How to win friends and influence people. Rule #1: Listen and let others talk about themselves.

It works because people love to share their stories. Which, you know, is cool and all… but when do you get to share yours? You shouldn’t have to wait around, twiddling your thumbs until someone asks about you.

Don’t worry.

All those bottled up stories you’ve been waiting to share will be worth much more to you than an interesting conversation.

See, a lot of times people stare at blank Word documents, straining their brains for something to write. Painfully trying to meet a reasonable word count that looks as though you put in some effort.

Seriously. Stop trying so hard.

Whether it be a blog entry, or even a sales letter, draw from your own experiences. Tell your stories that you’ve been dying to share.

And storytelling doesn’t just make it easier to figure out what to say…

In sales and marketing, drawing from your own experiences makes you more relatable to your target audience. Here’s a snippet from an old sales letter I wrote:

You’re always welcome to walk away and continue to think, “I don’t need this, it won’t happen to me.” Of course, if and when it does, you’ll most likely be left crawling back to your boss, begging for your job back.

Want to know what defeat feels like? See how you feel after have to put a “for sale” sign on your brand new fishing boat because you can’t afford it after losing your passive income trail.

Oh, and what about explaining to your spouse why you can’t afford to finish the kitchen renovation that’s already half done? All because you didn’t bother to make a small investment in a software that would protect your assets.

In case you hadn’t guessed, the product was a software that protected websites from hackers. Being a hard sale in that particular market, the goal was to induce fear to force customers to take action.

It worked.

And I drew each example from my own experience in a way that would relate to my target audience – a market that consisted of online business owners.

At the time, I had just gone out on my own doing freelance work and I was scared of having to go back to a day job. My hubby and I had recently been looking into buying a fishing boat. And my kitchen was completely torn apart, and I was living in renovation chaos.

There’s a pretty slim chance my target market was in the exact same situation. But each of these pain points is completely relatable.

Many of them feared going back to a 9-5 (the reason they’d built their own businesses). Most likely had a “dream purchase” such as a fancy car or a new home. And more often than not, most people in their adult lives have lived through and know the pain associated with a renovation project.

 

Even if your experience isn’t exactly the same as theirs, your reader will make the connection themselves. Your writing will portray the emotion you want to evoke in them, and telling it in a story makes it all the more relatable.

Don’t ever undervalue the lessons of your experiences and what they can offer someone else.

And circling back to our original point, drawing from your own life is a wonderful inspiration. It makes it much easier to fill in that blank Word document that’s been taunting you.