Luke, Are You Ready To Make More In The Next 12 Months Than You Did In The Last 12 Years?

You’ve heard it before right?

I am sure we have all been subjected to the ‘millionaire’ idea via some internet marketing guru?

(I remember reading a tweet on twitter some weeks ago where someone asked “how come there are all these people who do not earn six figures telling me how to earn six figures?”) - great question!

Well, I have some ideas forInternet Marketers…and they are all about what I call the rules of engagement!;

1.  COMMUNICATE - This is about listening as well as talking.  So here is an idea…ask me what I might want to sign up to, but make it personal!  ”Luke I see you are into Personal Branding…well this product from XYZ might interest you” or “Luke, you signed up to our free seminar in a few weeks, I was wondering what food or drinks you might like to see served at the event?”

2.  INSPIRE - This involves involving and sharing stories.  And I am not talking about the same lame story where you were an expert in nothing, and then learnt how to make $1m a week using this new product!  Tell me about your family or what you really enjoy doing, and some of the adventures you have had!

3.  SUPPORT - Now some IM legends like Mike Filsaime for example get this…they follow up and want you to succeed.  Supporting involves helping and giving.  Some internet marketers give free gifts away..but how about giving some time.  In other words, give me some coaching on how we might make your product fly?  I used to see this activity early in the IM days, but see less of it now?

So there you go, some simple tips on how you MIGHT sell a little more via your internet marketing tactics.  I know that success in Internet Marketing is all about the list, and all about the ‘numbers’ but sales is also about longer term relationships and conversion rates!

Who does this now…well Tim Ferriss is the best recent example of an Internet Marketer for me!  He understood all about INSPIRING and SUPPORTING.  He did amazing things and shared this with us, and he made genuine videos with advice and tips (like how to pack with minimal effort) and he shared REAL stories with us (like the skydiving with his brother on his birthday), and he wrote a book…a best seller.  Tim Ferriss was an Internet Marketer, and most if us did not even recognise this!  We might not all be as talented as Tim, but I reckon Tim’s real secret was..he genuinely LOVED what he was selling, and LOVED the game that is Internet Marketing…if you are in the game to make a buck; you might end up with little in return!

As Gary Vaynerchuk said “you can be just as broke doing shit you like”

What is your Beast?

Eric Bana is releasing his new film/documentary this Thursday titled “Love Your Beast” and he speaks of the film as being all about ‘your real passion’

Eric speaks with great passion and conviction about how everyone has a ‘beast’ the one thing outside of their day to day that really ignites a passion; and ultimately defines us!

What defines you?

I especially like it when Bana tells the story of how people walk up to him in the street, and they do not ask “how is it working with Brad Pitt or being Directed by Ridley Scott, but they ask…mate how is your car?”

This rings so true for me, and for my work with Personal Brands.  Brands are all about evoking emotion in your target audience, and illiciting a response to your offer.  Your work and does not define you, and rarely evokes an emotion in others..but your passions and interests do!

So, how do you bring these ‘passions’ to your workplace, and communicate them as part of your Personal Brand!

How many of your porspects or clients have the same passions and interests as you…do you even know the passions and interests that your clients and prospects have?

What is their Beast?

‘Your Beast’ is a metaphor…it is all about the thing or things that make you feel alive.  It is the thing or things that define you and make you who you REALLY are.  Your Beast is the essential, unique thing about your brand that you MUST communciate and demonstrate!  People buy passion, and it is your Beast that will bring out your passion…

Go find your beast, and feed it!

Recently, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story on the results when  Australians were asked “who do you like best?”

The Top 10 looked like this;

1. Hugh Jackman - Actor and entertainer
2 Andrew Denton - TV Host (think Australia’s version of Michael Parkinson)
3 Jennifer Hawkins - ex Miss Universe and TV presenter, model
4 Ernie Dingo - Actor and TV personality
5 Dave Hughes - Comedian
6 Magda Szubanski - Actress
7 Glenn Robbins - Actor and Comedian
8 Hamish Blake - Comedian
9 John Clarke - Comedian
10 Shane Bourne - Comedian and TV host

These results were compliled as a result of Audience Development Australia showing 600 photos to a sample of 2000 adults in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and asked them to say who they recognised and how much they liked them on a scale from 0 to 4.

