Are you like many business owners who are confused or stuck when it comes to creating a unique, memorable, and authentic brand? If so, you’re not alone. I’ve been there myself, so I understand the frustration of feeling stuck on this whole branding thing.
But once I discovered that if I looked at it from a completely different perspective, that my brand wasn’t just about my business, but about ME, everything shifted.
Creating your brand from the inside out allows you to fully step into your business identity in a truly authentic way. It’s also the easiest way to stand out in the sea of others who do what you do.
So, if you’re stuck, let me give you three things you must be clear on in order to create a truly compelling and unique business brand.
Strategy 1: What results do your clients experience from your service?
One of the exercises I do with my private clients is have them generate a long list of the results their clients get from working with them.
You can easily do this right now. Just complete this sentence 30 times:
“The results my clients get from working with me are ___________________________.”
If you get stuck, here’s my secret: Send this question to your clients so they can tell you the kind of results you’re helping them create!
For example, when I asked my own clients this question, here’s some of what they shared:
“The results I get from working with Alicia are…
– clear, easy to follow instructions on strategic Internet marketing techniques
– insightful advice from a trusted mentor who understands my business
– generous knowledge and expertise, honest feedback and support, focus and direction
– more clarity on which steps to take to experience more alignment with my business/life purpose
– I now see the bigger picture and base my decisions on the ‘whole’ of my business, rather than just the next thing.
– stretching me in ways and areas that I could/would not do on my own
– more clients, more money and more fun in working with my business
– getting me out of my comfort zone so that I discover what is possible when I play a bigger game
– more clarity and awareness around time sucking activities that I am engaging in so that I can STOP doing them
Strategy 2: What are you an expert at?
Once you have a solid and in-depth grasp of the value you bring to you clients and the results you help create with them, you should easily be able to define what it is you’re an expert at.
Complete this sentence: “I’m an expert at________________________.”
Strategy 3: What does your brand promise?
Let’s take it one step further…
Your brand promise is a statement that is pretty specific. It’s true regardless of the program, product or service you may offer. No matter what the program, product or service, it always fulfills your brand promise.
And just to be clear, I’m not talking about your marketing tagline. What I’m talking about goes much deeper than that, to the very core of what it is that you are so passionate about providing to others.
My brand promise is, “I mentor women entrepreneurs to create priority-based, highly profitable businesses in less than part-time hours.”
So, my high-level private and group coaching programs, Online Business Breakthrough Workshop, 21 Easy & Essential Steps to Online Success System™ and LIVE program, L.E.A.P.™ Learning Lab, and the rest of my offerings all fulfill this brand promise.
Here’s one from one of my past clients, Dale Carter at TransitionAgingParents.com:
“I provide trusted information and personal insight to inspire adult children to passionately pursue, for their aging parents, the quality of life their parents hunger for.”
So everything that Dale offers to her specific market fulfills this overarching promise. Dale knows what she is an expert at and that shows up in her brand promise very clearly.
So, what does your brand promise? What is it that your clients can count on you for?
The formula for an effective, compelling, memorable, authentic, fun and fabulous brand is really very simple:
“I get X results for my clients, which makes me an expert at Y, which means they can count on me to provide Z.”
Voila!
I’d love to know your thoughts on this – please leave your comments below.
I love attending live events, for the learning, networking and most of all, for those ‘aha moments’ that always pop. I choose to attend very few events each year, so I’m always very cognizant of getting a big return on my investment of time, energy and money. Attending Lisa Sasevich’s Impact & Influence event didn’t disappoint.
Here are three of those aha moments I had from attending I&I that I hope you’ll find of value too:
1. In terms of money, you can only receive what you allow yourself to receive.
So consider how that may play out in your own sense of worth, in both the level at which you invest in yourself as well as the level at which you ask others to invest in you.
For example, if you invest in a $2500- program, are you asking your market to invest in a $2500- program with you?
On the other, more common, hand, are you asking your market to invest in you at a price point that you’re not willing to invest in for yourself?
Where in your business might there be this incongruence?
2. When you feel like you need to add another element to a program (to ‘justify’ a higher price), add more transformation instead.
You may have heard me say before that people buy based on emotion, not necessarily on logic.
When you’re writing your copy for your offer or speaking about your offer, you want to spend 90% of your words on the transformation that people will get as a result of engaging your services.
You can think of it as the transformation, or the outcomes, or the benefits, that someone will receive as result of being in your program, buying your product or siging on to work with you one-on-one.
3. “I already know that…”
Whenever I attend an event, I make the effort to pay attention as if everything was new, which enables me to see the holes that are present in my business. And when I find that “I already know that…” I ask myself, “Am I doing that?”
From this event, it was evident to me that yes, I have all the pieces working that were covered at the event; now it’s time to up-the-ante on them all.
Where can you up-the-ante on one thing that’s already working well in your business?
I’d love your thoughts on any of the above – feel free to leave them below…
Ever have someone copy your idea, your sales page, your emails, or anything else you’ve created in your business?
Yeah, it’s not a good feeling.
Yeah, yeah – I know that ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’ and that we’re all of ‘one mind’ and all that, but really? There is a line that no one should cross.
I’ve dealt with this on numerous occasions in my own business (frankly dealing with it now with someone who certainly doesn’t need to copy me – who has an extremely successful business already so I know that it’s about something else entirely) and while sometimes it is easier and ok to just let it go, other times it’s not.
