Mindset of Success: The Science of Personal Leadership Development

Can You Outsource Your Self-Marketing?

Your self-marketing is how you influence the perception that others have of you and your business. It includes both verbal and nonverbal communication. For example, your “audio logo,” how you describe the benefit that you bring to clients and customers, and what you say on your office voicemail make up verbal self-marketing. Your image, your tone of voice, and your body language are examples of nonverbal communication and self-branding.

Do you dislike marketing yourself? If so, you’re like many business owners, salespeople, and professionals who are afraid of being overly self promotional or marketing themselves in the wrong way.

I advise people to outsource things because others can effectively do those activities NOT because they fear those activities. That is, if you want to outsource your social media marketing because you don’t enjoy it and would like to free up time for other activities, great. But if you could be great at social media marketing, but avoid it because it makes you nervous, then it’s time to get better at it.

Cold-calling is another common example. If you represent yourself best but dread cold-calling, it’s worth getting good at it, and most of us can. (For help becoming proficient at cold-calling, here are some excellent resources.

Answering this key question requires being honest with yourself. You’ll likely come up with many reasons (excuses) why someone else could do a better job marketing or selling you and your business. Skeptically evaluate these reasons by asking yourself these questions:

1.      Would I be the best person to do this activity?

2.      Could I learn how to do this?

3.      Could I be good at this if I overcome my discomfort with it?

If you answer yes to two or all of these questions, it is probably worth trying it out. You may eventually decide to outsource the activity, but it’s worth trying it out yourself first.

Thrive as an Independent Consultant: How to Conduct a Self Assessment and Evaluate Business Opportunities

As an independent consultant you are constantly faced with new business opportunities and the need to quickly decide which ones to pursue. A novice consulting business owner will say yes to everything, afraid that new business may not be around the corner. This is not a strategic or smart way to run a business.

 

Instead, the first step that an independent consultants needs to take is to conduct a self-inventory. This is an honest analysis of what they are doing that’s helping and what they are doing that’s hurting. When you conduct a self assessment, you become aware of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, which helps you improve your consultancy skills and your business positioning.

 

 The self assessment should include an important question:

 

What do I avoid doing because it makes me uncomfortable, but I know that doing it could make me a more exceptional consultant or bring in new business?

 

The answers to this question will illuminate the top things that you are doing that inadvertently hold you back. It is possible that you are avoiding saying no to new opportunities and that you are taking on projects that are not in line with your strategic objectives. Or perhaps you’re avoiding confrontations with difficult clients.

 

As you evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, remember that successful business owners do not possess every skill needed in an ideal world. Rather, they are aware of their shortcomings and find ways to address them by getting training or hiring or partnering with others.

 

In essence, your self inventory addresses two issues:

 

1)     Your consultancy skills: How excellent are you at your craft? What results do you get for clients? How can you continuously improve your skills (conferences, trainings, peer consultation, hiring a mentor, reading, etc.)?

 

2)     Business development skills: As a business owner, you cannot just be an excellent technician, or you will have no business. You also must be great at growing and managing the business.

 

Write down your strengths and weaknesses in marketing, operations and management, and finances. For every strength, create a plan to leverage your strength. For every weakness, create a plan to address it, such as hiring a book-keeper and marketing team. Then, follow the business opportunities that allow you to utilize your strengths.

How "Jelly Bean Branding" Can Help You Build Your Business Brand or Your Self Brand

It’s funny, I studied branding, and I teach branding, but I’ve always struggled with branding in my own business. My problem? I seem to like too many things and want to do too many things. Is it possible to have several aspects of a brand and keep it strong? Let’s explore that question.

Brand Power

Branding wisdom says that these varied interests dilute a brand. The power in branding is that we come to associate certain characteristics with a brand. This allows us as consumers to rely on mental heuristics or shortcuts and make quicker decisions.

If I’m shopping in the grocery store and I realize I need toothpaste, I glance at the choices, think, “I’ve been using Crest for a while and never had a cavity,” and pick up a tube of Crest. If I had to go through all of the pros and cons of each toothpaste option, I’d be standing in that aisle a lot longer than I’d want to be.

So, if much of the power is in brand consistency, what happens if you have various products and services? Or, if you’re working on your personal brand, what happens if you have many aspects to your personality and types of value that you contribute?

Jelly Beans and Branding

Do you know Jelly Belly brand jelly beans? How is it that they can get away with offering everything from tropical flavored to black pepper to Sport beans to vomit flavored beans?! They even offer sports gear, jelly bean flavored lip gloss and puzzles. How do they do all of this and have a coherent brand?

First, they have a strong and undeniable brand:

·         They’re small in size compared with other jelly beans.

·         They have bright colors.

·         They have intense flavor—not just a sugary taste like many other jelly beans.

·         Psychologically, they convey fun in a bit of a wacky way, and bring out the kid in everyone.

·         They arouse the curiosity factor. It’s hard to eat just a few because you want to find out what flavors the others are.

So, when you have a brand that has basic demographics (the look and other tangible characteristics of your product, yourself, and your client or customer or other stakeholders) and psychographics (how your brand makes people feel), you have room to play.

A New Application of the 80/20 Rule

You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule as “20 percent of your efforts lead to 80 percent of your results,” or “20 percent of your customers create 80 percent of your profit.” You can also apply this rule to your branding. If 80 percent of your brand is consistent, you have 20 percent wiggle room in terms of how you apply it.

