At one of the Inside Track Business Growth Days in October, one very well known EC member had a ‘road to Damascus’ moment.
She wasn’t expecting it – neither was anyone else in the room – but she brought to the table a screenshot of her newly designed website for her business.
The design was excellent. It looked great (which was to be expected as it had been put together by one of our Trusted Suppliers). But, the substance the designer had to work with was woefully lacking.
She was expecting her web designer to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear and, it can’t be done. She was giving away and forgetting about so many of the advantages that she has in her sector and industry and she was doing so because of her inhibitions.
I promise you, the most powerful marketing in any sector is PERSONALITY DRIVEN.
The people getting the most customers, making the biggest profits and enjoying the most success are those who are willing to put their head above the parapet and stand up for what they (and their business) believe in – without any concerns over anyone’s jaundiced, critical views of him or her as arrogant egotists or shameless self-promoters.
In our example, the lady in question has so many strengths around her length of experience, guarantees, environmental credentials – and her personality – but none of it was evident on the first draft of her new site. She was hiding behind a corporate masquerade.
The group gave her so many ways in which her personality could ooze from every pore of that site and, in doing so, would attract her ideal customers into her business, in their droves.
Her call to action changed from “Call…” to, “Seven reasons why you’d have to be certifiably insane not to at least to talk to…”.
Putting herself out there.
Standing for something.
Being prepared to be the face of her business.
For many of us, this is the single best thing we can do to accelerate us to where we want to be.
When we launched this baby, it was called, “Nigel Botterill’s Entrepreneurs Circle” for a reason. It gave us leverage. Nigel Botterill can have a personality. Can stand for something. Can have views
and opinions. Corporate entities can’t. Even at a small local level, their natural space is bland, boring banality.
Don’t believe me? The examples are all around you. I know it’s an uncomfortable decision to put yourself out there and up there as a someone; as a heroic and legendary, important, significant and fascinating figure but this approach builds ANY business better than ANY OTHER APPROACH – because people are inherently and infinitely more interested in interesting and dynamic PEOPLE than they are in companies, institutions, products or services.
Individuals who are willing to do this, who study it, emulate it and master it, skyrocket in power and wealth past countless peers including many who may well have greater expertise, credibility
and capability.
One of the first people to get good at this was Thomas Edison but if you study people like Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Richard Branson, Hugh Heffner, even Duncan Bannantyne then you’ll realise that they have, in six different types of industry, duplicated an enormous amount of what I’ve described here.
You’ll also see that I’ve had a crack at it as well.
Everything comes at a price – and the price you pay for being shy, retiring and hidden in the background is a diminished life and lifestyle…
Think on that and have a great month.
