The Librarian Test: How Consultants and Coaches Can Tell If Their Positioning Is Clear and Compelling
Struggling to explain what you do? Here's a stupid simple messaging test for independent experts, straight from a 25-year copywriting veteran.
Hey Misfit.
I'm about to date myself. I've got the gray hairs to prove it, so there's no hiding it: I've been a copywriter on and off for 25 years.
And I'm telling you this because nine times out of ten, what I'm about to share is exactly what gets experts stuck when they try to tell their story and position themselves in the marketplace.
The Tire Store Lesson
My first job out of college was at a really cool ad agency, back when radio was still king. And young copywriter me wanted to do all the fancy stuff. Big brand campaigns. Razzmatazz.
Instead, my job was to write a radio spot getting people to buy tires. How sexy is that?
So I wrote it my way. Clever. And the senior copywriter I was learning from basically threw it away, had me rewrite it 10,000 times, and finally just wrote it correctly himself to show me.
I read what he wrote and thought: this is so freaking boring.
No cleverness. Just: bad tires cause accidents, come down today, 25% off, we'll get you back on the road in no time flat. Here's the address. Here's the phone number. Boom.
When I complained, he hit me with a line from David Ogilvy, the guru of advertising:
"What you say matters more than how you say it."
That lesson stuck for 25 years.
Why This Matters for Your Expert Business
If you're an independent consultant or coach, you have to tell your story. On your LinkedIn profile. In your content. On your website.
And what I see over and over from experts is that they never got schooled like I got schooled. We all want to sound clever and interesting and provocative. That's the culture we swim in.
But when it comes to selling your own expertise, the job is to say what you do, who you do it for, and why it matters, as simply as possible.
That's it.
Until you can say it simple, you can't say it clever. And honestly? You may never need to say it clever. Because 99% of the time, the people who hire us just have a problem they need solved. They don't care about clever. They want to know:
What do you do?
Who do you do it for?
Why does it matter?
What's the impact?
Enter the Librarian
Last year I was running a retreat with a consulting client, and we happened to be in a little conference room inside a library. (Quaint, right? I love the smell of an old book.)
My client had the same trouble you probably have. They wanted to be fancy and clever about what they do.
So finally I said, look. Write down what you do, who you do it for, why it matters, and why it works. As simply as possible. Then march out there, hand it to that nice librarian, and if she doesn't understand it instantly, you're being too clever.
(I waved to her from the conference room. She waved back.)
Your Move
That's my invitation to you. I call it the Librarian Test.
Write down what you do, who you do it for, why it matters, and examples of your results
Hand it to someone completely outside your industry (your local librarian works great)
If it's not an instantaneous "hell yes, I get it," you're being clever, not clear
Remember: clear is persuasive. Clever is confusing.
Profits + Peace ✌️
— Stephen