Legal and Business Writing Consultant : Lori Herz : Write For Clients : Professional Writing and Online Content Consulting

Service professionals often find it challenging to connect with clients on a human-to-human level. That’s because you’ve been trained to cultivate a business persona that’s distinct from the person you are in your down time with family and friends. The business face you put on typically reflects just how seriously you take your role as an advisor and advocate to people who need your help.

How service providers can bring more of themselves to their work is a topic that frequently comes up when I consult with clients about there business communications. So, I was very happy to read the practical wisdom and guidance that communication skills coach Joey Asher offers in an article titled Faking the ‘Real You.’

Although he’s writing about public speaking, Asher’s advice applies just as well to any kind of written or live communication. His premise is that people who tend to come off as stiff, formal and standoffish when they communicate have to learn how to “fake [their] own authentic communication style.”

In presenting this “authenticity paradox,” Asher states: “Great speakers know how to fake their own "natural style" even when they don't feel natural at all. It's learning how to act like your real self.” So, instead of being formal, cool and distant when communicating with clients and other business contacts, we need to mimic our “natural personality” – the friendly cadence, rhythm and energy of the communications we have with people that we feel close to and comfortable with.

There’s no doubt that service providers can use Asher’s approach to foster successful business connections.

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Professional service firms across the country are concerned with navigating the chasm stretching between the values of older employees and those of the Generation Y - or Millennial - professionals now entering the workforce.

Study after study has shown that this younger cohort is more dual-centric (placing equal priorities on career and family) and less work-centric (putting higher priority on their jobs than family) than previous generations. With an eye on attaining work-life synergy, they’re impatient to progress and define rewards in terms of financial success, flexibility, freedom, opportunity and meaning.

According to a recent news release, along with its dual-centric outlook and value system, Gen Y also has a unique communication style. Its members “respond to humor, passion and truth” and need direct and “timely feedback, frequent encouragement and recognition of efforts.” As this article on talking across generations explains, Millennials were raised in an age of tech-fueled instant gratification. So, they need to receive a steady stream of information “to feel in the loop and included” at work.

While older generations are used to communicating with co-workers and clients face-to-face, Gen Y prefers the ease and speed of e-mail and their constant companion – the Blackberry. If you feel behind this e-communications eight ball and want a handy tip sheet for connecting with the Millennials in your work and client space, check out David Pogue’s piece on The Next Generation of Online Shorthand.

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We’ve all experienced moments when we’d give anything to be invisible. At those times, it seems safer and easier to just disappear. Then there are times when we really want to be noticed. To get that attention, we’ll step on a soapbox, dress flashy or walk on the edge.

Whether we embrace or shun it in our personal lives, visibility has become a prerequisite for success in the business world. Your clients and prospects won’t know the first thing about you or your services until you grab their attention and engage them in a meaningful dialogue. There are many ways to make yourself stand out as a service professional. But, for years, the Web has been a main line to visibility.

Whether you’re a solo professional or practice in a firm, you can create a Web presence and online communications that attract attention and build strong client relationships. Here are some tips and tactics to help you along:

As Kevin O’Keefe reminds us - by channeling Robert Scoble - your goal isn't to attract the widest possible Web audience. A better aim is to become a credible and indispensable resource in your “niche area.” I've found that you can jump-start this process with a who-what-how intake.

Ask yourself and your team these questions:

• Who do you want to draw through your Web door?

• What problems do they have that you can/want to solve?

• How do you solve those problems?

Once you’ve brainstormed the answers; you can design (or re-design) your website and site content for maximum relevance and benefit to your target visitors-clients.

To learn more about the makings of innovative Web content, tune into an ongoing series on the topic at Brian Clark’s Copyblogger. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen is another great source of information on how you should write for the Web.

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From time to time, service professionals emerge from the whirlwind that’s work and life to find that they’ve fallen out of touch with people in their business network. Especially at this time of year, when closing out the old and ringing in the new, there’s a pull to fix these broken connections.

Many professionals send out holiday cards and gifts as means to this end. While these offerings certainly can connect you with clients and business associates you’ve lost touch with, they’re largely one-way lines of communication.

The better route to re-connection runs two ways. It’s an organic dialogue that lends a human dimension to business relationships. Face-to-face and phone conversations enable this kind of interaction. But, you can also encourage and evolve it through your business writing.

There are a number of ways to channel your written words of re-connection, including:

• E-mails

• Websites

• Blogs

• E-Newsletters

Whatever channel you choose, it’s important to convey why you’re reaching out to your network and to invite recipients to reciprocate by sharing something about themselves and their work.

