Episode 337: How Flattery & Familiarity will get you everywhere
In this episode, Fiona shares a powerful tactic for enhancing your communication and outreach efforts. She also talks about the importance of showing genuine flattery and familiarity in your messages. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
The importance of personalising your communication
Genuine flattery as a way to connect with others
The role of familiarity in establishing a meaningful connection
The impact of standing out in a crowded digital environment
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 337 of the My Daily Business Podcast. Today you're listening to a quick tip episode, and that's where I share a tip tool or tactic that you can implement immediately. Today is one that you can implement immediately, from the next email that you're about to send or text, DM, or any of the other communication channels that we have available to us. Before we get stuck into that, I want to mention that Marketing for Your Small Business, the course and coaching program, is kicking off soon. I know a lot of people contact us about this. We run this twice a year, and now is a good time to do it. We always run it around this time of year so that you can get your marketing plan completely mapped out for 2024 and feel confident about it even test and tweak a few things this year so that you have that data to inform your decisions for marketing in 2024.
2024 doesn't become another year where you wish that you had a marketing strategy. If you are keen to get onto that, you can just go to marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com and sign up if you already own the course. I know people listening may well own the course. Look out for an email where you can just upgrade for a very small fee. The other thing is I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I'm recording this, and that is the Wurrung and Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded. Let's get on to today's quick tip episode.
There are many instances when you are running a small business that you are forced to put yourself out there. This could be contacting somebody for a collaboration. It could be pitching yourself for work, or it could be contacting media for a feature. There are so many times in small business as the leader of your small business when you are going to be asking something of somebody else. In particular, when you're contacting the media, getting on a podcast, collaborating with somebody, or working in partnership with somebody or any request situation, you want to do that in the best possible way, especially if you are sending an email or sending a message in like I said at the start in a DM or whatever it is, you want to give yourself the best possible chance.
I'm going to share with you a tactic that will allow you to do that. For context, if you have not read this before or you have not come in contact with me then, welcome. Thank you for joining us. But you may have known if you have listened to this that I studied journalism and I was a journalist for a long time, and I've had my work published all over the world from the United Arab Emirates newspaper supplements, to Japan fashion magazines, through to tech companies in the US like a whole bunch of places I have written for. As somebody who's written for some of these big publications like Monocle, Nylon, Cool Hunting and Refinery29, you'll often have people pitching you. Even as a freelancer, I had a lot of people pitching me.
I have to go back to 2007, I was the social columnist for the main major newspaper here in Melbourne, and it was syndicated sometimes in Sydney as well. What that meant was pre-social media. I know people are like, imagine a life without social media, but pre-social media, the back page of the newspaper on a Sunday was filled with social gossip. That is where people looked to see what had happened that week, which events were on, which exhibitions were opening, who just opened a store, which celebrities were in town and all of that. My job was to go to events about four nights a week and then cover those events in a column that was then shown on the book page of the newspaper. How many years ago was that?
Coming up to nine years ago, more like seven years ago. My dad would be rolling in his grave at that misstep. Whatever, how many years ago it was, I will still get pitched for that newspaper. It's like, that was a long time ago. But the point is, I have been pitched so many times by brands trying to get media, moving on since I started my business and started this podcast where you get pictures all the time. What I want to share with you is a tactic to separate yourself from other people when sending any pitch or request or even a connection email. You want to show two things very early on, and that is flattery and familiarity. The flattery has to be legit and genuine.
But if you can show f flattery and familiarity, you have far greater chance of the person on the other end continuing to read whatever the request has come in or listen if it's a voice note. How do you do that? The first thing, let's talk about flattery. Like I said, it has to be genuine. It cannot be a gushy copy-and-paste job that you're sending to everyone. The flattery can look like things such as, “Hey, I just read your most recent article.” Although tip don't put the most recent because that looks lazy. The amount of podcasts and pictures we get where someone says, I just loved the episode, and they've just pulled up the latest episode. It tells me that you probably don't listen to this that very often.
I wouldn't say the latest, but you might say, “Hi, I just loved reading about one of your articles for publication,” then put what you’ve learned about it. Put in something that is human. You want it to be genuine, you want to show that you think they're great at something. It could be the way they laugh, you don't want to get too creepy, but it could be, “I just found it so funny that you brought into this topic about X,” or I've been listening to you for years on your podcast and I've just thought about you. Or “I've read the last four stories that you've written on this topic. I think the way that you cover it is so different to other people because of,” whatever it is.
