What trait separates sharp entrepreneurs with a powerful brand from those that disappear like unicorns?
Respect.
Why respect? Think about the startup entrepreneur who is trying to convince a team of stakeholders and investors to pursue a new and innovative idea without a proven concept. Or the entrepreneur who runs into production problems and needs his business partners to extend credit for a few days, weeks or even months. The individual who earns respect from others will be most likely able to influence them. That concept is also called credibility. You can earn it by having a polished personal brand.
People need to like you, trust you, and believe in you, before making the decision to learn more about your solutions.
Sure, there are other elements that some successful entrepreneurs have as part of their success formula, such as being born with a name and come from the rich dad, but having the reputation as an entrepreneur who gets things done, stays true to his or her word, and has a history of successes creates a respect “currency” that can be cashed in instantly.
Without a doubt, earning respect and credibility in your industry cannot be done overnight, but entrepreneurs can engage in strategies along the way that will help build credibility more effectively.
In today’s mobile age, reaching potential clients is now easier than ever, but you’re also facing the constant challenge of excess noise with the endless amount of content being served at any given time. The digital landscape is constantly evolving, and brands that don’t evolve with it will no doubt get left behind. So, how will you stand out from the crowd and do it better these days?
Personal Branding
For entrepreneurs who want to earn respect and revenue, there’s no denying the importance of personal branding. After all, branding is largely responsible for the message your name (and face) transmits to the world. Because of this, it’s vital that your brand is built on authenticity and engagement, rather than halfheartedness and complacency.
For many up-and-coming entrepreneurs, consciously making an effort to build a personal brand takes a backseat to other items on their never-ending to-do lists. In their minds, personal branding will take care of itself.
Simply put, this couldn’t be farther from the truth. As Stephanie JoAnne, an online business mentor for modern-day entrepreneurs, says, “You need to know that everything you do, both intentionally and not, contributes to the way others are perceiving your personal brand.”
There’s a common misconception in business that it’s the company’s brand alone that matters. In certain areas, this is true. For example, when considering small ticket items that are consumer goods such as toothbrushes or toilet paper, the vast majority of buyers are not interested in the company’s CEO. But for smaller businesses, service-oriented firms, B2B companies, and artisan B2C companies, the owner’s brand is absolutely critical.
Whether through social media, influencer marketing or some sort of media outreach strategy, personal branding is an active endeavor. It’s so hard to have your personal brand to the point when you feel that it’s pitch perfect.
Imagine That Day …
When the look and feel of your brand have been carefully coordinated and your messaging has been refined until it’s within an inch of your ideal customer profile. That point in your business where you don’t have to be marketing all over the place. You choose platforms with the utmost care. Your biggest monitoring comes from Google Alerts because you are getting so many mentions in the online arena.
How to Build Your Personal Brand To Land Big Ticket Items Quicker
With a bit of planning and strategizing, you can land big-ticket items quicker by investing in the digital assets that matter.
Let’s talk about the 10 digital assets that you can’t afford to miss.
Don’t forget to download the checkup list to have this information handy.
1- Business name
Since you are building your credibility, make sure that your online presence has your name correctly. I have seen so many entrepreneurs using names like “Nina- Your Path To Profits”. Don’t confuse your name with your tagline. People should be able to find you if they google your name.
2- Logo
Yes, you are a brand! Your name deserves a logo and you should not go cheap. If you want to be considered as a serial entrepreneur, don’t fall for a logo that you did it yourself or some freelancer did it for you via Fiverr. You are no longer testing the waters. You are up to get real clients that will pay big-ticket items.
3- Tagline
What exactly is that you do? Your brand is not pitch perfect until you are able to say what you do in one sentence. Focus on that ideal client that you want to attract and create a valuable proposition for that ONE person. Don’t go too broad.
4- Testimonials
Testimonials are a must. You can say that you are the best in what you do, but if someone else says it, you are respected much more. How can you preserve your testimonials as digital assets? It can be as simple as a screenshot of their own words.
5- Video Testimonials
Ideally, you want to have a video production of at least your homepage video with a call to action, testimonials, a video describing your product or services “showcase video”. That’s what we did with Marketing for Greatness.
Once you have those main assets, you can produce quick videos with testimonials that update your client’s results, for example.
You can also leverage Facebook Live to build your credibility and establish your authority online. Consider running a weekly show on Facebook Live.
Read: 7 Steps To Get Clients Through Youtube
6- Professional headshots
Selfies are amazing. I get it, ladies! However, this is your BIG launch! You need to go all in. Don’t go cheap with your headshots. I have some examples of headshots! I made a Pinterest Board where I pin headshots that get my attention. Feel free to save it!
Outsource a director of marketing to lead your efforts and help you focus.
You can have the best execution team in the world, but if there is no strategy behind the tactics, the likelihood of success is low.
Strategy starts with understanding who your ideal customer is and why you are different. What we’ve found here at Marketing For Greatness is that in today’s modern content based marketing approach, focusing as specifically as possible on a few ideal customers gives the best returns. We’ve been referring to this as “One Person Marketing” as opposed to ‘traditional’ funnel marketing. This increasingly important approach is also a highly strategic approach, that requires the experience of an experienced marketing director.
The second piece of strategy is being able to differentiate yourself from your competition. According to my new favorite sales book, The Challenger Sale, only 35% of companies have a true differentiation. I will tell you that we very rarely meet someone that can tell us why their company is truly different. An Outsourced Marketing Director MUST be able to help you identify both your ideal customer and help you discover or create your differentiation. Don’t just hire a Virtual Assistant. In order to take your business to the next level, you need strategy and systems in place.
