"Be a Lighthouse" (Um, no thanks.)

"Be a lighthouse."

Basically using the lighthouse as a means of bringing people to you, or relief for a weary sailor.

People are using the term lighthouse to get people to come to them. That lighthouses are meant to safely guide sailors to shore.

Yeah, no.

Lighthouses are meant to repel sailors from the shore. There are very rocky spots on the coast, so they erect lighthouses to warn sailors, “Hey, don’t come near this area. This is a rocky area. This is not a good place for boats to be.”

It’s to repel sailors. When sailors see lighthouses, they can be like, “Oh, don’t go near that.”

In terms of marketing, you do not want to be a lighthouse. You do not want to be repelling people away from you.

Another reason lighthouses were used was for navigation. So, as you are going up a shore, off the coast, depending on the way that the light moves, depending on how high the lighthouse is, (every single lighthouse is completely unique and different) so it would help sailors that were navigating just offshore to help them safely make it up a coast by spotting these lighthouses off in the distance.

That’s the whole key, lighthouses, and distance. When you see a lighthouse, you keep your distance, because it was rocky, it was a place where ships often wrecked. You do not want to go too close to a lighthouse. You want to view it from far, far away; keep your distance, and if you are using it for navigational purposes you are going to use that, and keep going away, offshore.

A skilled sailor would not go near a lighthouse. A sailor would try to keep it more parallel to the shore, or he is going to turn around and just get out of there, because no sailor in his right mind is going to navigate right to a lighthouse... that’s the exact opposite of what they were meant for.

The bottom line is understanding that when you’re using marketing terms and you are out there running your business, you want to make sure you are saying things in the correct way and that you’re not just using whatever new cutesy term or trendy thing to say. Or you see somebody else saying it and you think, “Oh that’s a cute thing to say.” Think about it. Think about what it means for you and your business and be intentional.

When we start using these little phrases, sayings, and trendy things like this, then we are not being intentional. We are diluting our message and possibly even putting something out there that is going to do damage to our business, and we don’t want to do that. Before you say something, think about what does this mean? What am I saying? And adjust as necessary.

And for God’s sake, quit saying you are a goddamn lighthouse.

xoxo Chelsie