For example, let’s say that your personal brand for your appearance is, “sophisticated, smart, stylish, and professional.” You’ll likely wear tailored clothes of high-quality fabrics. You typically wear suits, but you have a work-related party that is casual. To modify your brand by 20%, you’d want to wear dark jeans that fit very well rather than worn out baggy jeans.

I would say that the flavors of beans and even the application of the Jelly Belly appearance to products like puzzles and flavor to products like lip gloss fits within the 80/20 rule.

Timing—From Specific to General

I did not read up on the history of Jelly Belly for this article, but I imagine and from what I remember, they started out with the classic variety of flavors and then slowly added on new flavors and products.

What this means for you is that you want to establish the basic demographics and psychographics of your brand, and then you can expand outwards. Think of it like a pyramid. If you didn’t have that solid base of your brand, everything added on top would crumble because they’d lack foundation.

Allow yourself, your business or career, and your branding to evolve and expand. If you stick within too narrow a window, you could miss out on opportunities of a changing marketplace and world. If you want to take an entirely new path (a revolution rather than evolution), consider whether it makes sense to add on to your existing brand or start a new one.

Have Fun!

My final tenet of jelly bean branding is: Jelly beans are fun. They remind us of being a kid. They involve the element of wonder and surprise as we taste new ones. Keep these things in mind. If you have fun with your branding, others will too. Those around you will want to associate and do business with you.

 

 

Creating Your Business Competitive Advantage

Did you ever notice how it’s easy to help others do something but difficult to help yourself do it?

I love marketing and am great at helping others to see their core values and do their positioning and competitive advantage. 

But, of course, when it comes to doing my own, I struggle. It’s hard for me to see my true value, because the things I know don’t seem like a big deal (because I know them). It’s like a fish in water—it’s hard to appreciate what’s so close to you.

                                                                   

So when I recently decided to redo my positioning and competitive advantage, I knew I wanted a great consultant to help me. I’ll share our process with you.

First, list out all (and I mean all—fill up a whole page) of your core competencies. These are internal to you (not in relation to your competitors). Ask yourself:

• What stands out about my training?
• How am I uniquely qualified to work with my target population?
• What makes me credible?

Second, list out all (again, a whole sheet) of the benefits that your clients receive. Ask yourself:

• What results do my clients get?

• What do my clients say of my counseling/coaching?
• How do I know that my clients are satisfied?

Third, list out all of the ways that you are qualified in comparison to your competitors.

Fourth, go through your lists and be sure that everything on there is of value to your specific clientele. Do not make assumptions here. What they value may be very different from what you value.

If you are not sure, ask your clients. Survey your community with a tool like Survey Monkey. Hold focus groups—maybe not with clients but with referral partners who work with the same population.

Finally, synthesize your ideas into one or a couple primary competitive advantages. Remember to frame everything into what is desirable to your target market.

  

When you’re clear on your competitive advantage, your confidence as a business owner and your ability to communicate your business positioning will soar. You’ll find that prospective clients are more interested, curious, and ready to buy.

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How to Use the 80/20 Rule in Self-Marketing

You may have heard from the 80/20 rule which says that 80% of results comes from 20% of efforts, which means that we need to find those 20% of what’s working and do more of it to get our best results.

We can also think of this rule as a way to remain authentic in our marketing but also tailor ourselves and our approach to various situations. Here are some other ways to apply the 80/20 rule to best market ourselves or our businesses.

Your Physical Presentation

As you probably know, the way that you present yourself is critical for self-marketing. Like it or not, we instantly make assumptions about people based on their appearance.

To feel as confident as possible (whether networking, meeting with a prospect, or giving a presentation), we need to feel like ourselves. At the same time, if the group or prospect is formal, we need to present a more formal appearance, and the same goes for casual.

So I recommend taking your natural style and modifying it up to 20% for the marketing situation. If you feel best in a suit, but you’re meeting with a more casual group, wear nice pants, a dress shirt, and a jacket, and take off the jacket when you arrive. If you like to express creativity, but you’re meeting with a formal group, show your unique style with the color of your shirt or tie or accessories.

Your Energy Level

You will come across best when you use your natural energy—whether you tend to be calm, intense, energetic, or whatever. That said, you can amp up or tone down your energy level to best fit the needs of the prospects or situation.

If you’re naturally on the shyer or calmer side and you’re giving a speech, you can up your energy by about 20%. If you’re like me and you’re naturally outgoing and a bit hyper, but you’re meeting with a conservative group of professionals, you can tone down your presentation by about 20%.

A quick tip for modifying your energy level is by listening to certain music. If I need to be more energized, I’ll listen to music that pumps me up and if I need to be calmer, I’ll listen to music that always relaxes me.

What You’re Marketing

If you market a ton of different things, you’ll confuse people and not be memorable. That said, you don’t have to robotically say the same thing every time someone asks you what you do. You can keep 80% consistent and modify 20%.

For example, my 80% message may be how I help people do the tough things in marketing that bring them the best results, focusing on internet marketing, speaking, and setting up referral partnerships. My 20% may be that I work with individuals, speak, and write books, depending which of these I would like to sell.

Content Versus Promotion

I actually think that this can range from 60/40-80/20. What I mean is how much you are providing value added content versus promoting. If 80% of the time I promoted something when I emailed you, you probably wouldn’t remain subscribed. If however, 80% of the time I provided unique value, you would be fine with 20% promotion.

The 20% can go a bit higher if your promotional materials are really well honed to your audience and provided needed solutions for their problems. I’m happy to receive promotions that give me a great resource about something that I need.

Consider how you market yourself and your business and keep the 80/20 rule in mind to get your best results!