The Person to See

Wealth. Freedom. Influence

PERSONAL BRANDING 101 – Three key Do’s and Three Key Do Not’s

by

 

What is a Personal Brand?

 

Before we can select the right personal brand and start promoting it to our target audience, we need to know what exactly a personal brand is. There are two definitions: one short and one long.

Long Version

A personal brand is a personal identity that stimulates a meaningful emotional response in a target audience about the values or qualities for which you stand. Our brand is our promise to our target audience which means, “If you buy me, this is what you will get.

Short Version

Our personal brand is the word or phrase we want people to think of when they think of us.

 

Three Do’s When Selecting Your Personal Brand

 

Be Authentic

Selecting the right personal brand begins with authenticity.

A personal brand must be a part of who we are as human beings. A true reflection of us as a person. A personal brand is NOT what we do for a living. What we do for a living is the forum in which we get to show case our brands.

The last thing we want to do is build our brand on something we are not, but wish we were.

When many clients come to me for help on their brands, I am quick to tell them, “Look, your brand has to be a part of your personality or character that you can live effortlessly. Don’t try to be something you are not.”

It is not uncommon for me to suggest their brand is something as simple as “nice” or “reliable.”

Since most of my clients are successful, high powered professionals, this usually doesn’t go well at first. They come in wanting a brand that exudes “power” or “confidence” or “leader.” I understand this, but your brand is not about what you want. It is about what resonates with your target audience. What they want.

Case in point. A few years back a client who was a very successful title insurance broker came to me for personal brand coaching. After taking his through my process for selecting the right personal brand, I suggested to him that his brand was “reliable.” He was not happy. He is a former football quarterback, tall and good looking. You know, the kind of guy the rest of us envy.

This client wanted a brand that was sexier.

After some back and forth, I said to him, “What do you do for a living?”

“Title insurance,” he responded.

To which I sarcastically quipped, “What do you think your clients want, sexy or reliable?”

Point made. He went with reliable and has never looked back.

Guys, not everybody can be Beyoncé or Brad Pitt or Michael Jordan. Some of us have to be Urkel. And make no mistake about it, Urkel had a heck of a run as a nerd.

So, my suggestion to you is build your brand on a quality that is authentically you and which you can live effortlessly.

 

Build Your Brand Out

 

Picking the brand is easy. Building the brand out is the hard part.

I was talking to my dad a few years ago on a day when he was a bit cranky. I said to him, “Dad you have to work on your brand your brand.”

He laughed because he said he’s 78 years old. So I asked him, “Do you want your grandchildren (All 32 of them!) to say, “Hey, I am excited to see Grandpa today’ or do you want them to say, ‘Oh man, do I really have to see Grandpa today?’”

I explained to Grandpa that the only difference between the grandchildren being excited to see him and seeing him out of a sense of duty was his personal brand.

If you are breathing, you are branding. Everything we do or don’t do or say or don’t say either adds to or takes away from our personal brand credibility. How we carry ourselves, speak, dress, interact to others. Everything.

Your job is to be intentional about building your personal brand credibility. You do this by building personal brand equity. You build personal brand equity the same way you build the equity in your home. There a few major changes you can make out of the gate that can have a real WOW! Impact. The rest are small cumulative changes and improvements which, by themselves don’t add huge value, but over time they add up.

Here is my suggestion. Make a list of 100 things you can do to improve your brand and execute them. When you are finished. Do it again, and again and again.

I think you get my point.

Guard Your Personal Brand Reputation

 

Guard your reputation as if your life depends upon it.

I remember and experience I had in law school more than 30 years ago. It was so powerful it has stuck with me ever since. I was having a political discussion with a fellow classmate and we were disagreeing on an issue. Instead of responding substantively, my classmate took a cheap shot, and launched into an ad hominem attack.

I ignored his comment and walked away. Another classmate who was also present scolded me for not defending myself. The comment was really nasty and my classmate warned me, “You can never let anyone say something like that to you and get away with it. You can’t let anyone brand you negatively.”

He was right. You must vigilantly guard your reputation because once you lose it, it’s nearly impossible to get it back.

Three Do Not’s

 

Don’t Change Your Brand

Never change your brand based upon who you are with or the environment you are in.

Your brand must always remain consistent across all the landscapes. Whether you are with family. Family, business colleagues or in a social setting, your brand never changes. Consistency is the cornerstone for building a great personal brand.

It never changes. You hear me?

The conduct you engage in may need to change, but your brand does not.

Don’t Build Your Brand At The Expense Of Others

It’s not necessary. It’s cheap. It’s like a comedian that makes a crowd laugh by mocking other people or someone in the audience.

