Me vs. You Test — How Well Is Your Website Communicating To Your Customers?

Do your customers actually care about YOU?

We like to think they do, but they really don't. (At the very least, not in the beginning.) They might care that you are helping solve their problems with a product or service, but once you stop doing that... do they still care?

You are a great business. You have great products & services that solve real problems. If your customers only knew what you knew they could truly appreciate everything. Does this sound familiar?

Notice above, I didn't say that I have a great business. And that MY business has great services and listen to MY advice to help your company solve problems. ME ME ME.

You don't care about me & my story as much as you do about you and your story. The same is true for your customers. Tell them how you can help THEM.

Take 15 minutes: Me vs. You

Audit your homepage.

• Tally up how many times you say "I", "we", "our", or your business name.
• Then tally up how many times you say "you", "your", or are speaking to the customer's problems.

Does the "me" outweigh the "you"?

Does your website speak to the customer? Or does it speak about yourself more?

If you actually did the website audit just now & tallied your "me" vs. "you" language on your website, you might have realized you talk about you & your company more than the customer.

Some examples might be sections on your homepage about:

• Our company
• Our approach
• We are specialists
• Our services
• Our team

Does that mean it's bad to talk about your team or services or anything listed? No. However, sometimes there are other ways to say it: "Industries we serve" instead of "Our services." Maybe "How it works" or even "Your plan to success" instead of "Our approach."

Instead of "we make great beds" think about stating “say goodbye to tossing & turning, you'll get the best sleep you’ve ever had.”

Also, consider balance.

If you talk about your customer's problem, how your solution can help them, & how the customer can succeed by using it, then you have checked a lot more boxes for that customer:

• Check. I do have that exact problem.
• Check. That solution would help me.
• Check. I could see a better life for myself.

As a customer, now that I know I'm in the right place, I can continue my journey & learn more about your product, about your services, about your company & how it fits with me & my needs.

Can I ever talk about myself?

Yes, but there is a time and place for that and some strategies around it.

In Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends & Influence People book he talks about a dinner he attended. One of the guests who sat next to him at the party started up a conversation. He listened to the guest and encouraged him to talk the whole night (vs. him talking the whole night to the guest):

...and he ended by saying I was a “most interesting conversationalist.” An interesting conversationalist? Why, I had said hardly anything at all.

[...]

And so I had him thinking of me as a good conversationalist when, in reality, I had been merely a good listener and had encouraged him to talk.

So how to do we "listen" via our website?

We do it by talking about YOU (your customer). If you are talking about them and they check the boxes above, they know you understand them. If you understand them and can communicate that to them on your website, then you must be a good listener too!

It's human nature to want to talk about yourself. When you're on someone else's website, you can't really talk about yourself. So what's the next best thing? To read about yourself!

Take the time now to update your homepage to talk to your customers about how THEY can have a better life with your solution.

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