So what do you do when you feel compelled to do something about it?
Here are 4 ways of dealing with copycats:
1. Vent
First, get on the line with a business best friend and have a good vent about it. You need to get it out of your system before you can approach the copycat from a place where you’re more likely to have the situation resolved.
2. Call them on it personally
I like to contact people personally first, and give them a chance to make things right. I don’t have my assistant do this – I reach out myself usually via email, with a gracious note that I’ve noticed something they are doing is very similar to mine and I wanted to point that out – that I wouldn’t want their people thinking they’re copying me.
In one case, the person in question immediately responded with a gracious note back, offering that she was ‘modeling’ me and others and told me she would make changes to the page in question and send it to me for approval. She did and I was satisfied with the changes she made and all was well.
If it doesn’t go that way then…
3. Call them on it officially
Get your attorney involved and send them a ‘cease and desist’ letter. That will usually do the trick.
4. Move on
Once you’ve handled it either personally or officially, move on. Don’t hold a grudge against the person, just let it go. It’s not worth any more of your energy or emotion and recognize that the reason behind the copying has nothing to do with you. And then use the situation to be even more creative in your own endeavors going forward.
I’d love to know your thoughts on copycats – share with me below…
Oh no! ANOTHER social media platform?
Oh yes – and it’s one you might want to take a look at, to see if it makes sense for your particular business. But a caution here – even it it does – don’t feel you have to add it to your social media marketing. If you’re already overwhelmed and just keeping up with your current social media efforts, then leave Pinterest be, at least for now.
But if it appeals to you and makes good business sense to add it to your business platform, here are five specific ways you can use it in your marketing efforts:
1. Less Clicks = More Conversions
The less clicks your visitor has to make to get to the information or product they want, the higher your conversion rates. With Pinterest, there are just two clicks from first seeing something of interest to visiting its site of origin. That translates into more leads and more sales.
For example, let’s say you have a book for sale and you pin the image of the cover from the book’s sales page to your board. When one of your followers sees your pin and clicks on it, it will allow them to share it with others immediately. And if they click it again, it will take them to the site where the image was pinned from, in this case, the sales page for your book.
2. Drive tons more traffic to your site
Because Pinterest has such a large following (10 million unique views at this writing) it’s a great tool for driving more traffic to your site via the links that are attached to the pins you make to your board.
In fact, there are tracking stats that are showing Pinterest is driving more traffic back to websites than Facebook or Google+.
3. Easy for people to share your content
Pinterest makes it super-simple for your followers to share your pins and therefore links back to your site. Because every pin includes a link leading back to the source of the image, this can translate into a lot more inbound links to your website. So the more followers you have, the more those followers share your pins, the more traffic to your site.
4. Gain from user addiction
Some markets have already fallen in love with Pinterest, with more to come as more people become aware of and start utilizing this new social media platform. If your market is a fan of Pinterest, then you need to get onboard and get in front of all that traffic. Just start with one board, pay attention to what your followers are re-pinning (sharing with others) the most, and pin more of that content.
5. Connect it with your other social media sites
Since I’m all about leveraging your time and talent, if you’re going to use Pinterest, then you need to connect it with your other social media platforms to do so. You can connect Pinterest with your Facebook profile (hopefully they will add the ability to connect to your fan page soon). You can also connect your Pinterest account with Twitter so your pins are automatically tweeted. And you can add a "pin it’ button to your website, much like other share buttons, so your visitors can pin for you.
I’d love to know your thoughts on Pinterest – share with me below…
You may be too busy during the holiday season to notice if your business is slowing down a bit, but in case you’re not, there are several things you can do to use this time to your advantage as you head into the new year.
1. Review your website
Take some time to review your website and make any necessary updates by removing old information and freshening up the rest of your copy. If you have a photo of yourself on your site, consider putting up a new one if your current one is out of date. And here’s a tip for getting more people to sign up for your Free Taste: put a squeeze page in front of your existing site that asks for just name and email address before they enter the rest of your site.
2. Update your Free Taste
Review your free offering and decide if it could use some updating as well. I’m updating mine again now so it will reflect my more finely tuned message and market. If it’s been more than a year since you’re breathed new life into your free taste, my coach’s request is that you do so now.
3. Have a Holiday Sale
If you want to create some cash, consider holding a sale on one, some or all of your products. Everyone’s looking for a break at the holidays, and there most likely are people on your list who have thought about buying one or more of your products or investing in your services, and a discount might just push them to finally doing so.
4. Clean out the clutter
One of the “powers of the Universe” principles I believe in is making space for things to come into my life. So every few months, I get a huge urge to purge (I’m in it now, actually). I go through my desk, filing cabinets, and bookshelves and either toss, give away or organize it. I also make new file folders for the clients yet to come… and it’s always fun to watch them fill up over the next few months.
5. Plan your first offering for the new year and start promoting it now
Decide what your first offering for the new year is going to be and start promoting it in your ezine, social media, or discussion lists (when appropriate), and through your other marketing channels. Having something already set up to look forward to will help keep you motivated after the hub-bub of the holidays.
And one more thing – don’t forget to enjoy yourself. As entrepreneurs, sometimes we find it hard to take a break, but do yourself, your loved ones, and your business a favor by taking some time away from your work and truly focusing on the people you love and the blessings in your life.
How are you making space and opening the flow for the new year? Please share your thoughts on my blog below…
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