I’ve been thinking a lot lately about people who try to make it look easy.
Whatever “it” is.
Making difficult things look easy is a cultural obsession. The entire profession of advertising is built around it. And, depressingly, the trend continues online.
There are so many info products out there promising “10 easy ways to build your blog traffic” or “7 painless secrets to SEO stardom” or “23 ways to improve your website with no effort.”
Maybe these products really work. They probably do – but I guarantee you they take more effort to figure out or implement than the creators let on in the sales letter.
There’s a dark side to the culture of “easy.”
By making hard stuff look easy — or by not acknowledging that it’s hard — we do others a disservice.
Because not sharing how hard this stuff is for us sends an implicit message. The message of: “If it’s hard for you, it must be your fault. It’s easy for the rest of us!”
Even if you don’t mean it that way. Even though you don’t mean it that way.
Don’t get me wrong, here.
I understand that it’s difficult to sell stuff when you tell your customers “It’s hard to become as [successful/self-actualized/popular/tech-savvy, whatever] as I am. Putting in the time and energy and strain that I have in order to get to the place where I can write ’51 Strategies to Help You Do X’ and sell 3 bajillion copies is hard. If you want easy, go work for The Man.” Yes.
I understand that sharing yourself and your life and difficulties and foibles and failings in a public forum is difficult. Yes.
You’re also not responsible for your customers self-attacking. If they hear “It’s your fault it’s difficult!” when you’re not saying that, then that’s Their Stuff. Yes.
But.
If your goal is to help people, meet them where they are.
Don’t come down to them from Olympus trailing clouds of glory. Don’t tell them that your new product ’51 Strategies to Help You Do X’ will magically solve their issues, even if they leave it sitting on their hard drive because they’re so scared about making their mortgage payment next month that they have no mental bandwidth to consume your product, even if X is exactly what they need to do.
Don’t promise things you won’t or can’t deliver. No info product will solve everyone’s — or even most people’s — problems.
The answer: “I know it’s hard. It’s super hard. But I want to help.”
Make your products say to your customers what you’d say to a friend in distress. Make your blog posts say what you’d say to a friend in distress. Make your advice/consulting/communications say what you’d say to a friend in distress.
You’re in the business of offering empathy, whether you know it or not.
Empathy is your product. Meet your customers (your friends, in this close-knit web world) where they are. We’ll all be better for it.
