Founder & Chief Executive Officer
Here is the short version for anybody who will not make it to the bottom. Whoever does make it to the bottom is exactly my type of client, and that is the entire point of this post.
Now the long version.
A while ago, and genuinely not as long ago as it feels, I was a nano influencer. Micro influencer. Whatever you want to call it. I was picking up small business brand deals, I ended up teaching internationally on the marketing side of what I was doing, and I had recipes featured on some well-known manufacturers’ websites and in magazines. I was blogging about food. I eventually shut that channel down, which I am still a little sad about.
All of it was marketing. It was marketing in a different world with different subject matter, and that is one of the biggest things I keep trying to communicate. The specific content matters far less than how you deliver it and whether you deliver it at all.
Back then there were no reels. TikTok did not exist yet. I would go online and record videos that ran fifteen or twenty minutes, talking about margarine and whatever else I was preoccupied with.
I said um 56 times in a single video. I counted, and somebody else counted too. I stuttered, because I do not like the sound of my own voice and I question nearly everything that comes out of my mouth. I was nervous because I am an introvert who does not enjoy being on video and genuinely dislikes being the centre of attention. I kept doing it anyway, because the work I love requires being seen, which means I have to be seen along with it.
Those videos got maybe a hundred views. Sometimes three hundred. I assumed nobody was really there.
Then I met a woman who recognised me from the handle I used and told me she listened to my videos like podcasts, and that she loved everything I did. I was completely thrown. She messaged me the next day asking for a quick call, and she became a $20,000 a year client.
Summary I recorded fifteen and twenty minute videos while stuttering and saying um 56 times, getting a hundred to three hundred views and assuming nobody watched. One of those viewers became a $20,000 a year client.
Here is what I take from that story now, years later.
Anyone willing to sit through a fifteen minute unedited video about margarine from a nervous person who says um constantly has told you a great deal about themselves. They value substance over polish. They are patient. They are interested in how somebody thinks rather than how they present. They are the sort of person who listens to long things while cooking.
That is a filter, and it is working in both directions at once. Everybody who clicked away at thirty seconds was never going to be a good client for me, and their leaving cost me nothing. The format did the sorting automatically, and what was left at the end was a small group of people genuinely aligned with how I operate.
Every choice you make in your content does this. Length filters. Tone filters. The topics you refuse to cover filter. Your willingness to have an opinion filters. The question worth asking is whether your content is filtering for the people you actually want.
Summary Anyone who sits through a long unpolished video has told you they value substance over polish. The format sorts automatically, and the people who leave early were never going to be a good fit.
This matches what the research keeps finding about how people choose.
A Harris poll commissioned by Google found that 82% of shoppers want a brand’s values to align with their own, and around 75% have walked away from a brand over a conflict in values. People are not solely evaluating competence. They are working out whether this is a business that operates the way they want a business to operate.
That cuts both ways, which is the part worth sitting with. If 75% will leave over misalignment, then attempting to appeal to everybody produces a signal so vague that nobody can tell whether you align with them at all. Being specific about who you are loses you people who were never going to stay, and it lets the right ones recognise you quickly.
Summary A Harris poll for Google found 82% of shoppers want brand values aligned with their own and around 75% have left brands over value conflicts. Appealing to everybody produces a signal too vague for anyone to recognise.
I want to dwell on the numbers for a moment, because they were small.
A hundred views. Sometimes three hundred. By every metric people obsess over, that content was failing. What those numbers concealed was that the people there were genuinely engaged, listening repeatedly, and forming a relationship with somebody they had never met.
One of them was worth $20,000 a year. The arithmetic on that is better than most campaigns I have seen with far larger numbers behind them, and it is a reminder that view counts describe reach rather than fit. A hundred aligned people is a business. A hundred thousand indifferent ones is a statistic.
Summary A hundred to three hundred views looked like failure by every popular metric, while the people there were deeply engaged. One was worth $20,000 a year, which beats many campaigns with far larger numbers.
The instinct that ruins this is trying to be acceptable to everyone who might encounter you.
It produces content with the edges sanded off. No strong opinions, no unusual format, no personality that anybody could find grating. The result is content that nobody objects to and nobody remembers, which fails at the only job it had.
You are reaching for the people who most closely align with who you already are, because those relationships are the ones that work. The client who found me through a rambling video about margarine was easy to work with for years, since we had established compatibility before we ever spoke. That is a different quality of relationship than one that starts with a pitch designed to appeal to anybody.
Summary Trying to be acceptable to everyone produces content nobody objects to and nobody remembers. Relationships built on established compatibility work better than ones that begin with a pitch designed for anybody.
This principle belongs on your website, and it is the place people most often abandon it.
Generic website copy describing a business that could be anybody attracts enquiries from people who are not a fit, which costs you time in calls that go nowhere. Specific copy that states plainly who you work with, how you operate, and what you believe does the sorting before anyone contacts you. Strong website design can carry real personality rather than flattening it into something inoffensive, and the right fits recognise themselves immediately.
Search works the same way. Broad terms bring volume with poor fit while specific, detailed content brings people searching for exactly your version of the thing. That is what search engine optimization built around real questions actually produces, which is traffic that is smaller and far better matched. A good SEO company will aim for that rather than chasing the biggest possible numbers, since enquiries from the wrong people are a cost rather than a win.
Summary Generic website copy attracts enquiries from people who are not a fit, while specific copy sorts before anyone contacts you. Detailed content brings smaller, better-matched search traffic than broad terms do.
It does not matter precisely what you are posting. It does not matter how you look or whether every sentence lands. What matters is that you are saying it, consistently, as yourself.
The right people come along. They are the ones who do not mind a three minute video or a fifteen minute one, who appreciate what you have to say, and who recognise something of themselves in how you say it. Those are your clients.
You are not here to please the entire internet. You are here to reach the people who most closely align with who you are, because that is where the best working relationships come from.
And if you made it this far, you are very likely one of them.
Sources:
Harris poll commissioned by Google (82% of shoppers want a brand’s values to align with their own; approximately 75% have abandoned a brand over a conflict in values), reported via Terakeet.
https://terakeet.com/blog/brand-loyalty/
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