Millions of entrepreneurs are competing online for attention and money.

Is it possible then for you to actually stand out from the crowd and get your share of customers and ongoing income?

Think about your brand – your unique public identity that represents your value to people who are urgently looking for your solutions.

Is your brand working for you?

• Are you drawing the right people and enough of them to sustain your business over time financially?
• Are you generally known to your contacts as the go-to expert in your field?

Clearly it takes a lot of work and time to establish a brand.

Let me share with you what I consider to be the 5 essential elements of an attractive and sustainable brand for your business success.

BRAND ESSENTIAL 1:

You must be doing what you love to do, are good at, and should be doing as leader of your business.

BRAND ESSENTIAL 2:

You must have clarity about, and commitment to, your chosen ideal prospects.

BRAND ESSENTIAL 3:

You must use your ideal customers’ own words in all your communications with them.

BRAND ESSENTIAL 4:

You must run a coordinated, carefully orchestrated marketing campaign that repurposes and repeats your core concepts.

BRAND ESSENTIAL 5:

You must learn to embrace the winning mindset of those thriving at the level you hope to achieve.

Now let’s dive into the details of each of the essential parts above: 

1) You must be doing what you love to do, are good at, and should be doing as leader of your business.

You’re swimming against a rip tide if you choose a business that you don’t truly love to do, and especially if you’re not an expert at it.

Successful businesses are based on long-term, daily persistence.  When your heart isn’t in it, you won’t be able to stick to that discipline and hard work over time.

When you’re doing what you truly love and are good at:

• You’re going with the flow. Fulfilling your dream.  Having fun and not feeling like it’s all work.
• You’ll bounce out of bed every morning because you can’t wait to get back into it all.
• Work won’t be work anymore – it will be living and loving your dream life.

Yet there’s another step that’s critical to make your love fest work – and that’s to embrace and focus on ONLY the roles needed to be a leader of the business, and delegate the rest.

I used to call it “wearing 9 hats” – a good way to ensure 80-hour weeks and become the master of none.

For example, I knew a smart, educated business owner who was determined to control  every single thing that went on in his business.

He loved doing it all – especially IT tech stuff – and had trouble managing employees because he decided nobody could do things exactly the way he wanted. 

That right there is the quintessential fear of delegating.

His micro-management of everybody’s tasks resulted in bad morale, low productivity, loss of creative solutions of his staff, and completely missing numerous opportunities to build strong relationships with his customers.

It was truly a leaderless business…the top hat was missing.

Soon the business folded, and he was at a loss for why.  So I told him he got lost in what he loved to do and forgot to be a leader.

Only when he realized what he had done (his “AHA!” moment) was he able to get help and start a new business the right way.

I use a detailed analysis form with my coaching customers that helps them discover the handful of skills and roles they love to do and should be doing as leaders of their businesses.

• The challenge is to focus their time and attention on those few choices, while delegating all the others.
• Delegating means giving up control in trade for having others do 90% of the work – freeing you to be an effective business leader. You still have control of the final outcomes.

Divide all the non-leadership tasks and roles into two groups:

1 – Highly skilled tasks, done by trained staff, hired coaches, and professional resources.  Leaders set aside time to monitor these regularly.

2 – All the rest of the tasks you delegate others to manage, checking only for any problems that need your decisions.

The trick is to give up “control” and embrace the role of delegating. Hire and train the right people, and your team will step up to the plate and hit home runs for you.

The major choice of loving what you do and are good at will work only if you bite the bullet and delegate everything except your key leadership roles.

2) You must have clarity about, and commitment to, your chosen ideal prospects.

So many entrepreneurs don’t have clarity about who they want to serve, nor what their real pains, fears, needs and wants may be.

Some make the mistake of assuming they know already, since they went through a similar problem-solving process.  You’re likely, however, to NOT be your ideal customer.

Others just logically list what seems important to them and assume for their prospects.

Such assumptions lead to low response to your marketing.

It takes research and survey time to get a handle on a group of people.

• Get key words from “hyper-responsive”….
• Find the high-search words…(QUICK TECHNIQUES)
• Know your ideal customer like you know your close friends – real people who desperately need your solution to stop the pain and/or meet their needs.

3) You must use your ideal customers’ own words in all your communications with them.

Always remember WIIFM – your potential customers surf the Net with the abiding question, “What’s in it for me?”

