It’s Well Said Wednesday, but it’s also a more notable day for me: the sixth anniversary of the day my Dad died at 94.

Dads leave us with a lot of memories, a lot of love and a lot of lessons. So in honor of Lefty, I’m rerunning this post because it’s still true. And because he would get a kick out of knowing I mentioned him here.

***

The two conversations couldn't have been more different, yet they were eerily similar. 

Scenario One: A mastermind session with fellow solo business owners. The talk turns to sending warm letters with information about new services. My colleague Jen, a veteran of the corporate world now successfully guiding her own growing agency, laments that “everything I write sounds so boring and corporate-y.”

Scenario Two: My Mom, my sisters and I are finalizing the funeral arrangements for my Dad who died in March at the ripe old age of 94. The well-meaning funeral director pulls out a form from which he’ll craft my Dad’s obituary. It looks like a very maudlin Mad Libs game.

My Mom shakes her head and points to me. “She’ll write it." Then looks at me and adds, "None of that flowery language."  

The common threads between writing a letter to business prospects and writing an obituary?

The presumption that there’s only one way to do it

and that you must manipulate and tamp down

your true voice – and your very message – to fit that form. 

It’s not true.

Not even a little.

It only leads to boring and corporate-y letters that sound like boring, corporate-y letters, not conversation starters with people you can help. Or flowery, form-generated obituaries that sound like flowery, form-generated obituaries, not the grace note to someone’s life.

Hiding behind expected words and cliched approaches is a sure path to staying lost in the crowd of similar businesses and disguising your unique value. Don't do it. 

Use the words that reflect you, your value, your intent for your business.

Not the words people expect to hear from someone in your line of work. 

Yes, it may mark you as an outlier.

Trust me, none of the other obituaries next to my Dad's had this opening: 

A lifelong instigator of fun, Joseph “Lefty” Govednik died peacefully surrounded by his family on March 20, 2018. Loved by his many, many friends and family for his happy demeanor and corny jokes, he was born and raised…

At his visitation, nearly everyone shared with me their favorite corny "Lefty joke." Friends who hadn't met him felt like they knew a little about the guy who raised me. Maybe you do, too.

That happened because we used the words that reflected him, his value and his intent in life, not the words people expect to read in an obituary. It even extended to the funeral flowers, which I blogged about here.

You can do it when you write for your business, too. Yes, you may have to call in the creageous. But it’s so worth it when you speak as you about you.

Give it a try and let me know what you come up with, okay?

“Well Said Wednesday” is a blog by Barbara Govednik, Message Strategist, Editor and Founder of 4.23 Communication. It’s published every other Wednesday…ish.