Paula: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Chatting with the Experts TV show where I, Paula Okonneh speak with women from Africa, from the Caribbean, and in the diaspora. The mission of this show is to inspire, to empower and to educate women globally, and these women who are. My guests are professionals and successful entrepreneurs, and they also share my mission. Today’s title is Messaging That Resonates How to Stand Out without shouting. And, my guest who will join us shortly says, “so many brilliant experts struggle to explain what they do. And even more struggle to turn their message into momentum.”
So in this particular episode, Lola Bailey, who’s my guest, will break down why messaging is more [00:01:00] than just a choice of words, and she’ll tell us how to position your value in a way that lands and also explain why clarity is the most underrated growth strategy for coaches and consultants. Lola Bailey is a messaging strategist. She’s a ghost writer also for coaches, consultants, and creative experts who want to turn their ideas into clarity and their clarity into clients. She’s had over a decade of experience in copywriting and brand storytelling and helps business owners move from, I’m not sure what to say about this, to messaging that feels true, sounds sharp, and sells smart. And with that, I want to welcome Lola Bailey to Chatting with the Experts.
Lola: Hello.
Paula: Hello. Hello, hello. I [00:02:00] love, I love what you do and I love your title, “Messaging That Resonates: How To Stand Out Without Shouting”. How do we do that?
Lola: Wow. I mean, how do we do that? That’s the perennial question. And it’s also a question that I get asked a lot. I think the reason why is that there are a lot of these marketing type terms that really confuse people. And in a bid to navigate their way out of this sort of morass of terminology, they end up not really doing themselves much justice because those terms exist for a reason. And it’s only when you understand the terms and why they’re there, that you can then begin to apply them to your business and see the results.
Paula: I love what you said when you understand, because understanding is key, and that’s I guess, a big part of clarity. Your message needs to be clear. If not, you know you’re saying something and people are probably nodding. But they’re nodding because they don’t want to seem [00:03:00] like, oh, I’m the only one who doesn’t understand.
Lola: Well, they want to be polite. They want be polite.
Paula: They want to be polite. So what’s the difference? I mean, we are in a world where social media is dominant. If you don’t know what social media is, you must be living under a rock. That’s what I say to people, but what’s the difference between messaging? We hear that we need to message what’s the difference between that content and copy, and does it even matter?
Lola: Yeah, that’s such a fantastic question. It’s a big question, so I’m going to take my time to answer it because it’s so important. And I’m really passionate about helping people to understand the differences because there are differences. We are living in what I call an infobesity crisis. So by that I mean there is just so much information available flying around. We have adverts. We have podcasts. We have videos. We have webinars. We have newsletters. You know, our inboxes are groaning under the strain of so much content. [00:04:00] Hence the term infobesity crisis. It’s a lot of information. What people are looking for is not information. What they’re looking for is really resonance. And resonance is where messaging fits in.
In terms of the difference between content, which is what I’ve just described, so all the podcasts, the webinars, the newsletters, the videos, the webinars. So the difference between content and messaging and copy is what I’m gonna explain now. The purpose of content. So that’s all the things I’ve listed. Now, all the marketing collateral, the purpose of that is to build trust. So it’s to build trust between you and your target audience. So you might do that through your newsletter. You might do that through a tv, a station like you have here. You might do that through your podcast. You might have written a book. All of this is content and the purpose is to build trust with the audience that you want to attract.
Copy or copywriting on the other hand, has a very distinctive [00:05:00] purpose. The purpose of that is to provoke some form of conversion. And by conversion I mean some sort of action. That action could actually be a change of thinking. The action could be getting someone to donate to a charity. You know, there’s a reason why some of us burst into tears when they see a Wateraid advertisement. That’s copywriting. Then the purpose is to pull at our heartstrings. So we open up our wallets and donate.
