When you’re a service-based business owner, you’re probably an expert at what you do. Even if you don’t introduce yourself as “an expert”, you’re definitely specialised and have a deep understanding of what you do to help people.
When you’re very close to a subject, you have a deep understanding of it. It can be hard to imagine NOT having that deep knowledge.
So…
When you create content, sometimes it doesn’t make sense to the reader, because they don’t have the same level of knowledge or understanding. This is the Curse of Knowledge.
“The curse of knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when an individual, communicating with other individuals, unknowingly assumes that the others have the background to understand.”
—Wikipedia
Here’s a quick exercise to make sure you’re making sense to your potential leads and clients.
The 5:5:3 content survey
- Find 5 strangers
- Ask them to spend 5 minutes with your content (site or socials or both)
- Ask then to answer 3 questions
Find 5 strangers
Ask 5 people to review your content. Don’t ask family and friends, they probably already know what you do, because they know you. We’re looking for unbiased feedback.
Find 5 people who have never heard of you. But not just ANY people, we’re looking for people who could be clients. People who are, or are similar to your ideal client… basically someone who might need your service is likely to pay for it.
Something you can try is to ask in a Facebook group where people like your ideal client hang out. Post asking for some feedback on your content. You can offer them a freebie or something to say thanks as an incentive if you like.
Why 5 people?
5 is enough to see patterns, but not too much to get bogged down and waste time.
Ask them to spend 5 minutes on your content
Now that you have your 5 strangers. Ask them to spend 5 minutes with your content. This could be your main social channel or website, or both. Just ask them to spend 5 minutes or so.
Why 5 minutes?
We want to know about the first impression. What they understand without trying too hard. This is why we only ask the questions AFTER they look around.
Ask them to answer 3 questions
If you ask the questions BEFORE they review your content, they’ll be looking for the answers, rather than visiting the content with an open mind.
You can ask them these questions live on a call or by creating a quick survey (I like www.typeform.com/surveys for simple surveys)
Your questions:
- What service do I offer?
- Was there any information missing or hard to find?
- Was it easy and obvious how to contact me?
What to do with this info’
- If all 5 surveys come back with a clear answer to question 1, brilliant!!! But if they come back with a vague answer, or they weren’t sure, you might need to look at how you present your services. If people don’t get it, they won’t buy it!
- If there was information missing or hard to find, consider adding that information, or moving it to a more visible part of your content.
- And if it was unclear how to contact you, please work on that right away. Because if potential clients can’t get in touch with you, you’re missing out on opportunities every, single, day!!
Take what you learn from the survey and apply it to your content. When people understand what you do, they’re more likely to become paying clients!
Beware the Curse of Knowledge
(OooOoooooOooOOOo, that was supposed to be a Scooby Doo-like spooky noise. Did it work?)