That’s why I like Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno. They never mock others in order to get a laugh. They rely upon their own cleverness (or now that they are famous, the cleverness of their writers)

Build your brand based on your own credentials and accomplishments, not by putting others down.

 

Don’t Build Your Brand Based On Your Own Opinion Of Yourself

 

Branding has nothing to do with what we think about ourselves. It’s about what our target audience feels about us. Never forget that No one is a success unless awful lot of people want that person to be. Not many people will want us to be a success unless they have a strong, positive feelings about us.

You know the old saying, “No cares how much you know until they know how much you care.

 

5 Strategies to Help You Stand Out From Your Competition

by

 

Help me! I am Stuck in the Middle of the Pack and I Cannot Break Free from the Competition 

Sound familiar? Are you finding it harder and harder to stand out from the rest of the pack? If so, you are not alone. But, that is no excuse for not trying to figure out new ways to differentiate yourself from the competition. 

 

Why is it so tough? 

There are three reasons why it is so tough today to differentiate ourselves from our competition. Or if we are lucky enough to find something that differentiates us, it is hard to sustain that differentiation long-term. The competition always seems to catch up.

The first reason is we live in a commodity world. There are no longer any trade secrets. The internet has rendered trade secrets obsolete. Even if you do have something special, it won’t be too long before your competition figures it out and copies you.  

This dynamic has expanded people’s menu of options. All one needs to do is hop on the internet, type in their search topic and voila! dozens of options magically appear. The more choices our target audience has the more commoditized we become. 

Second, years ago the American economy was dominated by the sale of goods. Today, 79.4% of the GDP is powered by the sale of services. The problem is 80% of buyers are visual. This means buyers need to see something to validate their buying decisions. With everybody selling the invisible, it all becomes a blur to the buyer. 

Lastly, it is unbelievably noisy in the marketplace with all the competition. Statistics show that the average person receives 3000 email messages a week. There is more information in one Sunday edition of the New York Times than a 19th century Englishman was likely to acquire over his entire lifetime.  

According to Harry Beckwith, author of What Clients Love, the people who win today are the filterers, synthesizers, and condensers. Less is more has never been more essential. 

 

The 5 Strategies To Help You And Your Business Stand Out From The Competition

 

Strategy #1 – Build a great personal brand.

I am convinced that personal branding is the final frontier of marketing. It is the only asset we have total and enduring control over. And it speaks to all three challenges in today’s marketplace. 

It cannot be commoditized because you are uniquely you.

Your personal brand satisfies that visual element that the customer needs to see in order to confidently make a buying decision.

A personal brand cuts through all the noise. When people meet us for the first time they form an impression in just ¼ of one second. You can block calls, emails, and snail mail, but you cannot stop someone who is in front of you from communicating his/her message. And, before they even utter a word. 

 

Strategy #2 – Think, struggle, fight to find that one thing that makes your product and service unique.  

Thomas Edison once remarked that, “Man will do everything he can to avoid the hardest of all labors, which is think for himself.” How hard are you thinking about your differentiating factor(s)? 

Don’t get bogged down in trying to find that one thing that only you have, like a Google algorithm or secret recipe. It may not exist. Being one of a select few is good enough. Pick it, craft your message around it, and sell it with everything you have. In other words, go all in.

 

 

Strategy #3 – Do things differently than your competition.

I have coached commercial real estate brokers for years and I have asked, (no, begged) them to try to do something different then their competition when making a competing pitch. If you have ever sat through a pitch you quickly realize everyone is essentially the same. They say the same things in exactly the same way. It is the safe approach.

Here's the formula:

Broker #1 comes in and covers the following topics: Introductions, Market, Services, Results and if there are a few minutes, he/she touches on uniqueness. Brokers 2-5 come in and say the same thing. How do you think the customer feels? 

What if broker #6 came in and said: “I am going to briefly introduce our team. Our resumes are in front of you. I’ll spend a few minutes on the market, a few minutes on our services and past customers, but the bulk of our time is going to be spent on telling you how we are unique.” 

How can you do what you are doing differently than the competition? 

Problem is it is too much work. It is easier to just grind it out the same way “We have all been doing it for years.”

Now, that's depressing.

 

Strategy #4 – Be a dynamic storyteller.

I don’t necessarily mean get up in front of your audience and tell stories that capture your audience's imagination. Although, at times that doesn’t hurt.

What I am talking about is telling the story of you and your products and services in an interesting way. Or at least better  then your competition does.

How good are you at telling the story of you and what you have to offer? Have you ever asked anyone?