That is copywriting. It’s writing with a specific purpose. The purpose could be to sign up to your newsletter, to subscribe to your YouTube channel. So copywriting serves a very specific purpose, and that is conversion. By contrast, content is there to build a relationship through all the various media. We have from videos to podcast to newsletter. So that, that I hope describes the difference between the two, copy and content.
Paula: It [00:06:00] surely does. I mean, this is first time I’ve heard it, so crystal clear. But that’s your specialty, to make things clear, crystal clear. Yeah.
Lola: That’s great. Because clarity is key. It’s absolutely key and absolutely key. I mean, I say to people in my messaging workshops, you have to be ruthlessly clear. Which brings me onto the messaging. So messaging is, I guess, an easy way to describe it for your audience. Messaging is how you convey the value of what you do and what you bring to the table. Where a lot of people get things wrong is that they start by just posting content. Where they need to start is by refining their positioning. Messaging comes after positioning. So for me, my brand is trying to occupy the space of messaging, which is between positioning and copywriting.
Positioning is the space that you want to occupy in the minds of [00:07:00] your ideal clients. So let me give you a very simple, powerful example. Volvo is a brand. It’s a car. Everybody knows or heard of Volvo, yeah?
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Lola: I’m sure… do they have Volvo in America? I’m sure they have Volvo in America.
Paula: We do. We do. Yes.
Lola: Okay, great. Gosh, thinking, my gosh. Maybe it’s just the UK. So Volvo is a brand that everyone is familiar with. People are also familiar with Ferrari.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Lola: Yeah. But they’re both cars. But on the other hand, they have very different positioning. Volvo is positioned to occupy the space of safety.
Paula: Yes.
Lola: In the minds of its ideal clients. For example, families would be a target audience for Volvo. Ferrari, on the other hand, is not positioned for that. They are positioned for exhilaration, dopamine, you know, speed, you know, sort of a man, the man or woman with a lot of money. It’s very different positioning. They are both cars, but they have both [00:08:00] decided ahead of time exactly the space that they want to occupy in the minds of their ideal clients.
So once you’ve got your positioning sorted out to your differentiation. Once you have established that, only then can you then start to talk about any messaging, because your messaging, so what you say about your positioning speaks to that positioning. So you’ll see Volvo adverts, whether in print or TV or wherever speak to their positioning, anything to do with safety. So they might talk about a specific new safety feature. They might focus on, you know, families and keeping people safe. Everything they do will speak to their positioning. That is what we mean by messaging. So messaging is translating your positioning into content. And from the content into the copy that drives a specific action.
For Volvo could be book a test drive. That would be [00:09:00] where the copywriting comes in, getting them to actually take an action. So that’s the progression. You start with the positioning. Yeah. That’s your differentiation.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Lola: From the positioning, you have messaging that speaks to that. So you will be talking safety if you’re Volvo. If you’re Ferrari, you’ll be talk talking risk, speed. That is all messaging that reflects the positioning. And then your copywriting depends on what your objective is. Do you want people to book a test drive? Do you want them to sort of know about a specific key feature? So it’s very much down to the objective that you want for that piece of content. So that’s the difference between the three.
Paula: Wow. You have broken it down so well. You know that now I know. I mean, I’ve heard it. I’ve read it, but I’ve really heard it today. Wow. Positioning.
Lola: I’m really pleased.
Paula: It’s the messaging that speaks and that [00:10:00] leads you to the copywriting and I guess then, and then with the copywriting, then you put it on whatever platform that will be the content, whether it’s a TV show, a podcast, newsletter.
Lola: That’s all content.
Paula: That’s all content.
Lola: So your copy is when you want people to do something or to think something or to believe something. Content is the general stuff. Like what we’re doing now is content.
Paula: Yes.
Lola: Your newsletters that you send; content. Your LinkedIn post, most of them will be content. You might just be, you know, showcasing how to do something that’s content, but copy when you said tell, you want people to sign up for your webinar or you want them to join your workshop. That’s copy and it’s how you manipulate that to get people to respond. So that is the skill of a copywriting. It’s selling. So copywriting is literally selling in print, whether that’s digital or analog. It’s selling.
