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Recently, we talked about the importance of promoting your subscribers’ agenda. Nothing we say today should come before the supreme importance of having your content be about your subscribers and not about yourself. However, there is room for your own agenda, if you remember to approach things correctly. Let’s talk about that…

Talk about your agenda as if others are involved. There’s a big difference between saying “my company will save the world,” and “together, we can save the world,” and that difference is inclusion. When you use inclusive language, you bring others along with you. And of course, you don’t have to be saving the world. Whatever it is that you do, other people are necessary (even if all they do is buy what you sell).

Invite people to join you. My background is in writing first and foremost, so I tend to think about marketing language a lot. Extending an invitation is cordial and welcoming; this stands apart from communication telling people what to do. At the very least, disguise your efforts to tell people what to do by being polite and thoughtful. At the other end of that is a genuine offer to partner in forwarding mutual agendas.

Extend your vision beyond yourself. How does your vision fit into a larger vision? We’ll talk about this in an altruistic sense in a couple of weeks, but that doesn’t have to be your focus. Consider how your business fits into a larger world, whether that is a location-based community, a field of business, etc. In other words, paint your agenda as being part of the bigger picture.

Can I write this article without saying something super cheesy like “make their agenda your agenda?” Well, if you thought I could, I guess you are wrong. If you’ve done your background research on what your subscribers’ agendas are, then you can do the following: look for commonalities between their agenda and your agenda. Direct your focus there. By starting on common ground, you can then branch out in both directions: the direction your subscribers are hoping you’ll go, and the direction you’d like to lead your subscribers.