Photo by Patrick Fitzgerald

Do you know if your marketing efforts are backfiring on you? Look through the list to ensure that your well meaning work is actually causing you professional harm:

Talk LOUDER. If someone isn’t paying attention to you, you might be tempted to raise your voice. The first time you do it, it seems to work. But eventually people learn to tune you out, since you’re not saying anything new – just LOUDER. This is true not only for face-to-face conversations, but also in print (bigger font size, flashier graphics, etc.). Make sure your communications are worth listening to.

Talk Non-Stop. If you’re monologue-ing your conversation, you’re not listening to your prospect. First, ask questions to qualify them. Find out what types of problems they have and then craft a message that shows you listened.

Talk Repetitively. Don’t find 10 ways to say the same thing. While repetition is important to ensure that your key points aren’t missed, respect your audience’s intelligence. If the first way you say something isn’t interesting, neither will the tenth repetition.

Talk More Often. If you email someone once a month, then emailing them once a week is unlikely to endear yourself to them. If you have something new to say, say it. If you don’t, respect your prospect’s time.

Talk Nonsense. We get caught up in the latest buzzwords and keywords. Pretty soon no one can quickly make sense of what you’re saying. The goal is to talk simply to be understood. Once you’re sure your prospect likes to use buzzwords, by all means shower them with words. Until then, speak naturally in all your communication.