Paula: Thank you for explaining that.
Lola: I’m glad you asked the question because [00:11:00] it’s where so many people go wrong. They start off by just making posts.
Paula: Yes.
Lola: And then they wonder why they’re not getting anything, any traction from their posts because they’ve started at the wrong end.
Paula: At the wrong end. Indeed.
Lola: But they need to do my work… my messaging workshop basically.
Paula: Yeah. And so, you know, and that same train of thought, you know, so there’s a price for unclear messaging, obviously.
Lola: Yeah. That definitely there’s a very big price for unclear messaging, and I’m sure you can already guess what that is. The prices that you will be completely invisible to your ideal clients. I mean, just to give you an example, I actually made a post just today about it. I was linking it to Jollof rice, party Jollof, and the post was saying that, it’s easy to say, I help you improve engagement with your social media, but so does jollof rice party, jollof Rice, which is a Nigerian national dish, as you know.
Paula: And soda.
Lola: Can improve everybody’s engagement. But I mean, that’s the point I’m trying to make [00:12:00] is that, what do you mean? What do you mean by engagement? It can apply to anything. And we see so much of this on social media. They have become almost like commodity phrases. I call them commodity phrases. Very broad, very general, very unspecific. They just don’t really tell anybody anything. As I said, it can apply equally to Jollof rice as a counter to social media engagement.
So, it’s unclear messaging. It’s not specific messaging. So, an example would be to, you know, to increase the number of people responding to your posts, or improving the resonance of your posts with your ideal clients. You know, it just has to very much speak to your positioning, whatever your positioning happens to be. If you’re a manager, rather than saying, unlock performance, you know, get the best out of your team and with their sales performance. Something that speaks more specifically to what it is that you are trying to achieve. You know, I help sort of introverted managers [00:13:00] become more visible within their organization.
Do you know what I mean? Rather than, you know, I help managers get promoted. Well, which managers? Managers in biotech, managers in restaurants, you know, it’s, a lot of people are very vague with their positioning, so they’re not seen by people. I mean, there’s so many people whose headlines I see, executive coach, all I have to do is put executive coach into the search bar on LinkedIn and I get tens of thousands of responses of people calling themselves executive coaches. So how am I supposed to choose between you and the other tens of thousands of executive coaches?
Paula: Yes.
Lola: And then people says LinkedIn is not working.
Paula: So how do people fix that? Give us a clue. How do we…
Lola: Well, apart from coming in my workshop…
Paula: But…
Lola: Yeah. I mean, how they fix that is it just starts with ruthless clarity. So it’s ruthless clarity over exactly who is it you are trying to target with [00:14:00] whatever your offer is. So we talked about Volvo. We talked about Ferrari.
Paula: Yeah.
Lola: They are crystal clear. They have a ruthless clarity about who they’re trying to target. You need to bring that same clarity. You need to really be able to see that person in the flesh. So you need to have that ruthless clarity. And we’ve literally spent most of our first session in our workshop developing that ruthless clarity. I just kept going back at people. It’s not specific enough. It’s not specific enough. People have to see themselves in your profile, in your headline. So it really starts with that ruthless clarity about who the best person is for your offer. Then you have to be very clear about what it is that you offer, you are offering. What is the scope of it? Where are the limitations of what it is you are you are offering? What is it you are offering, and what is it you are not offering so that there’s no scope, there’s no space at all for confusion or [00:15:00] subjectivity or misrepresentation or misunderstanding.
So you have to really spend a lot of time working on that. And then you have to sort of make sure that you’ve done your positioning. I mean, that comes before everything else, as we said. That’s number one.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Lola: So is your positioning differentiated enough? Could anybody be providing what you’re providing? I mean, can I find someone else who’s literally telling me the same thing that you’re telling me right now? Before I chose my headline L and D, ghost writer messaging strategist. I looked on LinkedIn to see if anybody else was calling themselves that I couldn’t see anybody. And I’m not saying there isn’t that.
