This one word will kill the deal

“Why should we trust her? She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.”

Image by Claudio Schwarz on Unsplash.

Someone invited me to connect on social media, quite a while ago. I can’t remember if it was Facebook or LinkedIn and I’m determined not to remember the person who inspired this post. Hopefully, she’s smartened up and changed her copy.

Since I don’t want to remember her name, let’s call her Lydia. (I’m pretty sure it was something else).

Lydia claimed to be a business coach. She didn’t seem to have a lot of experience. Here’s her promise. See if you can catch the credibility-losing word.

“I help talented women become entrepreneurs, build their businesses and earn a six-figure salary.”

That stopped me cold. I don’t know any business owners who would describe their earnings this way. They talk about revenue, sales or income.

You can certainly pay yourself a salary as a business owner.

You could write something creative, such as, “I help women build businesses where they draw 6-figure salaries every year from their revenues.” It would be awkward and unusual. But …who knows?

This business owner violated one of the six pillars of credibility: relevance.