7- Professional website
“DM me for details!”. We’ve all stumbled upon a random seller that uses social media to get their product out there. Unfortunately, many become victims of scammers and shady vendors during this kind of transaction. By having a complete, carefully designed website, you can put your clients’ minds at ease.
Since websites are not free, having one means that you’ve made an important investment to help your business grow. For consumers, a website becomes a sign of effort and professionalism. They’re less likely to be tricked by a company that has taken the time to build a legitimate portal.
You also need a professional website for most online validations. If you want a trust-inducing tick next to your brand’s name on a Facebook page, or want to rank higher on a Search Engine, validation is important. Most processes require entering a website alongside your company’s document. If your site doesn’t look authentic, you probably won’t be able to get any certification.
A website also has repercussions for your offline presence. For example, if you’re planning to get a loan for your company, your website can be a sign of legality that the bank will take into consideration.
8- Landing Page
A landing page can be any page that someone lands on after clicking on an online marketing call-to-action. Dedicated, promotion-specific landing pages are what we’ll be focusing on. Dedicated landing pages are standalone pages that are designed for a specific marketing campaign.
By standalone, I mean that it has no ties to your website, like global navigation. In essence, it floats alone, only accessible from the link you’re providing in your marketing content (the call-to-action in an email for example).
The purpose of a landing page falls into two categories:
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to capture leads that enable you to market to people in the future, or
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to “warm up” potential customers to the product you are trying to sell to them before sending them further into your sales funnel.
This creates the need for two types of landing page – a lead generation page and a click-through page.
I love using GetResponse.com to create unlimited landing pages! However, for main product launches, consider a professionally designed landing page.
9- Content Calendar
Since you are building your brand more strategically, you need to plan how to share your message so you can cover the most important information that people need so they can trust you, like you, and believe in you. Don’t just write blog posts. Don’t just share headlines with promotions. Lead with value. Educate your audience.
Content Marketing vs Branded Content
At this point, you might be thinking that you have all that it takes. However, I have found that 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs miss this component. What exactly is content marketing vs branded content and why do you need to include both as part of the strategy to elevate your credibility, respect, and revenue?
- Branded content marketing campaigns are often associated with entertainment-type content, such as creative video advertising. The aim is to resonate with the consumer on an emotional level rather than focusing on the actual product and USPs.
Your social marketing needs branded content, marketing campaigns that are highly creative, so you can reach brand awareness faster.
Facebook ads are great to reach this goal. Perhaps we can have a conversation about this or join my 5-Day Facebook Ads Summit where I teach exactly how to launch a branding awareness campaign.
- Content marketing campaigns are more focused on the product or service and the content is usually more rational and informative. This takes place further down the customer decision journey and, unlike branded content, ROI is more about lead-generation and sales than building a positive image of the brand. Launching a blog that integrates content marketing campaign is a must.
Content Marketing Manager vs Social Media Manager
I still come across people who are totally unfamiliar with the term “content marketing.” And as I begin to explain it, they often respond, “Oh, brands publishing content? You mean social media marketing.”
In social media marketing, the center of gravity — the focus of the marketing activity — is located within the social networks themselves. When marketers operate social media campaigns, they are operating inside of Facebook, inside of Twitter, inside of Google+, etc. As they produce content, they place it inside of these networks.
Once you have the strategy in place, you will notice that your online efforts will be aligned with your sales cycle. For example, if you are about to launch a program as part of your services or a product, creating different teasers will help you getting the message out and standing out from the crowd.
In contrast, the center of gravity for content marketing is a brand website — whether it be a branded URL like AmericanExpress.com or a microsite for a brand’s specific product, like Amex’s Open Forum. Social networks are vital to the success of content marketing efforts, but here, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ are used primarily as a distributor of links back to the content on the brand’s website — not as containers of the content itself.
If you are still thinking that social media management is purely sharing memes and selfies, then, this is an area of opportunity that you might want to explore, so you can be seen as a respected authority in your “industry”. When I say “industry”, don’t think that you need to compete with big players. You can turn into a micro-celebrity which can very well take you to your 7-8 figure income. @Forbes has an article about micro celebrities that it’s worth reading!
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10- Lead Generation & Stay In Touch Marketing Systems
This is the area where I can honestly say “the struggle is real”. There are so many programs and memberships that you can purchase to run your marketing and sales efforts, that you can find yourself investing a lot of money without understanding why do you need them. I ran a list of my “digital gadgets” and was shocked at the number of memberships that my team was consuming. Here is the list (just to name a few):
- Get response
- Zoom video call pro
- Zoom webinar
- Zoom cloud
- Ecamm (for Facebook live)
- Icloud
- Dropbox
- Gmail additional storage (I save all my emails from my law practice)
- Basecamp
- Promo (videos for social)
- Ripl (videos for social)
- Woocommerce subscriptions
- Woocommerce memberships
- Paypal business
- Yoast plugin
- Visual composer (plugin)
- Domain registration and renovations
- Hosting renovation
- Pic Monkey
- Canva.com
- One time download of dozens of apps
Yes, the list is very, very long! This is on top of the cost of labor for a graphic designer, web developer, programmer, social media managers, and virtual assistants. Don’t forget to download our checklist so you can track your branding awareness process. Be disciplined with your sales and marketing tools!
To your greatness, visibility, profit, and beyond we go!
-Jessica
PS- Leave us your comments 👇🏻
