep level can pull it off. A good writer knows what his/her character fears, wants, and needs. (A great writer knows far more than that.) The understanding doesn’t come from fancy writing. It comes from empathy.

Marketers:

Creating compelling copy, SEO, CRO, CTRs… All of these tactics are tools. But if you don’t genuinely care about the person on the other side of the messaging, the tools won’t work.

The best marketers don’t just talk about their product. They talk about the person in pain and what that pain feels like. You can’t do that without empathy.

I’m not talking about sleazy, manipulative, fake empathy that bad sales reps use long enough to close deals. I mean the real thing. When you’re able to feel their pain like they do, you earn the right to say, “Hey, it’s going to be okay because we made this for you. It will take the pain away…”

Empathy Takes Work

We all like to think we have empathy. It’s easy to feel compassion for those who are just like us. But what about others? What about those who are nothing like us?  

Empathy is the ability to see the world through another person’s eyes, even when their life looks nothing like yours. It’s like a muscle. It takes work to strengthen it into something formidable.

It’s not about being “nice” or “sensitive.” Those are too easy. Empathy is about being fully open to the experiences of others, suspending judgment, listening, feeling, and constantly asking, “What does that feel like?”

It connects you to others’ happiness, fear, longing, and suffering. It can be brutal, but it’s worth it because connection is the currency of both quality storytelling and honest marketing.

Embrace Your Superpower

Many people view empathy as a soft skill that can be developed later. Others deliberately ignore it as if they’re afraid of what it might do to their psyche. The worst of us ignore it without even knowing we’re doing so.

I recommend a different path. Embrace the challenging task of building empathy. Practice it the next time someone cuts you off in traffic, disagrees with your political views, or insults one of your most sacred beliefs.

It won’t be easy. Sometimes it will hurt. But it’s worth the work because it will give a solid foundation and an edge. Both will appear in your work. Practice it enough and you’ll take your game, whether writer or marketer, to an entirely new level.

by Lake

Can a Brand Have a Tragic Flaw?

In fiction, a tragic flaw is a fatal characteristic that brings down an otherwise competent character. It’s the weakness that triggers tragedy. Gatsby’s obsession. Macbeth’s ambition. Walter White’s greed (for money and power). It’s not the external enemies that destroy these characters, but their inner demons.

So here’s something to think about:

Can a brand have a tragic flaw?

If yes, how does it present, take hold, and bring about your brand’s destruction?

The Flaw is in the DNA

A tragic flaw isn’t a mistake. It’s a core trait, most likely a strength. Walter White was determined to care for his family. His first taste of success fueled his greed.

It’s the same for a brand. The strength that empowered growth and market share sours and becomes the thing that undermines everything. It starts with basic positioning:

  • We’re the fastest
  • We’re a luxury brand
  • We’re the originator / leader
  • We’re the disruptor

In the beginning, these aren’t problems. They’re differentiators. They’re the very elements that attract an audience and drive growth. However, the traits that define a brand also limit it.

  • The company built on exclusivity becomes inaccessible at the first sign of economic trouble.
  • The firm committed to innovation churns out crap that nobody wants.
  • The SaaS start up that’s so fast and nimble never learns long-term sales discipline.
  • The brand that brags about being the first gets leapfrogged by better competitors.

Consider the rise and fall of three iconic brands:

BlackBerry: The technology was cutting-edge. Their confidence in their product blinded them to the change on the horizon.

WeWork: Ambition and aggressive growth is a good thing. There’s a difference between aggressive growth and unrestrained growth. The latter invites collapse.

Blockbuster: At first glance, it seems like their fatal flaw was ignorance. But we know the truth. It was late fees arrogance that their business model was untouchable for years to come.

These brands knew their markets, yet they loved their image more than they loved their customers. That’s where their strengths hardened into blind spots. That’s why they didn’t see the changes until it was too late. That’s why they all bombed so spectacularly.

In fiction, we call this a character arc that’s flattened. In business, it’s called bankruptcy.

Can a Brand Change Its Fate?

Tragedy is expected in stories. Tragedy is the ingredient that elevates a mediocre story into something worthy of a reader’s time. Tragedy makes an already good story legendary. (Imagine how disappointed you would’ve been had Walter White lived.) Tragedy in stories is a very good thing. Not so much in business.

Fortunately, in business, you get to pivot. You can rebrand, refocus, and reintroduce your wiser hero to your audience. You can stretch up market and stretch down market, and happily embrace new revenue-generating segments along the way.

But doing so requires awareness and honesty. It requires leaders who recognize when the story has changed and get real with their response. It requires leaders brave enough to ask, “What part of our identity is now holding us back? Which of our strengths no longer matters?”

In a good novel, a character’s self-realization leads to a strong plot point. If it’s in the right place, the hero is willing to die as he enters the story’s final battle. For a brand, self-realization means you avoid the tragic ending altogether.

So, Can a Brand Have a Tragic Flaw?

Absolutely. Your job is to identify and eliminate it long before the final curtain.

by Lake

Pain Points, Plots Points, & Products

Every great story begins with a problem. Not a setting, not a vibe, not even a great character. None of these really matter unless there’s a problem that shakes up somebody’s world. Problem is another word for pain; and pain is the most important ingredient in fiction.

Pain Starts the Plot

Fiction writers call the moment the character’s life gets disrupted the inciting incident. Maybe the house burns down. Maybe somebody dies. Maybe they realize they’ve been living a lie. Maybe they realize their spouse has been living a lie. Whatever it is, it hurts and hurts bad. That hurt launches the plot.

Without pain, there is no story. A character waking up and making eggs is not a story. But if the eggs are the the last thing the character owns because he just got canned, that’s better. Even better if the character is cooking his eggs and a bad guy crashes through the window intent on murdering the can and stealing his eggs! Now we’re talking.

Pain gives the protagonist a new purpose. Pain forces the character to make a choice, to take action, to change. No pain, no change. No change, no arc. No arc…no story.

Marketing Follows the Same Rules

You’ve heard the saying that people don’t buy features, they buy benefits. It’s true only if those benefits offer a path out of pain.

The consumer’s pain may not always be as dramatic as the fictional character’s pain. But there’s still a gap between where they are and where they want to be. That gap is or includes their pain.

Good marketers shine a light on that pain. They don’t do it to exploit it, but to empathize with it and make a promise: You don’t have to stay here.

From Pain to Promise

Whether the brand promises clearer skin, less stress, more confidence, or something else, it’s offering a pathway out of pain.

What does this exploration of fiction plots and consumer pain points tell us? Simply this:

Don’t start with the solution.

Whether you’re writing a landing page, a sales letter, or a brochure, don’t lead with your brilliant product. Consumers don’t care how wonderful your widget is unless it fixes their problem.

Instead, start with pain. Find it. Name it. Understand it. Show it. That’s how you earn attention. That’s how you earn trust. Because when you can articulate someone’s problem better than they can, they will assume that you understand how to solve it. If your company has done the job correctly, they’re right.

Start with the wound. Then give us a reason to believe it can be healed. It works because human beings, like characters, are wired to move away from pain. In fiction, the journey gives us catharsis. In marketing, the journey gives us transformation.