A second way to use metaphor in your emails

Back when I was selling ad management to local contractors, I found myself doing a lot of sales calls.

I’d done plenty of sales calls in my life at that point. But this situation in particular was a bit weird for me. I was selling something new, to a different type of buyer, in a context I hadn’t really navigated before, and I honestly had no idea if it was going to work or not.

But I understood the frustration, and was willing to do my best to create something that solved it.

So the first few calls, I just kind of winged it. And surprisingly, they all went really well. And not just “pretty good”, but suspiciously well. So I did what any good student would do, and I went back and looked at what I was doing right so I could make sure I kept doing it.

But when I looked at the calls, I wasn’t actually doing any selling.

I was doing something else instead.

I’d talk about all the contractors in our coaching program at the time and all the frustrations they had with other people running ads or selling leads to their business. I’d talk about my own frustrations with finding quality leads for the specific type of work I did back in my contracting days.

When I could see the other contractors nod their heads in agreement, I would simply say:

“And that’s why I’m creating this.”

I even told them straight up, “Look, this is an experiment, I’ve never done this before, and you’re going to have to stick it out for at least 3 months before we know whether it’s working or not.”

What they often said in return was something along the lines of:

“How do we get started?”

Here’s a quote from Hollywood screenwriter Karl Iglesias:

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"Stories are metaphors for life. They teach us how to live."

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Looking back at those sales calls, something finally registered with me. All you really need to do is tell stories.

When I told stories about contractor frustrations to other contractors, I wasn’t selling them anything, and I wasn’t teaching them anything they didn’t already know. I was simply letting them know that I understood their problems, and that I was actively working to create a solution.

For most of them, that was enough. And it’s not just blue collar workers, I think people in general are growing a bit weary of people constantly trying to sell them on something.

Really people just want to be seen and heard, and once you’ve got that part down, if your solution actually makes sense, they can sell themselves. And as far as I’m concerned, that’s a genuine nod of respect towards people and their individual need for autonomy.

The other day I talked about the use of actual metaphor to breathe life into your writing.

But there’s another type of metaphor you can use. And that is to just tell stories.

On that note, I’m in the middle of doing some market research right now and I need your help.

I'm digging into the tech side of running an email-based business. The platforms, the tools, the stuff that’s supposed to make your life easier, but often times just doesn’t.

Because I'm thinking about building a solution to some of the problems I keep hearing about. And before I build anything, I want to know what's actually broken for the people I'm talking to.

So if you write back and tell what email platform your using, whether your happy with it or not, and why, I will issue a special merit badge that entitles you to special dispensation during the beta release of said product which might make your current and future email marketing life significantly easier.

Talk soon,

Kevin Hood