Communicate Your Unique Personality
By Eric Ruth
“For a better life, quit eating crap and train six days a week.”
That kind of brutal honesty is so rare – and is, in my estimation, the primary reason for the raging success of Chris Crowley’s new book, “Younger Next Year: A Guide To Living Like 50 Until You’re 80 And Beyond.”
There’s simply no way Chris’ book would have received a full page review in the January 17, 2005 issue of Newsweek Magazine (page 68) were it not for the fact that he communicates his unique personality. Some might call him “controversial,” but I call him a smart marketer. Folks who communicate in a dull and boring style do not have raving fans. They are not magnetic: attracting those they want, repelling those they don’t.
Even if you have no aspirations of being a renowned fitness author with a book on the New York Times Best Seller list, what I have to share with you here is critical to your success in the fitness business.
Why?
Because communicating your unique personality in an entertaining, brutally honest way is so rare, so refreshing and such good marketing. Communicating your own unique personality, baring your soul – so to speak, attracts a herd of followers who devoutly “buy in" to your message, while alienating those who do not (they won’t buy anything anyway). That’s good marketing. And that gets noticed.
Trying to please everyone and avoid offending anyone – being politically correct – will result in a message that no one cares enough about to hear. That’s bad marketing. And that goes unnoticed.
“For a better life, quit eating crap and train six days a week.”
That speaks to me. It resonates with me. I “hear” that.
“Proper nutrition is an integral component of any weight loss regimen. Consuming foods such as…, and avoiding foods such as…, supplemented by regular…blah, blah, blah.”
That bores me. It does not resonate with me. I don’t “hear” it.
“But wait a minute, Eric,” you say, “I can’t just tell my prospects and clients to ‘quit eating crap and train six days a week. That’s irresponsible in its lack of specificity.”
You’re right! You can’t just tell them that. And neither did Chris. The co-author of his book is Dr. Harry Lodge. Dr. Lodge provided the meaty content on body chemistry, “explaining why fitness is the best medicine.”
The point is that Chris’ attitude, his rich and colorful storytelling, is what makes this book fun, gets it noticed by reviewers and bought by the target audience: “middle-aged men who may be looking at their widening paunches, their aging spouses and their fast-approaching retirement with helplessness or panic.”
The point is that you must develop an engaging, charismatic, magnetic and unique voice in all your communications to your prospects and clients. Because all your communications are marketing. One of the best ways to practice developing this skill is by writing a regular newsletter. Many of the fitness professionals who are my customers tell me that launching a newsletter (whether email or snail mail) is one of the single most important things they’ve done to grow their business.
But a newsletter is a complete waste of time if it doesn’t get read by your target audience. There are two critical elements, both of which must be present simultaneously, to ensure your newsletter gets read:
- Valuable Content
- Engaging, Entertaining, Sometimes Even Irreverent Personality
I don’t mean irreverence towards your audience, but rather towards an enemy – like the weight loss industry, the infomercial business, rep-counting personal trainers, big club hard-sell tactics, the diet powders, potions and pills, etc.
No one does this better than Phil Kaplan. He attacks the fitness frauds and diet deceivers relentlessly and mercilessly. And he does it with a smile on his face, a twinkle in his eye. He’s engaging, provocative and always entertaining, all the while delivering the valuable fitness truth people crave.
That’s his positioning – as a purveyor of the fitness truth. But if he did it in a dry, textbook style with no animation, enthusiasm and passion – no unique personality – no one would listen, no one would care.
I do the same thing, communicating expert knowledge infused with my personality and attitude, in my fitness marketing newsletters. Matt Furey is another fine example of someone who has mastered a unique and provocative communication style. Whether you like or agree with his message is irrelevant. What’s undeniable is he has parlayed his unique personality, his unique communication style, into legions of raving fans and a multi-million dollar business. There are lots of good models out there from whom you can learn.
