I was at a networking meeting a couple of days ago and I was talking to an accountant. He made the comment that he would struggle with a blog because he didn’t know what he would write about, especially when I said he needed to be blogging a least 2-3 times a week.
I asked him “What are you passionate about?” This really took him by surprise and he struggled a bit with that thought. Then he said he liked helping people with their business numbers.
Singing about MRE’s in a Bradley
We all have things we are passionate about. I have loads of passions. One of those is writing and in particular writing songs.
Studying songwriting has taught me a lot about finding thing to write about. I almost never suffer from ‘writers block‘ because I have learned that we are surrounded by stories. Stories is what people want to hear about your business.
You don’t have to write personal things about specific people, unless you have their permission, or implied permission. The thing is people do business with you because you have knowledge and a lot of your knowledge comes from situations where you have had to solve problems for yourself or for other people.
Accountants do that all the time, but often they only think of what they are doing as helping people with tax compliance, which is perhaps why people also begrudge having to pay accountants. It’s a bit like going to the dentist.
Without betraying confidences there are loads of really interesting stories being told in accountants offices all the time and there are plenty of ways of telling anecdotes that are both interesting and contain useful hints and lessons for clients.
As a songwriter you learn to carry tools to make sure you remember those stories. Key tools for me are a notebook for jotting down quick notes when you think of something. Another is your phone. You can record voice memo’s, something you can learn to do very quickly.
Siri ExampleI also use Siri on my iPhone. I use it often in my car. I press the call button on my Parrot Handsfree kit and hear a beep. I say “Siri, set a reminder” I hear a voice back saying “What would you like to be reminded about, Luigi?” I tell it and then it asks, when I would like to be reminded. I generally say, “When I get home”. Sure enough, when I get home, there is the reminder up on my phone. If I ignore it, it reminds me again next time I get home, until I action and delete it.
Another tool I use is Evernote. It is brilliant for recording audio and typed notes and much more. It’s also free and works as well as syncs on most platforms. The important thing is to get that idea down as quickly as possible before you lose it.
Most people in business use stories to share knowledge, advice and experience with their customers and of course learn from their clients as well. They just don’t think of them as anything more than being engaged in that moment in their work. well guess what? Other people are interested in those stories. They also make you more human instead of someone they have to see because they need your services.
They also make you more human and people do business with people.
SoLoMo Consulting 