You're receiving this email because you've either signed up for one of my free giveaways, taken one of my courses or you were curious when someone else recommended my newsletter and you decided to hit the "subscribe" button to check things out. You can unsubscribe any time.

Missed an issue or want to forward to a friend? Find it all right here.

---

Hello Reader,

Recently, I had to make a trip to the emergency department (it's okay, I wasn't dying) and spend a bit of time in the waiting room.

The unfortunate thing about waiting rooms is that you have to actually sit there and (wait for it) wait. Usually for hours.

Fortunately I knew what to expect so I'd taken my iPad with me so I could at least try to get some work done.

The operative word here is "try" because the other thing about waiting rooms is that there are almost always lots of other people there who also need to see the doctor.

And on this particular day, there was a grandmother there with two of her grandkids.

The difference between the two children couldn't have been more striking. The older kid looked like she had a broken arm, sat really still and whispered, if she spoke at all, which wasn't often.

The little boy was about three years old, loud, full of energy and totally out of control. He was into everything, running around, flopping onto the floor and yelling at the top of his lungs.

You name it, if it was disruptive, he was doing it.

His grandmother did her best, even taking the two kids outside for brief spells. Which would help for a while and then he'd be running around and yelling again.

After several hours of this, it finally sunk into my tired brain that this disruptive little boy was probably bored out of his tree.

So I went over to the grandmother and asked her if the two kids would enjoy watching some child appropriate videos on my iPad's YouTube app.

Her eyes lit up.

"Yes," she said. And she pointed to the videos. "This one," she said.

So the kids and I started watching what turned out to be an incredibly vapid plotless set of vignettes about a boy and his uncle just doing weird stuff.

Not surprisingly, 10 minutes later the boy started getting restless. He started hopping off his seat and then getting back up. Then he tried to fiddle with my iPad cover. Then he started swiping at the screen.

And the word "no" didn't seem to be part of his vocabulary.

I finally had to stop the video and send the boy back to his grandmother.

It wasn't until several days later that I suddenly realised something.

The whole time we were in the waiting room at the emergency department, I had not heard that boy say one word.

Lots of yells and roars and growls, yes. But words? No.

And I wondered, what if that kid actually wasn't being as naughty as I thought he was? What if he simply didn't have the words to say that the video truly was stupid, that he was bored to tears and could I please, please let them watch something else?

And it made me wonder whether there are times when, working with our customers, they say things that are confusing or don't make sense to us. And we don't realise that it's not because they are deliberately being pains in the proverbial.

It's because they don't have the words to say what they are actually thinking, feeling or need.

It's something that I'm going to be thinking hard about over the next little while. And wondering what else I've missed.

It's easy to write off a confusing client as difficult. Half the time they're just doing their best with limited words for a problem they don't fully understand themselves.

Next time a brief doesn't quite make sense, try asking what they're hoping to feel once it's done, rather than what they want it to look like. Feelings are usually the easiest thing for people to name.

---

Back to Basics Reminder

I know this sounds ultra boring, but it’s worth doing. Pull up your website or email stats this week and look at what people are actually reading, clicking or asking about. Pay attention to that, not what you just assumed they'd want.

It's the lesson from my story in spreadsheet form. The most-read post or most-clicked link is usually telling you something you haven't heard out loud yet.

And yes, I’ve been having to do this myself. I’ve built myself an AI tool that helps me check my website and blog posts for "oopsies" and then update them. And one of the brilliant side benefits has been that I got some really useful info about what people were actually going to and looking for on my website.

---

A Quick Time-Saving Tip

When you're writing a sales page or a client pitch, it's so tempting to lead with what you do (the features). And this has been one of my biggest challenges. Because clients usually buy on how that sales page or client pitch makes them feel (the benefit).

And I know I’ve talked about this before, but it’s worth talking about (and doing) again.

I want you to try this little exercise. Give your AI tool a rough list of what you offer and ask it to draft five questions it would ask a customer to uncover the emotional outcome they're really after. It's a quick way to catch your own blind spots.

Because the reality is that we default to talking about features because they're easier to explain than feelings, but spoiler alert … our clients aren't shopping for features.

---

Highlight of the Week

If you're thinking about building something new, guest podcasting is one of the fastest ways to get in front of a warm, ready-made audience without cold pitching anyone.

​PodMatch (affiliate link) matches you with podcasts looking for guests (or with guests, if you're the one hosting). It’s still my platform of choice for getting guests for my podcast. It’s definitely worth a look whether you’re looking for guests or want to be a guest on a podcast.

---

And that's it for this week. Hope you have a lovely weekend.

Trudy

P.S. If this week's story has you thinking about turning what you already know into a course or a membership, Circle (affiliate link) is worth a look. It's community and course hosting in one, so you're not stitching together five different tools to get started. It’s what I use for my Online Business Liftoff community. I’ve used it for years and I still really like it.