(The research findings, called the Q Scores, are bought by television networks who want to know if their stars represent good ROI)

The article cited “You’d be tempted to conclude that the qualities Australians value in a public figure, apart from pleasant looks, are;”

• intelligence, 
• irreverence, 
• curiosity, 
• independence, 
• enthusiasm, 
• straightforwardness, and 
• a capacity for self-mockery.

However, I tend to disagree with this…this list seems too complex.  These results say to me that Australians value the brand attributes of;

1. Humour - they laugh with us and at us
2. Good looks - the classic Aussie ‘look’
3. Humility - the ability to laugh at themselves
4. Generosity - they all have great stories of giving!

What do you think…and what are the brand attirbutes of the most ‘popular’ people in your country?  Are these brand attributes represented across the population?

Fascinating topic…

Great Personal Brands engage and evoke emotion in their target audience.  All great brands do this.  What emotion does Coke evoke in you, or Apple or Nike or Virgin…chances are your thoughts and feelings about these brands are strong.   An effective Personal Brand should have the same effect!

If your personal brand evokes an emotion (positive or negative) in your prospects; then you will effect two changes.

1.       Clear your pipeline by turning away the prospects who do not engage with your brand,

2.       Turn those prospects who engage with your brand into CLIENTS!

It is the second of these effects we are most interested in!

So how do you use your personal brand to evoke a positive emotion in your prospects?

To an extent - this does depend on your target audience - but in general;

•          Be persistently consistent - subscribe your prospects to a newsletter or a regular communication and communicate with them!  Share ideas, tips and a little bit of your life!  Figures say that a prospect will need to receive 6 emails form you before they take an action, so do not give up after 3!
•          Involve these prospects in your business (or your life) - generate polls or surveys and ask them to provide feedback on your services and ideas.  When they provide feedback, tell them how you plan to use this feedback.  People LOVE to be listened to!
•          Connect - Introduce your prospects to other prospects, or clients where they may be reciprocal business or interests.  I recently introduced a legendary social media consultant with a deep passion for Rugby to another contact of mine who is the owner of a Rugby Site www.heavensgame.com and may need some social media advice…or simply just another fan with the same passion!
•          Take an interest - when you meet with these prospects, take time to understand what their interests are, and send them updates or articles on these interests…consistently!
•          Hustle - My friend Gary Vaynerchuk talks about “always be hustling, we are building businesses here…” and he is right.  If you thought building a business was meant to be easy, then you are in the wrong game!  Spend time and hard work communicating, connecting, involving, and being interested, and you will soon have more clients than you can handle!

In the next post, we will look at the most important of the steps in growing your business…turning clients into LOVERS using your personal brand!

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The terror of the bushfires in Victoria (Australia) is still very real for many fine Australians.

In writing this post, my thoughts are with the survivors, the volunteers, the support staff, and of course those who lost their lives…

These events bring out the best (and worst) in people; and for me I take a great interest in the role that our ‘leaders’ play during these times.

For me, I am very much from the school of thought that says “leaders insppire, motivate and provide a vision for others to work toward”

Leadership means different things to different people, but I am pretty sure that the one common thing about great leaders is that they have a way of inspiring and motivating people?

I believe that one of the essential tenets for inspiring and motivating people is for them to ‘like you’ and one great quality of people who are ‘liked’ is that they take an interest in others and genuinely ‘like people’

So, to watch some of the body language and communication skills of our leaders through this bushfire tragedy I have been a little intrigued.  Most recently, I watched our Prime Minister - Kevin Rudd, consoling and comforting survivors of the Whittlesea bushfires.  He just looked WRONG.  When a grown man broke down as he described the horror of his recent experience - Kevin Rudd looked uncomfortable and lost as to what to do next  (in fact, he barely looked interested in the man he was speaking with)

This discomfort started when it became obvious that Kevin Rudd does not have great listening skills…he simply does not look interested in the people he is communicating with!