Sorry,
Paula: I said you, but I is unique. I mean, I remember looking at that before I knew you, before I was introduced to you and I’m like ghost writing. I haven’t heard people talk about that in years. You know, especially, yeah.
Lola: I mean, there are ghost writers, but they don’t, I haven’t seen any call themselves, L and D ghost writer. And the reason why is because I want my ideal clients, and the majority of them, they’re not exclusively to be working in learning and development. Lo and [00:16:00] behold, the ones who come to my inbox pretty much every week work in learning and development. Some even don’t even engage with my content. And they just say, I’m looking for an analytic ghost writer. But if you just have executive coach, who are you expecting to be knocking on your dm box? So that is, that is the big, big, big, big, big mistake people make. And then, then I get people saying, oh, LinkedIn is in, I’m leaving LinkedIn. It’s not working Well. Is a reason for most things. Success on LinkedIn isn’t about thousands of followers, thousands of like, it’s not about those vanity metrics.
It’s about whatever you decided your objective to be. Not everyone has an objective of wanting to sell anything. Some people just like writing, sharing information, but for a lot of people, their objective is to sell their services. So if it is to sell your services, then you have to do that exercise. You have to put in the nine yards. You have to go through the process. This is my positioning. Now I can speak to my messaging, and then I can create my content [00:17:00] to speak to my messaging. And I like to think about it as saying the same thing in a thousand ways, and that’s one of the things we do in my workshop. We talk, we say the same things in a thousand ways.
So I’ve given them what I call a messaging ecosystem that helps ’em say the same thing in a thousand ways, and that is how they dominate. That’s my plan for them to dominate their niche. Once they have clarified that niche that they’re going for, they’re hyper-specific, they then dominated. So hopefully that answers your question.
Paula: Yes, it does. It does. But you know, it, it brings me also to the, and there’s emotions that go with that. You know, you hyper-specific. Yes. But people are human beings and so they need to see something that makes them feel, you are talking to me.
Lola: Mm.
Paula: You know, I can relate to that.
Lola: Yeah.
Paula: Seeing yourself in that position.
Lola: Definitely you’ve hit the nail on the head there. I’m so, so big on the whole emotional piece. Well, two of the foundational models that I use for my work [00:18:00] are the Persuasion Triangle. I dunno if you’ve heard of it. It’s sometimes called, the Rhetorical Triangle. It’s by Aristotle. It’s the ethos, logos and pathos. I’m sure a lot of your audience would’ve heard of it. It’s classical. It goes back centuries. So it’s devised by Aristotle and it’s about the art of persuasion. And it talks about how to persuade anyone. You need to have three elements. You need to have ethos, which is all about your credibility as a person, as a provider, you need to have pathos. And pathos is all about your appeal to the emotions of your ideal client. And that’s huge. A lot of people miss that out. And then the final piece of the triangle is the logos. And logos is all about your solution. It’s the answer that you have to the problems that your ideal clients have. Your ability to get them their goals to help them reach the destination that they want to reach.
Those three elements go into it. But a huge part of it is the emotions. And what I’ve found is that people, especially on LinkedIn, tend to go on either one side or the other. You rarely see all three. So you’ll see people who [00:19:00] very clinical, they only talk about how good their offer is, but there’s very little emotional resonance, and we are people. People buy from people. So you need that emotional resonance.
Paula: Yeah.
Lola: So you get people who are all emotion and no rationality at all. So all you see is sort of the heart aspect of it all, the sort of the storytelling, the sort of emotions. That’s it. You don’t get much else. You don’t really get the argument behind what they’re selling. And then there are people who just talk about all their achievements. I’m thrilled to announce you see that a lot on LinkedIn. I’m thrilled to announce this. I’m thrilled to elapse that. That’s all you see. But what you need is to have all three elements of the triangle. And all three need to be reflected in your messaging as well. So, but yes, I mean, I’m so big on emotions and I keep pushing people. I need to feel it. I need to feel it. I’m not feeling it right now, but I need to feel it.
