When I was young, I heard that crusty bread would make my hair curly. I loved curly hair. I loved it more than life and Tony Danza put together. Though I had a straight, dark mane I was convinced that a few French rolls a day would transform me into Farrah Fawcett. I also heard that mayonnaise would make it thick and shimmering. For weeks, I smelled like a picnic.
To my dismay, my hair became progressively stringy, dull, and thick with oil. It took another several weeks – of rinsing with vinegar, no less – to get it back to normal. Suddenly, I was denigrated to smelling like a McDonald’s fry and looking like the smart Charlie’s Angel (had it not been for her brains, Sabrina had a really uneventful head).
Years later I was able to turn my sad tale into a funny TV ad about taking the wrong advice. It was for a pharmaceutical company and it showed countless contradictory medical opinions all positioned against an upbeat jingle. We won an award for that ad. It made the long-standing hurt go away. Of course, by mentioning this, I’m using the opportunity to blatantly promote my talents. That’s because I want to point out that marketing is a considerable skill, one that sharpens with experience and, when successful, earns the respect of industry of peers. Marketing is not subjective opinion.
This brings me to the subject of the other day when a client questioned my approach to his dating profile. He loved it. He couldn’t believe how much it sounded like him. He also didn’t really want to change it, but he was torn because my approach didn’t match up to a profile writing tip that he happened to come across online.
The advice he read was that women like commanding, confident men and, as such, dating profiles need to come on strong. It’s true that confidence is appealing. However, you need to take great care to promote yourself, while not sounding arrogant. His dating profile exuded a positive self-image throughout. It also maintained a balance of playful, disarming and warm (like he was).
I explained to my client that, from a marketing perspective, being welcoming and non-threatening takes into account the environment he’s in – that is, one filled with strangers. It also takes into account that his target group (ad lingo meaning audience) is women – a gender that tends to be cautious when dealing with strange men online.
In short, the approach I used on his profile was not only customized to his personality, it was founded in solid marketing principles where you craft an ad by taking into account factors such as environment and target behavior.
What was confounding about this exchange wasn’t that my client had uncertainty.
It was that the advice that made him question all the work we had done together was given by a guy who had no marketing experience whatsoever. He didn’t even have a psychology degree or expertise in the subject of “what women want” (which, by the way, is still not a license to give marketing advice). He was just a guy with an opinion based solely on his own misguided thinking.
Online dating can be a fulfilling experience. It can also be a discouraging one – especially if you’re taking the wrong advice and find yourself overlooked and unsuccessful. So, when you make a decision to trust advice – whether it’s about hair conditioner or online dating – seriously assess your resources.
Because anyone can post phony credentials, I suggest that you investigate their work. Check out samples, blogs, appearances – everything. Make sure that the work is consistent and that it resonates with you.
Don’t trust your heart to just anyone.
On that note, with over 20 years experience in marketing, I’m trained to get you noticed and to write your dating profile in the most effective and engaging way possible. So hire me. Get started by completing the online personality quiz. In addition, I’ve collected a vast amount of experience that I share here on these blogs, as well as on my TV and radio appearances. You can find inspiration by looking at the online dating profile samples.
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If you’d like to your LinkedIn profile to get noticed, be sure to have a look at North America’s best LinkedIn profiles.
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