Curt Rosengren nicely illustrated this point when he e-mailed me an invitation to his Reconnection Revolution. Curt explained: “[I want to have] “30 conversations in 30 days with people I've never actually spoken with (as in voice) before. No particular agenda to the conversations – just seeing what I learn, how I’m inspired, and what new ideas pop up.”

I know Curt from the blogosphere. Still, ours was an arms-length association at best. We reduced that distance during our hour-long phone conversation. We discussed our personal and professional backgrounds, goals and challenges and offered each other advice and support.

Reflecting on his 30-day mission. Curt said: “People start talking, building relationships, exchanging ideas, even finding ways to collaborate. Next thing you know – hey presto! – the positive potential has just grown exponentially.”

Although Curt’s experiment took place in real-time, his model can be adapted to written communications. If his 30-in-30 formula seems a bit daunting, you can easily customize it so it works for you: think 5-in-5 or even 5-in-10 and see what happens in time.

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Charles H. Green’s recent post on Faking Customer Centricity is a nice coda to my earlier commentaries on:

• Communicating with Authenticity

• Building Trust Through Your Business Writing

• Communicating Mixed Messages About Client Relationships

Green points out that, although the “language of relationships—feelings, apologies, empathy” is very much in vogue in the business world, many companies only pay lip service to being “customer-centric.” He gives a few examples of how businesses fail to back up their proclamations of customer care. From there, it’s easy to launch into our own experience.

For instance, what happens when a salesperson wearing a cute “I’m happy to serve you” button grumbles at your request for help? You feel slighted, maybe even ticked off. The same holds true when you ask a vendor to make good on their service guarantee and they offer a host of reasons why your particular problem isn’t their responsibility. This disconnect between promise (implied or overt) and action makes an indelible negative impression.

Service professionals often produce marketing materials and other communications stating “we care about you and your business” and “we put you, the client, first.” It’s very easy to embed those words in your business copy. But it’s much harder to prove to your prospects and clients that you mean what you state. The proof comes through their interactions with you.

How are you backing up your written claims of client-centricity?

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FastCompany.com alerted me to a discussion on strong customer relationships hosted by the Tom Peters blog.

Responding to his own question - What is a Customer Relationship? - contributor Steve Yastrow offers us this two-part definition: “A customer relationship is an ongoing conversation with your customer … in which the customer never thinks of you without thinking of the two of you.”

The concept of customer relationships as conversations got me thinking: What kind of conversations – and, thus, relationships - do service professionals typically foster through their business writing and other client communications?

Not too long ago, I made a late-night run to one of our local big name supermarkets. As I pulled into the parking lot, I was reassured by a large sign in the window that read “we’re open late for your shopping convenience.”

After gathering my groceries, I approached the checkout area and saw a line of about a dozen people waiting for the sole cashier on duty. Spotting the store manager, I politely asked if another cashier could open up. He looked at me and gruffly responded that someone was coming out, but that people should expect to wait when they shop so late at night.

Being the shrinking violet that I am (not), I pointed out that the store is open until midnight and prominently displays a sign communicating that fact. I also suggested that the manager remember that there are other late-night supermarkets in town and that his words actually impact way more than the dozen or so individuals consuming them in that moment.

To be sure, my shopping experience that night – which I’ve since shared with a number of local friends - was far from unique. We’ve all been on the receiving end of poor customer service. But, as consultant David Maister suggests, my experience does point up the potential dangers of treating client connections as fleeting transactions rather than lasting relationships. It also highlights the fallout, in the form of negative word-of-mouth, that service providers can generate when they send mixed messages about their willingness and ability to serve their clients well.

Perhaps, then, my local supermarket would have fared better had its manager engaged me in a candid conversation and admitted: "As the sign says, we are open until midnight. But, we can't provide you with fast and efficient checkout or plentiful and affable employees after 9pm.”

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Not too long ago, bloggers Michelle Golden and Charles H. Green spent some time outlining why they object to the use of the terms “trust” and “trusted advisor” in professional firm marketing materials.

Green - who co-authored a great book, The Trusted Advisor, and offers programs on the same subject – opined that professionals shouldn’t overtly publicize their status as, or intent to be, trusted advisors to clients. Why? Because trust is “an outcome, not a come-on.”

Reiterating Green’s belief that it’s really up to clients to deem their service providers trust-worthy, Golden adds that “trusted advisor” is used so often in promotional channels that “it’s now cliché.”

