Last year, I read this amazing book called Essentialism, and it continues to inspire every choice I make in my business and life.If you’ve been testing out different methods of getting productive, you probably already know that you can only succeed if you focus on your unique “zone of genius,” something writer Greg McKeown calls your “highest point of contribution.” Once you get super duper narrow on your purpose and greatest strengths, you have all of the information you need to make empowered choices that will move you forward. You get to choose what to say YES to, what to say NO to, and what relationships and projects to nurture in business and life.

The point is this: Prioritizing is everything.

Focusing on what’s absolutely ESSENTIAL and eliminating the excess isn’t just important to your life and business, it’s also important to your COPY.Why?Because if you aren’t super duper clear on the message you’re delivering, neither are your clients.

If you aren't focused, neither are your clients.

And if you’re confused or unwilling to get narrow with your messaging and marketing, guess who else is confused? Your clients. Or, well, they probably won’t ever become clients because they don’t know what the hell you’re trying to communicate to them!! When you’re writing copy, it’s YOUR job to direct your reader’s experience - to dictate what they see when in their heads while they’re reading. It’s YOUR job to know the main, most important take-away (your message). In the screenwriting world, we would ask ourselves “when the audience leaves the theater, what are they leaving with?”Well, when the audience leaves your page of copy, do you know what they should be leaving with? I do. It’s your product or service in their (virtual or actual) hands. But, underlying that motivation to buy is the message. The job of your message? To communicate clearly that your product will change their life in a meaningful, can’t-live-without-it way.

That means that YOUR job is to figure out the ONE most important result of working with you, not in your eyes, but in your clients’.

You might be selling a fitness program, but guess what? Maybe losing weight isn’t even a motivator for your ideal client. Maybe their NUMBER ONE motivator is having the confidence to start dating.You might be selling a coaching program that helps women feel good about themselves by changing the way they think, but maybe for them what’s MOST important is just having the motivation to go to the gym.You might be selling apples, but need to dress them up as oranges in order to connect with your target market. THIS is marketing.Now, before you go off on a tangent about how your services fix SO many problems, or how you would be LYING to your clients and feeling totally inauthentic if you said that your service only did this ONE thing but it really does SO many things… STOP.Tell me which version of this sounds more false --“My coaching program is guaranteed to help you get motivated and stay motivated, so going to the gym feels easy and even fun!”OR“My coaching program is guaranteed to help you get motivated, feel amazing, change the way you think, open your mind to new possibilities, increase your courage, improve your mood, reduce your stress and anxiety, and even get you organized with your eating and spending habits.”Both of these may be true, but here’s the thing:

Authentic marketing is about being true to the ONE most important thing to your client.

It’s NOT about being true to what YOU believe about your product or service.So, the next time you’re writing copy, put your sales messaging through this filter:Ask what’s MOST important to your client, essentialize it back to that ONE thing, and see how much better your copy performs.If you need help getting clear on your sales message, I now offer strategy calls to help. *Cue the trumpets!*You can check out all of the ways we can work together to help you get clear right here.xo,