How about you, are you interested in other people; do you know how to look interested in other people?  

Well, it is mostly about your body language;

• When listening to someone else - tilt your head, nod, and change the expression on your face!
• Don’t let your mind wander from the words they are saying - let them finish!
• Ask open questions i.e. “how does this make you feel?”
• Mirror the emotions of the speaker, if they are laughing, laugh, if they look forlorn - look forlorn!
• Remember what they were speaking about - and send them an email or text message on the subject of interest,
• If they need a hug, reach toward them and give them a hug!

Disasters such as these we are witnessing in Victoria put people under tremendous pressure…but it is also these times that remind us to connect with other people, and the best thing we can give is empathy, compassion and understanding.  Work on these skills, they are the basic unit of love, and this is more important than money or material possessions; just ask those who lost their house and belongings in the recent fires…yet still have their family!

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Earlier this week, I wrote about the only 3 ways to grow your business, which are;

1. Increase the number of customers,
2. Increase the frequency of purchase, and
3. Increase the number of units sold

Given the current business climate, each of these may seem pretty difficult right now, but with a strong Personal Brand, and some ideas on how to;

• Turn suspects into prospects,
• Prospects into clients, and
• Clients into mad fans…

Then growing your business (or simply maintaining your business) may be a little easier!

Turn Suspects into Prospects

Your personal brand is all about WHO KNOWS YOU and not what you know and who you know!

This being the case, then attracting new prospects is ultimately what your personal brand does…and these simple tactics can help you to do this;

• Get your profile online - use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, ecademy, JigSaw, MySpace or Wordpress to get your ‘brand’ in front of as many people as possible,
• Get yourself ‘inline’ - where do your likely prospects frequent?  If they attend trade shows or networking functions - then get yourself along to these same functions and meet new people!
• Give to Get - I wrote about this earlier, but right now, a great way to get free press and get tongues wagging, is to organise a charity event or volunteer you time for a worthwhile cause…people will talk about you, and others will want to know you!
• Advertise - write a clever advertisement that captures YOUR unique attributes, and tells YOUR story.  During the Great Depression, firms that continued to advertise survived..those that stopped advertising did not!
• Be Free - give stuff away…again to a worthwhile cuase, or if you are a service, give up 10% of your time a week to selected ’suspects’ so that they can sample your services and then tell others about them!
• Ask - ask your current clients or prospects who they would recommend your services to.  Ask them who might benefit from meeting you!

Right now, more than ever, the number of people who KNOW YOU may determine your failure or success.  People are seeking more ‘personal’ experiences from the businesses they buy from - so be sure to give your business ‘personality’ - ulitmately, it is YOU they will talk about…not your widgets!

Have fun…and go GROW!

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We are facing the worst financial crisis in our history right?

New business is harder than ever to source…

Banks are not lending money!

So how do you grow your business?

Well, you may be surprised to learn that there are ONLY 3 ways to grow your business anyway;

1. Get more customers,
2. Increase the number of times they buy, or
3. Sell more…

Mmm, when you look at it like that, 1 and 2 don’t look real viable right now, but strategy 3 SELL MORE (especially to existing customers) just might work?

I believe that if you have great relationships with your existing customers, and you can communicate clearly what it is you do for them, and how you are valuable to them (i.e. your personal brand) then you will have a much better chance of selling more to them!

(This article over at the SEM Clubhouse blog also reminded me of the importance of relationships and community)

So, how is your relationship with your existing customers (or your relationships in general?) do they;

• Know what you stand for,
• Know what you love and enjoy,
• Know how you help them create value,
• Refer you to other customers because you are ‘available’,
• Talk about you to other people over dinner beacuse you are likeable?

In other words, are you POPULAR amongst your existing customers?

If not, then you may have some difficulty achieving strategy 3…so how do you start to develop deeper relationships with your existing customers using your personal brand (if it not too late?) - well you will have to drop back here, or subscribe to our RSS feed, as I write several articles on tactics to;

• Turn strangers to prospects
• Prospects to clients, and
• Clients to raving fans…

Using your Personal Brand!

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