I understand and respect Green’s and Golden’s points. But, I'd like to offer a slightly different  perspective.

Trust has become a key concept - and key word - in the service professions for very good reasons. We live in a world where people often don’t live up to their promises. In essence, most business disputes concern a breakdown in trust. So, as professionals, you need to be vigilant about the role of trust in business matters and refrain from giving clients false expectations of your services.

That said, if you’re sincere and determined in your desire to foster trust-based client connections (really, the only kind of client connections there should be), there’s nothing wrong with letting the world in on that authentic intention. People seeking your help will only benefit from your candor about placing a premium on trust.

To be sure, you don’t need to use the words “trust” or “trusted advisor” when describing your offerings in online or print communications (although I see nothing wrong with using them). There’s lots of ways to let clients and prospects know that you’re committed to cultivating trust-filled, meaningful and mutually beneficial relationships with them.

Regardless of the words you choose to state your commitment to trust, as Golden and Green suggest, this can’t be an empty promise. You have to team your public words with consistent, professional and personal action. As the very cliché phrase goes: You need to walk your talk.

For more insight into building trust in business relationships, check out Green’s latest Carnival of Trust , a collection of 10 recent blog posts on this important topic.

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In an earlier post, I discussed the concept of Client Experience Management. As a business writer for service professionals, I’m also very interested in the related concept of Client Evangelism.

Client evangelists are people who are so pleased with, and passionate about, services they receive that they voluntarily shout the provider’s praises until the rafters ring. I first learned about this kind of consumer zeal through Ben McConnell’s and Jackie Huba’s terrific book, Creating Customer Evangelists, and now continue my education at their Church of the Customer Blog.

Always on the hunt for practical input on this front, I was pleased to run across a McConnell-Huba article titled Customer Evangelists: Spreading the Word. In it, the authors list some telltale signs of client evangelism, including:

• Clients passionately recommend you to others

• Clients give you unsolicited praise and feedback

• Clients forgive your occasional services lapses, but tell you about them

McConnell and Huba also identify avenues for fostering client evangelists, such as:

• Planning a social media strategy that incorporates blogs, e-mails and podcasts

• Soliciting client feedback

• Creating an open, two-way line of communication

Providing another take on this topic is an article called Capturing the Voice of the Client culled from the Originate! Business Development Newsletter (the article is part of a free preview issue of a newsletter that's available by paid subscription). Documenting an initiative undertaken by the law firm Patton Boggs, the piece highlights how the firm has built a strong service culture around creating opportunities to listen to, and hear, its clients.

One way the firm accomplishes this goal is by publishing a biannual magazine. The publication gives its “key clients” a chance to “talk about issues relating to their businesses.” Likewise, it offers the firm an invaluable opportunity to showcase its “intimate knowledge of the client’s business, organization, culture, industry and financial metrics.”

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A client recently asked me to gather and review some articles on life with the ubiquitous BlackBerry. Although I’m not a user myself, I am closely related to some major BlackBerry enthusiasts. So, I was eager to read up on the subject.

As I’ve noted before, successful business relationships require intimacy – a willingness to get to know the human beings we work with and want to work with. It’s basically the same kind of intimacy that fuels healthy connections to family and friends. But, according to some observers, the tools that many of us now depend on for everyday connectivity may be compromising our capacity for intimacy.

In a Forbes.com article on PDAs (as in personal digital assistants) and intimate relationships, one expert describes this kind of wireless technology as “the modern-day equivalent to the spinster chaperone.” Although PDAs appear to boost relationships by providing users access to one another 24/7, the interactions they facilitate are generally quick and impersonal. As these “nanosecond communications” become the norm for us, we expect “instant relationships as well as all other kinds of instant gratification.”

As a WSJ.com piece on BlackBerry Orphans suggests, this expectation may not play out so well in the real world of human-to-human connection. While some of the quotes from kids dealing with PDA-obsessed parents are funny, the sentiments behind the words are powerful and hard to ignore. These kids are expressing a real need for attention – they want to be more visible to their parents. But, at many points throughout the day, they’re largely invisible because their parents have exchanged intimacy for constant connectivity.

For another perspective on the nexus between constant connectivity, our (past, present, future) everyday lives and our business communications, set aside a few minutes to watch this thought-provoking video, Did You Know? (tipped at Marketing Profs Daily Fix).

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I’m very interested in a business trend called Customer Experience Management (CEM). Evolving in tandem with the new experience economy, the CEM model considers a customer’s relationship with a service or product from the vantage point of user experience. It asks providers to understand how their customers’ lives are enhanced or depleted as a result of consuming their goods or services. This doesn’t require super sleuthing. More often than not, this kind of customer – or client – information is readily available.