I assure you our frank, sometimes brutal, always honest and always entertaining styles are responsible, in no small measure, for our success. Our unique way of communicating attracts those with whom it resonates and repels those with whom it does not. Those who are repelled are the minority, because the majority is always attracted to honest, entertaining, frank-talking experts whose unique style resonates with the reader – impacting the reader. It’s just good marketing.
Are you a fitness expert?
I certainly hope you believe you are. You have a vast amount of fitness expertise to share, and if you develop the skill of sharing it in a way that resonates with your prospects and clients, they will bond with you on a deep, emotional level. They’ll care about you and what you have to say. They’ll think of you as a trusted advisor and friend. And they’ll buy from you.
The Newsweek review goes on to say,
“Younger Next Year has one main message: stay very fit and you will live a healthier, happier life, with more sex and less depression, well into your old age. What sets the book apart from its self-help brethren is its ebullient personality – which is mostly Chris’s. Describing himself as ‘lazy and self-indulgent,’ Chris laces his very practical how-to advice with hilarious, self-effacing personal anecdotes, like the time he skied so hard it hurt to sleep. On this point, Chris and [co-author] Harry are zealots: living a sedentary life is not just lazy, it’s lunacy.”
This illustrates four important points about communication:
- Ebullient personality – what we’ve been talking about all along. Chris conveys not what he thinks you want to hear, but what he wants to tell you, the way he wants to tell it to you. And it is this element, specifically, which differentiates this book, gets it noticed and gets it sold.
- Describing himself as lazy and self-indulgent – this is what we in the marketing profession call a “damaging admission.” It is incredibly powerful because it makes you real. Rather than holding himself up as a Mr.-know-it-all, Chris freely admits his flaws, allowing folks to relate to him because they either have the same flaws or at least are aware of his flaws, aware of his humanness. This makes it possible for the reader to say, “if he can do it, so can I.” And that’s what you want. You want your readers, your market, to be able to relate to you, to be motivated by you and your personal story.
- Personal anecdotes – stories. How many stories do you have to tell about your clients? You could write a newsletter based solely on relating these stories. And you know what? People will eat that up. The Enquirer, Star, the reality TV shows are all evidence of our unquenchable thirst for stories about other people. The best way to teach is with stories. I’ll bet you’ve got some great stories to tell, so share them with your prospects and clients in your newsletter. By the way, stories not only tell, they sell! One of the most powerful selling tools you have are the stories you can share. Again, I point you to Phil Kaplan. If you read his articles and books, you’ll see they are full of instructive, interesting and entertaining stories which convey his experiences and his unique personality and effectively sell you on him. That’s not an accident. It’s simply good marketing.
- Chris and Harry are zealots – you’ve got to take a stand. Websters defines a zealot as: a person who is fanatical and uncompromising in pursuit of their ideals. I have to assume you’ve seen or experienced enough empirical evidence to be absolutely convinced that exercise and supportive nutrition combined is the closest thing to a panacea as there is on God’s green earth. I know I’m convinced. So there’s no reason why you should not be a zealot as well. If you fanatically and uncompromisingly communicate your fitness message to your market, in your own unique style, you will get noticed, you will get read, people will buy.
I want to wrap this up with one final comment from the Newsweek review, which says, “Chris writes like he talks…” The main reason most of you probably don’t write nearly as much as you should is because of your education. Your schooling probably depleted you of the desire because of the controlling, dogmatic way they teach you to write. Forget that stuff. If you can tell a good story while you’re hanging out with your friends, you can write a good story, too. Make yourself write like you talk. Because that’s what resonates with folks. The secret to writing like you talk is to write fast first, go back and edit later. Use jargon, clichés, stories and short, action-oriented (active, not passive) sentences. That’s how you talk, but it’s probably not how you write. So work on that. Master the skill of writing like you talk. Because textbooks put us all to sleep. Good writing, laced with your unique personality, is all you need to be a good communicator. And being a good communicator is tantamount to being a good marketer.
- Ebullient personality – what we’ve been talking about all along. Chris conveys not what he thinks you want to hear, but what he wants to tell you, the way he wants to tell it to you. And it is this element, specifically, which differentiates this book, gets it noticed and gets it sold.
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