Entrepreneurs often struggle with sharing their opinions and thoughts on controversial topics.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
This is good advice for 99% of the things that we talk about on social media. But when it comes to your business, this adage can hurt you more than help you.
Entrepreneur Advice & Sharing Unpopular Opinions Video
In my experience as an entrepreneur and a digital marketer, I’ve learned that if you want to build trust with your audience then you have to share what’s really on your mind – even if it means sharing unpopular opinions or ideas.
You need people who will engage with your brand because they see themselves in what you’re doing; not just because they like the product that’s being sold. If someone doesn’t agree with me then so be it!
They’ll move along and find someone else who shares their values and beliefs but hopefully, by hearing from me first they will start to see the human behind the company.
Should Entrepreneurs Share Their Opinions?
Entrepreneurs often struggle with sharing their opinions and thoughts on controversial topics.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying, “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”
This is good advice for 99% of the things that we talk about on social media. But when it comes to your business, this adage can hurt you more than it can help you.
Business Advice: Build Trust In Your Brand
In my experience as an entrepreneur and a digital marketer, I’ve learned that if you want to build trust with your audience then you have to share what’s really on your mind – even if it means sharing unpopular opinions or ideas.
You need people who will engage with your brand because they see themselves in what you’re doing; not just because they like the product that’s being sold. If someone doesn’t agree with me then so be it!
They’ll move along and find someone else who shares their values and beliefs but hopefully, by hearing from me first they will start to see the human behind the company.
Successful entrepreneurs built a brand and reputation worth trusting
If you’re an online brand or business, should you be opinionated about stuff online? Will it affect your business or is it a good thing?
So this is a question that comes up for me every now and then because I am a very opinionated person.
Does Sharing Your Opinions Lead To Business Success?
And I think a lot of us are. We have information coming at us 24/7.
We have news. We have things that are happening in our industry or around the world.
And we feel strongly about some of those things. Maybe you are against something or for something, and maybe it’s something in your particular industry that you really want to talk about and bring to light.
And there have been many cases in my business where I either held my tongue and sat back and decided not to say anything publicly and other times where I just decided to go for it and address the situation and share my opinion on a topic.
And I will share with you the pros and cons of really being opinionated online and how it can affect your business.
Successful Business Tip: State What Matters
The first story happened a few months ago.
On our website, we have an equity statement that we’ve made where we say we believe that black lives matter. We have this on our about page where you can learn about the team behind AccessAlly.
We believe in equity and diversity and all of these things that we still believe strongly, and that are really important to us as a company, as our values.
And we have the alert email into our support channel. And basically, they said, “Hey, we’re not going to do business with you because of what you shared on your website.”
And my first thought was, “Great!”. That’s a good thing.
That equity statement essentially filtered out people that were not a good fit to work with my company.
Find Your Target Audience
And if they don’t believe in equity, if they don’t believe that black lives matter, you know what, they’re not a good fit as clients of ours.
So that was an interesting experience. I thought it very interesting that the emails in to tell us that they’re not going to work with us for this reason because it really kind of woke me up to how people respond to things and also how politicized a lot of these ideas have become.
Depending on where you get your news from, that might be a very strong and negative statement or really positive and encouraging statement.
It’s a really interesting thing to have received that feedback and also to know very strongly in our court that yes, we made that statement for a recent, and if it’s filtering people out from our customer base, that’s, A-OK with us.
We received valuable feedback
Now on the flip side, we’ve had customers who have said they are going to be loyal to us forever because of the types of statements that we’ve made.
Business Idea: 2021 Email Experiment
In 2021, I decided to do an email experiment where I would write a quick daily email with my strong opinions that I generally don’t post publicly.
- And some of them were about the crypto marketplace.
- Some of them were about how we hire people and how we pay them.
- Some of them were about online learning.
There were just so many different facets that I had opinions about that I wanted to share.
Best advice, opinions, and values
I shared my best advice, opinions, values, and other business ideas that have impacted my company. In my personal experience, this has been an amazing way to connect with most people in the email experiment.
A lot of our target audience is small business owners on the entrepreneurial journey.
The email experiment created loyalty for each small group that joined
And we got these amazing emails where people would respond back to my daily emails and say, you just won the internet for today.
And I’m going to be loyal now because of your stance on this topic.
So it’s absolutely possible to magnetize people or to energize people around the topic.
If it’s a little bit controversial or if you have a really strong opinion about it.
As you can see, it’s possible for it to bring the right people and also repel some of the not-so-right people.
It can definitely help your business grow. It has helped my own business grow, and I know it’s helped other entrepreneurs, too.
Should You Bring Your Opinions Into Your Marketing?
Now, as soon as you’d be doing this in your business, is this something that you need to bring into the way that you market or the way that you brand yourself in your company?
Well, that’s a really good question. And it’s not a question that I can answer for you.
But it’s something that you want to consider if you want to be a thought leader in the world.
Sometimes you might have opinions about things in your marketplace that are super important and valuable and needs to be said, and unless you’re willing to step out there and say it, then things will stay the way they’ve always been.
Content Marketing With Your Opinions
I’ve recently started a founder’s vlog where I share unpopular opinions that shape my beliefs and how I run my company.
I’ve seen other small businesses do this as well.
Being A Thought Leader
Sometimes you are kind of forced to step into that direction and really do something to stand out and, you know, tell people who are considering maybe your competitors or other alternatives, why you’re different and why they should choose you.
There are definitely benefits to that.
Now, if it is about politics or other things that don’t quite relate to your brand, there might be times where it makes us not talk about it.
I definitely made those choices at some point too.
And so I want you to really think about this, is it okay in your business to hold tight to certain things that you don’t want to share publicly?
And when is it a good time to share your opinions very publicly, to make a splash, to let people know what your line in the sand is and what you’re willing to stand up for and what you want the world to look like.
That’s my ability to take on how to be opinionated in your business without ruining your brand or your entire business.