That’s because people tend to translate their consumer experiences into stories that they quickly share with others. A great example of this comes by way of a Fast Company article in which some “customer service champions” describe their own “stellar customer experiences.” Here, Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy depicts his monthly outings to a local junk store where the proprietor understands how much his customers thrill at the hunt for buried treasure. There’s also an anecdote about exceptional book store service relayed by Build-A-Bear Workshop founder Maxine Clark. Referring to something she calls the Cheers factor, Clark says: “People don't have to know your name, but there has to be that connection and recognition of your value as a customer and a person.”

Echoing Clark's perspective is the poignant customer experience story set out in a much-talked-about blog post called I Heart Zappos (flagged by Seth Godin). In it, a woman describes how she bought several pairs of shoes for her ailing mother from online retailer Zappos.com. Some of the shoes didn’t fit and she intended to return them, but couldn’t get around to it. When Zappos learned that the woman’s mom had died, the company sidestepped its corporate policy and arranged for UPS to pick up the unreturned shoes. What happened next, told in the customer’s own words, is what’s most heartening:

“Yesterday, when I came home from town, a florist delivery man was just leaving. It was a beautiful arrangement in a basket with white lilies and roses and carnations. Big and lush and fragrant. I opened the card, and it was from Zappos. I burst into tears. I’m a sucker for kindness, and if that isn’t one of the nicest things I’ve ever had happen to me, I don’t know what is.”

This kind of positive customer experience clearly derived from sincere human-to-human exchange. It wasn’t orchestrated or contrived.

With sincere interaction as a lodestar, service professionals can engage in Client Experience Management through written business communications.

For openers, you can offer newsletters, blog posts, articles, e-books and other content that helps clients navigate their business questions and challenges. The objective isn’t to tout your greatness or push your services. Instead, you have to come with a genuine desire to provide relevant and practical information that benefits your clients and prospects. When you close a project or resolve a matter, you can continue to engage CEM by sending a personalized thank you note welcoming your clients’ candid feedback about you, your work and your firm.

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Many service professionals dread the thought of networking. They would love to find a philosopher’s stone for converting their loose business contacts into a golden network of prospects, clients and referral sources. But, fantasy aside, successful networking requires action and persistence. Like any relationship-building endeavor, it also requires mutuality - a healthy combination of giving and receiving that’s organic and not contrived.

As it’s taken root in the service professions, blogging has become a channel for creating and fortifying natural webs of business connections. (If you need an introduction to business blogging, take a look at Kevin O’Keefe’s excellent collection of tips and thoughts on Blog Basics and the Art of Blogging) These networks typically build around useful and relevant information bloggers offer to address their readers’ business needs, challenges and concerns.

However, as Susan Cartier Liebel recently detailed, service providers can also cultivate business contacts by blogging about personal interests. Liebel’s post introduces us to lawyer Michael Keenan. After starting The Connecticut Elder Law Blog, Keenan launched Glastonbury Running to share insights and news with other local runners. Keenan’s blogs link to one another and to his conventional website. As Liebel reports: “Little did he realize [ ] his running blog would get more hits then his professional blog. Because they are linked he gets a tremendous amount of business from people who, first, find him and then relate to him as a runner.”

Keenan’s blogging experience highlights how we can make valuable business connections when we share our knowledge and ideas with people who can benefit from them. The connecting points forged through this kind of exchange are the sturdiest building blocks of present and future business associations.

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There’s a new market culture that service professionals can no longer afford to ignore or opt out of. It goes by different names, including: the conceptual age, the experience economy and the creative age. But, the given name is largely irrelevant. It’s the market’s core message that really matters to service providers.

Blogger Hugh MacLeod beautifully captures this message in his now-classic commentary, The Hughtrain. If you prefer the quick-fix version, MacLeod gives voice to the new professional services consumer in this memorable quote: “We are hungry. Meaning is the prey.” 

This quest for meaning influences consumer decision-making. Professional services consultant David Maister and co-author Lois Kelly illustrate this point in an article titled Marketing is a Conversation. 

They suggest that it’s high time “we stopped thinking of marketing as a one-way propaganda campaign.” Instead, marketing is best viewed as a conversation in which we openly invite our business prospects and clients to share their “ideas, beliefs and perspectives” with us person-to-person.

