“Grandma and grandpa were right: getting clients to like you and trust you, having a good reputation – that’s gold!”

People Buy You is the first business book I’m tackling this year. The author, Jeb Blount, starts with a story about his first sales job selling canned goods door to door – not exactly something people want to buy at 6:15 AM, before they’ve had their morning coffee.

And his first stop let him know it. Mrs. Perkins didn’t yell or send him away. She invited him to sit and chat a while. 45 minutes later, after Mrs. Perkins had talked about her family and grandkids, she bought 100 cases of chili.

When I read this story, my first thought was, “This is a reason to blog.”

I know this story is about listening to build trust, so my thought may seem like a strange jump at first, but blogging shows you’ve been listening to the people you want to help.

Writing about it doesn’t mean sharing client stories. It means noticing patterns in what people ask, fear, try, and say out loud. I don’t write about individuals. I write about themes that show up repeatedly.

Listening comes from more places than you think: intake forms and onboarding questions, the comments someone shares at the end of a session, FAQs you find yourself answering every week. It also shows up in reviews that repeat the same phrases, and in search terms people type when they’re trying to solve their problems.

If you listen to what your clients tell you and then write about it, it lets people know you understand them. It shows you hear them, you remember what they said, and you think about it when they’re not in the room.

Years ago, I studied massage therapy with a mentor who was retiring. I trained with her long enough to learn her approach, and I even worked on her clients alongside her. But when they’d see me outside of those sessions, they never stuck with me. They’d tell me they could feel a “Mary Lou massage” in my work, but I just wasn’t her.

Clients weren’t evaluating my skills so much as they were grieving their relationship with her. I couldn’t recreate the shared history, inside jokes, or the trust they’d built over the years.

That’s what People Buy You looks like in practice.

Listening can turn into sticky content. If you listen well, your blog posts will start doing three things automatically: mirror their inner monologue, name the problem without shaming your clients, and show what you do.

Talking about your approach isn’t just showing what you do, but how you think and care. That’s what separates you from others who do the same work. Two businesses may offer the same advice, but the one that sounds human with a consistent point of view is the one visitors feel like they know.

How do you turn listening into blog posts? After interactions, make notes: write down exact phrases they used, what they’re worried about, what they’ve tried already to fix their problems, and what they actually want to accomplish.

Each of these things can become a post that makes the right person think, “Finally, someone is talking about my situation.”

Information can be replaced by anyone. Relationships can’t. Blogging lets people experience you before they book, buy, or visit your shop, and it helps keep the connection between your interactions. It’s one of the best ways to build loyalty without being cheapest, closest, or most available. Plus, when your posts are consistently optimized and published, it gives Google more reasons to send new visitors your way! Win-win!

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