They’re looking for their major pain, fear, need, or want.  Nothing else grabs their attention and makes them stop to check for a solution.

They will resonate like a tuning fork if you talk their challenges in their words.

So create a CORE data base of the words you gathered in your research.  CORE words become the titles, headers, program names etc. for everything you offer them.

• These ideal customers’ words are your bright and shiny stars of attraction for all your communications.
• You fish using bait attractive to the fish you’re seeking, not something tasty to you.
• Too many people use their own favorite words or check with their fellow coaches for what they think.
• Big mistake. Asking the wrong people.  You already have all the right answers at your disposal.

Your business name?  Use the words they use to describe the solution they need.

Same goes for title of your major programs…titles and headers in ads…even names of events and services.  Use their words!

Part of a clear “expert” identity is a compelling elevator pitch of 25 words or so…a great customer-oriented name for your business…and your signature formula, roadmap, etc. (using their words, remember) to guide them along to thriving.

And finally, VIDEO is a major tool in resonating with your peeps – because it’s the powerful combination of emotional words with compelling visuals that enhance the emotional reaction.

• Research shows that spoken words and matching visuals are 22 times more powerful than words alone.
• Avoid the talking face videos (they were never effective) and use most of your video time showing exactly what you’re talking about in the script.
• Constantly ask: “What will my ideal customer want to see when I’m saying this?”

80% of ads now involve video, so get your powerful message out there!

4) You must run a coordinated, carefully orchestrated marketing campaign that repurposes and repeats your core concepts.

It takes as many as 8 exposures of your message to prospect before you get your full potential of buyers.

• That’s why you want a variety of ads, videos, etc. out there working together to give people enough contacts to be comfortable to buy from you.
• That’s also why you need a robust email follow-up and relationship-building system to automatically reach people where they are in that process and nudge them onward.
• A major tool in your campaign is video, since as I mentioned, 80% of today’s ads online involve video.

Think of every time you appear on the Internet (on camera or just audio) as a “live” contact that can resonate powerfully with your ideal customers.

Your biggest challenge is to answer this question:

• How am I going to create video that stands out from millions of long talking-face videos and rah-rah bells and whistles?

 How will I create video that makes me look and sound like the go-to expert to solve my ideal customers’ problems?

 The answer is to use the same consistent, customer-word-based messages in your videos as you do in your live presentations.

KEEP IN MIND:  Long-winded, talking-face videos are part of info core dump and don’t change people.  Your messages need to be succinct, focused on one main problem,  and presented using the power of both spoken words and related visuals that show what the words mean.

If your message is concise, compelling, and consistent every time they come in contact with you, that’s building a brand.

5) You must learn to embrace the winning mindset of those thriving at the level you hope to achieve.

You can’t get way up there with the thinking and habits that got you where you are now (thanks for that thought, Albert Einstein).

I’ve had students of my learning programs resist my approaches and word choices, etc.  They are focusing on what they are familiar with in the past…not remembering that such thoughts have not gotten them where they want to be.

Functioning at a higher level means two things:

1. Commit to letting go of your old, unproductive assumptions and be willing to openly embrace the thinking of those at the level you want to achieve. It’s ego and programmed bias, my friend, that would try to convince you to stick with what’s familiar.  We all have to let that go to change.
2. Drop the old coping habits that protected your limited assumptions (such as procrastination). Be ready to try new habits that got others where you want to be.

Here’s where a coach is essential to helping your peel back the layers of your onion self (yes, limited thinking stinks) and build your self-confidence so you can and will embrace new ways.

You can’t get that winning mindset on your own.  It’s not in your vocabulary or experience yet.  Get help and trust the one who’s been there, done that, and is thriving as a result.

So those are the 5 essential steps to your powerful, sustainable, magnetic, and financially emancipating brand for the business you love to pieces.

Imagine what life would be like if you mastered these 5 steps!

• Only your ideal customers convert and become raving, loyal fans
• Lots of people know who you are and what problems you solve.
• You get to mix and JV with major influencers (the big gurus get 80% of their millions that way).
• Your name and face appear daily in live broadcasts, podcasts, summits, etc.
• Sustainable financial independence is no longer an issue.

 Give these steps the time and attention they need, so you can reap the life-changing benefits of being recognized widely as the go-to expert in your field.