Maister and Kelly don’t see this as a one-shot proposition, but an ongoing exchange that compels clients to regularly air their core “concerns, issues and needs.” This person-to-person dialoguing doesn’t have to be face-to-face. We can invite and nurture it through the content we write for our blogs, newsletters and other client communications.

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An often-cited building block of successful and enduring client relationships is authenticity – the desire and ability to lay down our shield, open up and let our clients get to know who we are and what’s important to us.

Authentic exchanges can take place during face-to-face conversations with clients and prospects. But, our everyday business writing – in emails, articles, blogs and other Web and print publications – can also be a channel for authentic expression.

Steve Pavlina offers a great post on authentic communication. Describing his visceral reaction to inauthentic written communications, he states: “I just don’t want to spend time dealing with people who aren’t willing to communicate like real human beings.” Pavlina also directs us to John Kinde’s commentary on the power of authenticity.

Kinde, in turn, wraps his thoughts on the subject around inspiring footage of the late Fred Rogers. The footage transports us to a 1969 senate hearing at which Rogers talks about funding for the newly formed Corporation for Public Broadcasting. You can click here to view the clip.

As Kinde points out, what’s remarkable about this interaction is how Mr. Rogers’ authenticity affects the hard-nosed politician he’s addressing. It’s moving and, yes, instructive, to see a person who’s so genuine and so crystal clear about why he’s here and what he stands for.

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I've previously discussed how business writing can facilitate the human-to-human exchange that’s vital to successful client relationships.

An exchange is a two-way proposition.

Just as you need to learn about their issues, concerns and goals, your clients need to learn about you – the you that exists beyond your professional credentials and experience. This doesn’t mean that you spill all the details of your personal life. Rather, you offer appropriate anecdotes and insights that convey who you are as a person, thinker and collaborator.

Writing provides a solid platform for infusing your self into your business relationships. Susan Cartier Liebel nicely illustrates this point in a post about standing by the decision to start a solo law practice.

Through her writing, she depicts the emotions she felt while transitioning from solo law practice to her current work as a consultant, educator and blogger. She also acknowledges the feelings that lawyers often experience in going solo. I regularly read Liebel’s posts. But, given this new snapshot of the human behind the writer, I now have a heightened interest in her blog and other business offerings.

Many people resist, and even resent, the idea that self-expression is a business asset because it raises the specter of people pejoratively described as:

• Self-absorbed

• Selfish

• Self-Centered

• Self–Aggrandizing

While I understand why they make this connection, I think it’s a faulty one.

Certainly, self-expression can be taken to an unhealthy extreme. When that happens, there’s no room for give and take. So, there’s little to no chance of creating mutually rewarding and lasting relationships in business or elsewhere.

But, the same poor odds hold when we try to cultivate business connections without putting our selves into play.

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I’m a big proponent of the belief that business relationships are personal. But, many service professionals find it hard to drop the mantle of authority and sincerely relate to their clients as human beings who have fears, hopes and challenges.

While most of us write cards, letters and e-mails to meaningfully connect with family and friends, the common view is that business writing is the cool, aloof, dull and dry second-cousin of our personal communications.

That’s a misperception.

Business writing and intimacy mix very well. By intimacy, I’m referring to a desire to get to know the people behind the issues or needs that come across our desk (or computer screen). I’m also referring to a willingness to throw our genuine and empathic selves into the mix.

So, how can you better relate to your prospects and clients through your business writing?

Here are some tips via an acronym I created for a recent presentation:

• Reframe your focus. People seek out service professionals when they have issues that need solutions. They want to know that you understand their problems and can help them. They’re looking for themselves in your writing, not a reflection of your greatness and accomplishments.

• Enter your readers’ emotional space. There’s an emotional component to every business issue. Whether it’s allaying concerns about financial projections or employee attrition, prospects and clients want to know that you recognize and relate to their fears, anger and upset.

• Listen. Listening skills are critical to effective business writing. To meaningfully relate to others, we need to hear what they have to say about themselves, their situation and what they want from us. Pretend or selective listening just doesn’t cut it.

• Ask questions. One of the best ways to fine tune your writing is to regularly ask prospects and clients questions about their business needs and concerns. Use the information they provide as a guide for creating compelling online and print content.

• Tune in to conversations. There are many avenues for staying informed on matters that affect your current and prospective clients. Identify pertinent topics and follow the discussion thread through trade journals, blogs, mainstream media outlets and professional groups.

• Erase the jargon. I’m not referring to industry terms that your clients regularly use. I’m talking about legalese and other professional dialects that hamper clear, direct and meaningful written communications.

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