Two people can deliver the exact same content, but deliver two entirely different messages.

Strive to be be interesting. That may be all you need to differentiate yourself.  

 

Strategy #5 – Take a chance.

Fortune favors the brave. Make your move before you are ready and your net will appear.  

I remember years ago, Monster.com rolled the dice and risked its entire marketing budget on one Super Bowl ad. Think about that. There entire company was riding on one ad. It turned out to be a smash hit and overnight Monster.com was on the map and a player in the recruiting space. 

What risks are you avoiding? 

There are few things that capture the attention of others like a reputation of someone who is not afraid to take chances.

If you want help crafting messages that will help you stand our from your competition than you will want to check our our Creating Million-Dollar Messages program.

 

How To Deliver A Compelling Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

by

 

What's On the Line?

It's game seven of the NBA Championship. The game is on the line and there are 15 seconds left. Everybody knows that you are going to take the last shot. Do you want the ball?  Of course, everybody will say yes, but do they really mean it? 

 This is exactly the dynamic when we are presented with the opportunity to deliver our Unique Selling Proposition (USP).

 

When Somebody Asks Us

–      “So what makes you special?” or

–      “Why you and not your competition?”

You should have a powerhouse response practiced and ready to go.

I vividly remember the first time I was presented with the opportunity to deliver my Unique Selling Proposition. I was making a sales presentation in a diner in Vernon, CA. The prospect patiently listened as I went through all my features and benefits. When I was done, he moved all the papers in front of us to the side and asked, “So what makes you so special?” He was clearly challenging me.  

Had I not learned the magical USP formula I probably would have had to excuse myself and change my underwear.  But, I was ready. In fact, it was like everything was slow motion. I excitedly said to myself, “Oh my God, this guy is asking for my Unique Selling Proposition.” I was so fired up I could barely contain myself. I can honestly say I hit it out of the park. I know because the prospect just smiled when I was finished. He knew I had risen to the challenge. 

Here is how I did it. I used my proven USP formula. Master the formula and you are 90% of the way there. There are five steps to the formula:

–      Deliver the Introductory Command Language 

–      Explain Your Services in a Unique way

–      Highlight Your Best Results

–      Showcase Your personal Uniqueness

–      Close Strong with a Power Wrap up

 

                                                     Command Language 

 

I immediately took control of the conversation by firmly stating my command language. “I am glad you asked me that. What makes me unique are my services, my results and me personally.” 

You must take control with command language in the start of your unique selling proposition. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use that exact phrase. It works. 

 

Our Services 

This part should be easy. What are you selling? The key here is to position your products and services in a way that suggests you are offering something that is, at least, somewhat select. Do not put pressure on yourself to come up with something that is a class of one (i.e. You are the ONLY one that is offering it). Chances are, unless you have something special like a proprietary algorithm or recipe you will have competitors. The key is to phrase your offering in such a way that it sounds that you are in a select class of a few people who do what you do or sell what you sell.

Example: “We do one thing and one thing only – we  sell life insurance. And we can do three very unique things with our products:

–      Protect against catastrophic loss

–      Estate planning

–      Wealth creation

While other life insurance salespeople shy away from the word ‘insurance', we embrace it because of what we have been able to do with our products for our clients.

Be passionate about what you sell. If you are not, why should anyone else be?

Our Results 

There are two keys here:

–      Third party social proof

–      Monetization

People don't want to hear platitudes like, “we are great at customer service.” Everybody says this. People want independent, third party social proof that you can do what you say you can do. In other words, verifiable proof that what you say you can do for them you have already done for someone else. Statistics, case studies, references that you can point them to.

Oftentimes, the most compelling evidence is monetized results. (e.g. “Because of what we did our client made X or saved Y.”) Whenever possible, phrase your evidence in terms of money made or dollar saved.

 Example: “Our results speak for themselves. We recently had a client come to us who had a judgment entered against him. We filed a post judgment motion based upon some new case law and we were able to get the judgment overturned. “

 

 And Lastly, Me Personally 

This is hard for a lot of people. It requires some outright bragging. Before people buy products or services they buy personality and ideas. They want to know about YOU. Why are YOU so special.

There is a difference between bragging and sharing. You can share the best parts about you without coming across as an arrogant jerk. It is all in the delivery. 

 Example: “I pride myself on integrity. For example, everything I am selling you I own myself. If I am going to sell you a product I better believe in it enough to buy it for me and my family.”

 

Closing Power Language 

Ever heard that expression, “Put that in your pipe and smoke it!?” If not, it is another way of saying “Boom!” 