Let’s go back and revise that. You know, can you have a more specific outcome? Can we use a stronger verb here? I need more, you know, can we add a bit of [00:20:00] context that people really resonate with what you’re saying? So it’s work. I mean, there’s a reason why copywriters a pretty well paid because they’re doing this work, whereas people who don’t have that background aren’t doing it. They don’t know what they don’t know.
Paula: They don’t know what they don’t know. So essentially what I’m hearing from you is, well, you alluded to that when I asked that question that, you know, do we have to bring our emotions into it? Because as you said, I mean, people are people and so, and a professional social media platform like LinkedIn, you are saying that your messaging should be such that there’s emotional resonance. And that should trump over, you know, having such a polished copy. That people see it. Okay. They acknowledge it, but it doesn’t reach down to their soul. It doesn’t move them.
Lola: Yeah, exactly. And especially so in the age of AI because with AI it’s very easy for people to… how can I put [00:21:00] this? It’s very people to mistake their ability to write. Or overrate their ability to write content. AI is literally a machine that scrapes the internet. It works on patterns. It’s not a human being. It doesn’t really understand emotion driven context. It doesn’t. So whilst I’m all for AI as a tool for efficiency and to speed things up and to help you be more productive, it’s not a substitute for raw human emotions, you know, the blind spots that we have, the mistakes that we make. It’s not a substitute for that.
Unfortunately, because of AI, we see a lot of very, very low quality posts on social media written by AI. And that’s why so many posts look the same. They blend into one another. They have the same structure, the same formatting, the same words, the same phrases. They blend into one another, and it’s a huge missed opportunity [00:22:00] for somebody who understands writing. And the whole purpose really is to move somebody. Otherwise, why are you writing anything? If you’re writing for yourself, then you can just write in your journal. You don’t need to spend time writing for LinkedIn if you are just writing for yourself. If you’re going to write for LinkedIn, then isn’t it worth learning how to do it properly?
Paula: Absolutely. And I think that’s probably where the confusion started that people look at LinkedIn as a professional social media platform and then like Facebook is more personal. IG, you know, stories.
Lola: Yeah.
Paula: But at the same time, a lot of people forget it’s people still who are coming to LinkedIn. Yes. They may be professional, but deep down we are human.
Lola: Yeah.
Paula: Well, you, as you mentioned a few minutes ago, that you know AI, yes is for efficiency, but it’s doesn’t have a soul.
Lola: No, it doesn’t have a soul at all. And that’s why there’s so much soulless [00:23:00] copy out there.
Paula: Yes.
Lola: There’s so much soulless content. And honestly, I mean, I can read one post about toxic managers, and then another one will come about toxic managers and another one go about toxic managers. And they’re literally just almost like iterations of one another. One blends into the other. So you just, you don’t get anything from any.
Paula: Wow.
Lola: Maybe there might be a selfie there to make it different. But ultimately what they’re saying is exactly the same thing from the same limited, sort of cohort of AI content that you are getting. And it is such a shame. It’s such a shame because when you have so much lived experience, when you are the only one who had that experience with Mr. X, Mrs. Y, who learned this specific thing from this place that you are at, who, who had this specific takeaway.
Paula: Mm-hmm.
Lola: Who did this specific thing at this specific time. We don’t get that.
Paula: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You are so right. You know, we forget more and more. I mean, but this, I think is bringing some hope to people who are [00:24:00] like, is AI taken over the world with everything? Absolutely. What you are saying is that, we are still people. Our messaging have to reflect who we are.
Lola: Yes.
Paula: And as a business person who you are trying to reach. ’cause people are not, you know, we don’t fall for the message from a machine, from a car, from a, you know, non-human.