You want to be genuine in the flattery, but you want to show flattery because we are all human. We all want to be liked, we are social animals. You don't need all the psychology about that to know, we want to feel like we belong, and we want people to like us. If it's genuine, it will give that person instantly a bit of a boost, and then they're in that frame of mind to read the rest of it. The first thing is flattery, and the second part of that is familiarity. You want to show that you are familiar with them and whatever it is that they're producing that you want to be part of. Let's say you are an interior designer and you are trying to get in front of a magazine editor or an editorial coordinator or somebody else in that publication.
You want to have done a bit of research about them. You do not want to pitch something and then you're like, I haven't worked there for the last six months, thanks so much for contacting me. Or you just get a dead email back. They want to know that you know who they are. That's a bit of a confusing sentence. You want to show the familiarity. If you're pitching a larger company, let's say you're pitching for sponsorship or a partnership or collaboration, you may well use a tool like Google Alerts to set up an alert for a few weeks before you pitch. If that's an important pitch and it's with a bigger company, I would a hundred percent be setting up an alert. You are not going to go in there and say something that will very clearly tell them that you have no idea what's going on with the company because maybe you're pitching to them and they're like, did you not see the news two weeks ago?
We have completely flipped and we no longer serve that audience. Or we are cutting 700 of our staff and you've just pitched to come in and do workshops with our staff. It's like, did you not see the news? I would set up a Google alert if it's big enough, but if it's not big enough, I would spend some time researching these people. Where people go wrong is that they think I'm going to pitch to 200 podcasts and maybe I'll get onto 10. Rather than thinking I'm going to pitch to 15 and see if I get on one or two. When I've gone through those 15 and maybe haven't got onto them, I'll pitch to some more, but I will make sure that I'm choosing each of those specifically because they're the right fit for me.
Maybe their audience is exactly the audience that I'm going after, rather than just having this generic, I'm going to go out to the top 200 business podcasts, and pitch to all of them with the exact same pitch. That familiarity can look like, “Hey, I know that you guys have recently changed track with your publication and I know that you're doing more of this and it seems like your audience wants more of this,” and then you're going to come in for the sell of what you can do for that., or “Hey, I recently saw that you have changed from this title to this title, and I think that's so cool congratulations.” You're doing something in a way that is showing, I have specifically decided to reach out to you. This is not a blanket copy-and-paste job. This is a specifically tailored connection, whether it's through email or DM to you because I respect you and I'd like to connect with you in some way.
Those two things might sound so simple, but believe me, whether it was getting pictures for the newspaper back in the day, or whether it is still getting contacted like, “Hey, I've got this idea for an article,” for a publication that I used to write for, or coming onto the podcast or a collaboration, or we've had a couple of people contact us about sponsoring this podcast recently and honestly, it takes like 10 minutes to think about how you can flatter somebody and how you show familiarity. I just think that so many people don't do it. I don't know why, but they also just come in with the cell immediately or say, “Hi, let me tell you how great I am.” Rather than just take a second, share the greatness around and tell somebody else how great they are.
That's not to just boost their ego, it's to have that lovely connection. You see it all the time in real life. What we don't do is take that real-life thing and bring it into the digital world. If for example, you meet somebody new and somebody introduces you or you've just met them at an event, chances are you may say something like, “I love your earrings.” Or, “I saw your glasses, they're super cool.” Or, “I love that dress.” I know that can sound very fake, but we do it all the time. Or you've just met the chef at the restaurant that you are eating at. The food was amazing. Thank you so much. You're so good at this. Or you could go to somebody's house and do the same thing.
I love the dinner. I love what you've done here. I like how you've decorated the place. We often give flattery and compliments in real life in so many instances, and yet we don't do that when it comes to pitching in a digital format. It's something to think about. How do I show flattery, but also familiarity? Those two things, if you can put them together and they're genuine, I have to keep stressing, they're genuine. They're not just fake. If you can show that and they're put together and they're genuine, you have a much greater chance of cutting through the noise, because believe me, you'll stand out against all the other copy-and-paste blanket generic emails and connections that a lot of people are sending at the moment. That is it for today's quick tip episode.
If you are pitching in any way, whether it is just to go and get a coffee, or you're pitching to come on someone's podcast or you're pitching to get a feature in a major magazine, you want to show familiarity and flattery. I hope that helps. If you want to go through this in text format for any reason, you can find that over at mydailybusiness.com/podcast/337, and as I said at the start of the Marking for Your Small Business course and coaching program, we'll be kicking off in September. If you would like to join us for the nine-week live coaching program get your marketing sorted and get a plan completely in place for 2024, you can head on over to marketingforyoursmallbusiness.com and find all the details there. See you next time. Bye.