The closing power language is all about putting an exclamation point on your message. Just like your opening is about sending the message, “I am ready for this and accept your challenge” the closing is about telling the prospect (In a respectful way), “I told you I was ready.”

Example: “So, again, what makes me unique are my services, my results and me personally.”

No, that is not a typo. The closing language is identical to the opening language. The only differences are the purpose and tone.

 

What To Do Next

And then, shut up. Not easy, but you must for dramatic effect. You are effectively saying, “The ball is in your court now. What’s the next move?” Are you ready to move forward? 

Here is my challenge to you. Draft your own uniqueness statement using the above formula and take it out for a test drive. I would love for you to see first hand just how powerful it can be.

If you would like more help crafting a powerful Uniqueness Statement check out Creating Million-Dollar Messages.

 

How to Create a Memorable Elevator Pitch

by

If you like most of your competitors and freeze up when says to you:

     – “So, what do you do?”

     – “Please tell us about yourself”

– Why don't you introduce yourself to the group”

It is amazing how many people are ill-prepared to introduce themselves to others.

Think about this: A first impression flips back and fourth 11 times in the first five seconds and your first impression is more important then the next five combined.  You can see just how critical it is that you are in charge in those first few seconds when meeting someone new. How you conduct yourself will greatly influence the rest of your interaction with those you are with in that moment and quite possibly determine the fate of the relationship going forward.

A good elevator pitch could be the difference between, “This person is sharp and I want to get to know him/her” and “This person is a dud and I gotta get out of here ASAP!”

So, here is my question to you, “How good is your elevator pitch?”

If the answer is, Not so good” I have good news. Below is a proven formula for delivering a lights out elevator.

 

Step One-Introduction 

This is your name, rank and serial number (i.e. Who you are? Who you are with? What is your title?) 

Example: “Hi, my name is Tim O’Brien. I am a partner with law firm of Johnson and Smith. We are a twenty person firm in downtown Los Angeles. ”   

 

Step Two-Specialization 

This is where you tell your audience what it is you do. Be specific and concise. If you sell insurance, say I sell insurance. I find so many people who try to be all things to all people. Be direct. And be proud of what you do. If you are not, why should they be? 

Example: We specialize in life insurance. There are three things I can help you do with life insurance: A, B and C.  

 

Step Three -Clients 

There are two types of buyers in the world: Those who have the guts to make decisions based upon their own instincts and those who are followers. Some need validation from someone else before deciding. 

This section is used to give credentials to yourself. When you share your client list you are effectively saying, “Look who trusts me. Therefore, you should too.” 

Avoid broad generalizations such as, “We represent everyone from mom and pops to Fortune 500 companies.”  Be specific and give the most recognized companies. But avoid long string responses. You do not need to list 10 companies, three is enough. If you don’t have clients, sell the company’s/team’s.  

Example: We represent many companies in the tech space such as Google, Twitter, and Spotify.  

 

Step Four-Benefit 

This is where you provide an example of just how talented you are. Don’t get bogged down in trying to be too original. Being authentic is good enough. 

Think monetization and third-party validation. Your example should illustrate how you made or saved someone or some company money. Make sure your evidence can be objectively verified by a third-party. If your prospect called him/them would they respond without hesitation exactly as you represented? Do not misrepresent what you have done. That is a surefire way to lose all trust. 

Example: We recently had a client come to us who had a judgment entered against him. We filed a post-judgment motion based upon some new case law and we were able to get the judgment overturned.   

 

Step Five-Action Steps

This is the number one reason most people’s 15 second elevator pitch is weak. There is no follow through. There are only four action steps you can take: 

– Ask for the business

– Connect them to someone else

– Invite the person to coffee to explore further how you might be able to help each other 

– Intentional inaction- which means you run through all three possible steps and none apply or work so you intentionally do nothing with the connection you have made. Nonetheless, it was networking and good practice.

Most people are guilty of Unintentional inaction. To borrow a phrase from my mom, “Most people in these situations are dead from the neck up.” They do nothing and that is why they get nothing from the exchange. Do you want results? Drive the results you want. You must take charge of the interaction in order to get what you want out of it.

Example: Wow! Sounds like you could have an issue with income taxes. If you’d like, I could look over your policies and see where there might be some gaps. Would you be interested? 

If you follow this easy five-step formula, you will be able to make a lasting impression on everyone you meet.

The only difference between you being a superstar at delivering your elevator pitch and being a dud is your commitment to:

– Sitting down and writing out your elevator pitch

– Memorizing it

– Practicing it over and over again until it flows naturally

Click here to learn more about our high impact Creating Million-Dollar Messages program!