Just Be Good at What You Do

A couple of years ago, my father’s cousin moved from the coast to the desert to be closer to my folks after her husband died. The first year after the move, she used her (now) out-of-state tax preparer of 45+ years. The second year, she decided to work with someone closer.

At the time, I pointed out that the long string of events from the preceding two years probably merited forming a relationship with a CPA, rather than visiting a tax preparer. But, of course, that’s not what happened.

And so ensued the time-sensitive search for a local tax preparation company with the skills to sort out her more-complicated-than-average return and provide some advice to help her limit tax liability looking ahead. As anyone would, we started with a Google search.

Of the firms that appeared well in the search, one was ruled out due to the original owners’ unfortunate connection to the most infamous event in city history. One seemed a little too seasonal in set-up. And one seemed to have all the requisite information and skills listed on their website.

Fast forward two years and my cousin now sees a CPA on the regular. And eventually, that CPA will be able to get that year’s overpayment back from state A to cover the underpayment to state B. They’ve only been working on it for six or eight months.

And my cousin has told everyone she’s come in contact with how incompetent that tax preparation firm is for anything except the sort of taxes you could probably file yourself.

So: What does this little story teach us about marketing?

1. People aren’t stupid.
   When folks interact with an organization, especially in a service industry, they will make up their mind extremely quickly about whether the person they are working with knows their ass from a hole in the ground (see also: ass from their elbow; shit from Shinola; etc.).
   
   Sound vulgar? That’s the point. That is how rapidly a customer will go from giving benefit of the doubt to a new service provider to broadcasting their visceral impression of incompetence in no uncertain terms.
   
   And the thing is, unless you or your employees are having a horrendously out-of-character day, or the customer is a raging nutter, their assessment of your competence relative to their expectation is usually correct. (Stop huffing, keep reading; I’m going somewhere with this …)
   
   The question is: What created that mismatch between their expectation and your actual zone of genius? More often than not: Your marketing.
   
   

2. Marketing can mislead—and backfire.
   Everyone has heard the advice to “fake it ‘til you make it.” However, there’s a chasm between aspirational (striving, what’s the next step up) marketing and being straight-up delulu about your capabilities.
   
   Nowhere is that more evident than in branding, copywriting, and content creation, although it shows up in different ways.
   
   In branding or copywriting, it’s typically just extravagant visuals and a lexicon that are out of proportion to the organization’s size, clientele, time in business, etc. This is closely tied to “influencer syndrome” in that it’s not an aspirational presentation of the business, but a fully contrived and unrealistic one.
   
   In content creation, particularly outside of social media channels (which are particularly prone to the issues above), this goes beyond the brand layer to the organization’s core service offerings and use of content to drive search traffic.
   
   Case in point: That tax preparer my cousin saw. They are well-qualified to file straightforward 1040s with routine inputs. They are not qualified to handle complex returns across multiple states with a variety of wealth management complications in the mix.
   
   But their website and promotional materials positioned them as if they had those capabilities. And there’s the gap between expectation and competency.
   
   

3. Just be good at what you do.
   In previous blog posts, I’ve talked about the critical step of identifying why your company is the best, most qualified one to talk about a certain subject.
   
   If you don’t offer it, or it’s not in your core capabilities, you will harm your reputation by using it to attract traffic.
   
   “But,” I can hear you asking, “in a world where answer engines are looking for FAQs and I can attract eyes by talking about all the things, I have to …”
   
   Stop right there, buddy. Don’t do it. Why? Because you are wasting people’s time and, in some cases, money. And that is selfish, greedy, and disrespectful. (Hallmarks of capitalism, but not of character.)
   
   There is an alternative. It’s super old school. Like, olde timey.
   
   It’s called “being good at what you do.” I don’t mean just the meat of your business. I mean what you do, the way you do it, the way you treat the people you do it for, and the way you talk about all of that. Put your focus there.
   
   

4. Let your marketing amplify the real.
   If you do what I just said, you will have a voice and a perspective that are true and rare (maybe even unique). And suddenly, marketing is just a way to widen the circle.
   
   You’ll know your ideal client. You’ll know where you have authority. You’ll know what you want people to buy from you. You will have the answer to every question my colleagues and I would ask you to begin putting together the strategic framework for your marketing efforts.
   
   We’d be able to pick off your key phrases and use them in branding and copywriting to make sure your marketing sounds the same as the person who picks up your phone or sends out your emails.
   
   We’d be able to ID the topics you’re most authoritative about and develop a content plan that puts you out in front of folks who value your work. Instead of chasing SMEs in your company to talk about a line on a spreadsheet, we’d be building the topics around things the SMEs are already saying … so we could make their voices louder.
   
   When you do what you do well, and let marketing amplify that work, you never create a gap between your customers’ expectations and your ability to fulfill them. Never.