How Your Achilles Heel Improves Your Copywriting and Client Connection
Using vulnerability in your writing isn’t a weakness. Done the right way it can showcase your strengths.
Achilles, in Greek Mythology, was predicted by his mother to have an early death. So she dipped him into a magical river known for its “protective” properties.
Except when she submerged him, the place where her fingers clasped together around his heel was untouched by the water.
Arrow comes. Pierces heel. Warrior down! Buh-bye Achilles.
Amazing how that arrow found his one spot of weakness. Bad for Achilles, but maybe good for you.
Let’s examine how to use vulnerability to your advantage to drive the point of your writing home.
The Art of Being Wretched
In the 90’s movie Notting Hill, Julia Roberts plays no-nonsense mega-star, Anna Scott. She meets and falls for bumbling book store owner Hugh Grant, aka William Thacker.
Throughout the film, life and love between the two get more complicated. A jilted Thacker finally has enough, goes back to his book store, broken heart in hand.
After some time passes, the bell to his store jingles, and in walks Scott. Hardened by what transpired between them, Thacker doesn’t initially budge. Claiming his heart couldn’t stand being tossed aside again.
Then the once hard-as-nails Anna shows her wretched side and professes her disappointment. Her soul exposed, visibly crushed, she states,
“I’m also just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.”
BOOM! POW! Straight to the gut. Guess what?
If you can’t relate... you can’t reach your reader.
Conversational copy might be the mantra, but compassionate copy is another level of chakra.
You have to provide solace, comfort, or adulation.
...and why you have the answer, solution, or accolades, they need to feel in your writing.
As a writer, I always want to show my good side. Have the perfect words for every client every time. Strong. Well-crafted. Copy worthy of Mt.Olympus.
But I am imperfect. Tenderhearted and too trusting at times.
Bad cop when I should show compassion.
The problem is that we’re all flawed creatures. Perfect imperfections. Leaving pain and suffering out of the equation might make our writing readable but not relatable.
If we’re seeking to understand our market and our reader, we need to be able to step into their world. Write to others as we would want to read if we were them.
Feel their fears about losing their stamina, muscle, and virility with age.
Sadness about missing out on the stock they should’ve invested in but didn’t.
Anxiety about whether to start a business. Which one? How?
Wrapping agony, anger, pride, envy, and other emotions into your work make your reader want to bond with you. You’re the imaginary friend who comes to their rescue.
You get them.
3 Tricks of the Trade
Here are a few ways to get into the right mindset so that you can work the “wretched” angle into your copy.
- Get Real - Imagine a time of sadness, angst, or any emotion and how your reader might be in the same situation. What would you need to hear?
- Self-Therapy - Write a letter as your older self to the younger you. What pitfalls, lessons, and situations might you advise your dewy-skinned version about?
- Canned Emotion - If you can’t relate or find compassion try listening to music. A powerful opera, sappy rock ballad, or symphonic violin concerto might be the catalyst to imbue your medulla.
Unless you’re a robot, we’ve all felt friendless, lost at times, and in need of support.
We’ve ached for a voice that understands and genuinely shares commonalities.
A perfectionist in my youth, who couldn’t bear when something I did went wrong, I used to think that crying was a sign I was a wimp.
Wisdom knows that to cry is to cleanse. Being real is the new filter.
Try tossing your “strong side” aside on occasion and instead shed some tears in your copy. You and your reader are going through something together, even if they can’t see you.
They need to feel your words in their soul, not just read them.
For more tips and to connect with a “real copywriting imaginary friend,” connect with me here @kabombconsulting.
_________________________________
Lisa Florenzen is a small business mentor, serial gypsy, and copywriter in the Self Help and Personal Development industry. She’s been writing all of her life. She’ll breathe life into your message with wording that resonates to provide a positive, profitable end result.