How to stand out in a grey world
I’ve been struggling with going grey for quite a while now. My natural hair wasn’t the same sun-kissed adventurous traveller colour it once was and the encroaching grey looked straggly, like it was trying to wriggle away from my head. It has sometimes made it hard to be more visible.
I’ve been very aware of the irony. Here I was, a conscious copywriter and copy coach talking about not hiding, when that was exactly what I was doing with my grey hair. Dyeing it, covering it up, pretending it wasn’t happening. That needed fixing. And yesterday I found the solution.
Why are you even talking about grey hair on a copy website?
I talk about EPIC copywriting, which is Extraordinary, Profitable, Irresistible and Conscious. Together these 4 ingredients help you create copy that intrigues, attracts and sells.
My grey hair challenged me to get out of my comfort zone of being ordinary (dyeing it and hiding it) and become Extraordinary (you’ll see the result later).
So, in this blog you’ll find out about an essential aspect of being Extraordinary – being happy being yourself, deciding what’s different about you, showing how that is different and then being happily visible about it. And I’ll show you how this works in practice.
Being yourself, so you can be more visible
There’s a curious thing that happens when we want to be visible. Humans are herd animals, so when we want to do something the first thing we do is to look at what everyone else is doing. Hey, if A is doing this and earning a million, then it must be a good idea. Ah, but hang on, B is doing that and also earning a million. Hmm.
This can get really confusing. Thing is, we’re trying to be like others, instead of looking at the various possible strategies and deciding which one fits us best. Take this part from A and that part from B and add your own sauce (mine’s HP, thanks for asking).
So, you need to override your herd instinct and put on your big girl leader pants and decide that you’re perfectly good as you are.
Two methods
A long time ago, when I was in hospital with food poisoning, a very wise doctor told me there were 2 ways I could approach eating again. The fast method: eat everything and see what stays in or the slow method: build it up slowly until you can eat everything again.
The same choice is true if you have problems believing that you are perfectly good as you are. You can take the slow route: work on your blocks, either with a coach or a healer or therapist, then apply what you’ve learned to your business. Or you can take the fast route, work on your blocks AND become visible at the same time.
Deciding what’s different
Then it’s time to describe yourself and what makes you different. This part is actually easier than you think. Get feedback from people who know you well or have worked with you. What do they see that’s different? TIP: if they say something that you think is so normal, you don’t understand why they’re even talking about it, you’ve hit the jackpot. This is where your unique gifts and talents lie.
With my hair this phase had to do with accepting the fact that I’m going grey (which obviously has a LOT to do with accepting that I’m getting older). I’d been dyeing my hair for years, feeling like it made me look more youthful to dye it. I had been trying to fit in. Now I made a decision that having grey hair was ok. Growing older was ok. I didn’t need to pretend to be younger.
Showing how this is different
So, you’ve decided you’re ok and you’ve worked out how you’re different. How do you show this?
The basic answer to this is in as many ways as possible. Show this in your social media, with your images and your content, on your website and sales page, with the way you describe what you do and why you do it, when you go live, in your emails.
You get the idea.
So, what kinds of things should you be showing? The answer to this question boils down to your branding or messaging. If your brand is all about helping people overcome fear, show you doing scary things and feeling great afterwards. Don’t show them baby photos (unless that was you doing your first parachute jump at 6 months).
In this phase, knowing what things to talk about really comes down to the decisions you have taken about your branding. If the word brand makes you scratch your head, that’s the next thing you need to focus on.
And there’s another important question here too. Who are you doing all this for? Who are your soul clients? These are the people you most want to serve, who love you and what you do and can afford to pay you for it.
If you don’t choose your clients, they won’t be able to choose you.
Read that again.
With my hair I realized that I wanted to do something different. I no longer wanted to dye my hair to hide the grey. When I was younger, I’d been a hairdresser’s model and I loved my hair being dyed and having wacky colours in it. So, I thought I could be different like that again. But in a new way.
I also realized that my mission is to help women be visible and value who they are as themselves, not as women trying to be other people or pretending to be someone they’re not. So, dyeing my hair in the new way was completely on brand.
This haircut was a statement – I’m going grey, I’m fine with it AND I’m going to have fun with it.
Be more visible about it
This phase is the proof in the pudding. You’ve decided you’re ok, what’s different about you, how you want to talk about those differences, now it’s time to actually do the talking/writing/reeling.
In this phase you can grind to a halt if you don’t feel confident about what you’re sharing.
Right at the start of this blog, you read about us being herd animals. While you’re working on yourself and your brand, no-one else necessarily has to have an opinion about all of this, but now, when you become visible, they will.
And that’s exactly what you want people to have. If they don’t have an opinion, your branding isn’t doing its job. Positive, negative, interesting, not for me, my Aunty would love it, it doesn’t matter, it’s an opinion and helps people decide if they want to purchase from that brand or not.
So, it’s more than fine that some people will not like your brand. That’s a good thing (even if it doesn’t feel good). Every reaction is a step closer to a sale.
Back to my hair, in this phase, following my hair cut and colouring, I shared a reel on Instagram with the hashtag #playwithgrey, a story on Facebook and wrote this blog. I talked some more about accepting myself and not hiding.
And this is what it looks like
Tadaa!
How can you show your Extraordinary nature in your own EPIC copy?
Here are 3 ideas for you:
- Share an everyday event or routine in your house, that no one else would have and talk about why you love it
- Build something extraordinary about you into your offers; the more unique you are, the easier your offer will become to sell
- Think about something you worry about people finding out about. Like you’re still wearing pyjama bottoms on Zoom or you sleep with 8 bald cats. Whatever it is, share it, it shows you as you really are and will get reactions. Be proud of it, don’t hide.
Want to work on your Extraordinary copy with me?
The first step is to take a look at this application. That will make sure we’re on the same page. After that, we’ll set up a chat to check there’s a click.
I work with maximum 5 clients at any one time, and we go deep. This is the first step.
Want to know my rates before we talk? No problem, they’re in the application.
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