Lola: Yeah.
Paula: But we are listening and we are leaning, like I’m leaning in to hear more from you because…
Lola: Yeah. Exactly.
Paula: Speaking to the heart.
Lola: That’s it. That’s absolutely it. And you know, we may have new technology, we may have new developments and, you know, I dunno what, what the world is gonna be like in even next year, let alone 10 years time. But one thing I’m sure is that nothing new in under the sun.
Paula: No.
Lola: When it comes to human beings, there’s nothing new under the sun. We will still have the same, we’re still, you know, sinful people, flawed human beings with the same fears, the same hopes, the same desires. So what I say to people is, and another one of the models that I use, I mentioned the [00:25:00] rhetorical triangle, is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, which is a very, again, it’s a very old ancient model that people still use to this day. And it sort of looks at the different categories of needs that human beings have, right from physiological, so things like you know, safety, food, hunger, things like that to the top of the pyramid, which is all about self-actualization and reaching your potential.
Human beings will still have, we do still have these needs. So people need to speak to those needs, but certain people are not doing that. They’re just not doing that. It’s just regurgitated text. But if you know your ideal client, if you have that ruthless clarity about your ideal client and what keeps them awake at [3:00] AM in the morning, whether it’s how long can I keep this going? How long can I keep juggling elderly parents, young children, and a boss that’s so demanding? Hey, I can’t speak to that. So we need more content that speaks to real [00:26:00] life situations. That’s what resonates, that’s what’s real.
Paula: Absolutely. Ooh, Lola. We have to have a round two of this. A part two of this because I’m like, at our time. And so, for people who are listening to this later or viewing this later, if they wanna speak with you and find out how they can better their messaging. And reach the people who they are created to reach and impact. How can they get in touch with you?
Lola: Well, I’d love for anyone watching this who wants to learn more about positioning and messaging to get in touch with me via LinkedIn. So Lola Bailey, LinkedIn and you’ll see my headline it says Ghost Writer and Messaging strategist. I am also launching a free newsletter soon, which is going to be about all things messaging and positioning. ’cause there’s such a need out there. And that’s the reason why I decided to start launch like a free newsletter where I’ll be teaching people some of the secrets that I’ve gained over the 15 years about messaging so that they can just [00:27:00] apply that to their own businesses and start experiencing much better results from their content. So that’s how people can get in touch with me.
Paula: All right then, do you have a website?
Lola: Yeah, but it’s, I don’t wanna use it. It’s write-upcommunications.co.uk, but it needs updating, but you can go on there as well, if you like. But a lot of what I do, what’s on my website is on LinkedIn. And more on LinkedIn.
Paula: Okay.
Lola: But, the email newsletter, which I’m gonna be starting very, very soon, is going to be another way people can reach me as well, of course, free if they want to.
Paula: I love it. Love it. Wow. And for those of you who are listening or viewing this later, as you can see, I always have the best when I come to my guests. Lola has been one of them, so if you’d like to be a guest on my show, you can reach out to me on my website, which is chattingwiththeexperts.com. I’m also on LinkedIn. Oh my gosh, if LinkedIn had to pay me for saying this, I love LinkedIn, but they [00:28:00] don’t pay me. Let’s be clear about that talking about clarity . I’m on LinkedIn as Paula Okonneh. I’m also on Instagram, and I handle this at chat_experts_podcast and I’m on Facebook, more so now than ever before. Just look for me under Paula or I do have a business page Chatting with the Experts.
And we are also now very much on YouTube. I have a channel there, Chatting with the Experts. And so, oh my gosh, Lola, this has been so good. And, so what I’d like is that for those of you who are in the audience, to stay back and ask additional questions because of course I couldn’t ask her everything. And, before we head over to our audience, Paula, I want to say thank you again and can we do a part two at some time? At some point?
Lola: Why not? Yeah. Thank you for having me in advance.[00:29:00]
Paula: Thank you.