SOOOO many people in business online have failed to consistently sell their products or services over time.

SOBERING STATS:

• 95% of new business are not earning a full-time income a year later.
• 97% of people who buy expensive online information programs don’t get the results they expected (in fact, they can’t even finish all the program materials, the long boring talking-face videos, all the overwhelm of stuff)
  
• Fewer than 3% of online coaching and service businesses are making $100,000/year…that’s gross income, not net.

What’s going on?

Well, a huge part of the problem is following a mindset that is looking through the wrong end of the telescope, with blinders on.

Think about the traditional approach to promoting a brick-and-mortar business:

Lots and lots of cold sales calls in a “shotgun” approach (now online with broadly-targeted emails, ads, and social media posts)…

Colorful and expensive company brochures (now the expensive done-for-you website that nobody comes to see)…

TV commercials about how wonderful your business is (online videos now, same mindset and message)…and so on.

“Hi, I’m (my name) with (my company).  We’re experts in (what you do / certain products) and we want you to become our happy customer.  Here’s our huge and amazing factory (or office building), here’s our wonderful staff, here’s our history of success and awards, here’s my calling card, and here’s my number to call to order something.” 

Why is that common approach not working?

Because it’s all about you… and that’s headed 180 degrees in the wrong direction.

That focus didn’t work in the brick-and-mortar world pre-Internet, and it doesn’t work online now.

Yet hope springs eternal, and the vast majority of advertisers continue throwing away time and money doing the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results (Einstein’s definition of “insanity”).

So let’s do everyone a favor and put an end to the insane misery of continuing what doesn’t work.

For your ideal prospects, it is literally not about you.

It’s all about their urgent emotional search to solve their biggest pain or need, known online as WIIFM – “What’s In It For Me?”

If you want to attract customers online amidst your millions of competitors, you have to shape-shift your sales approach to the point of view of your ideal prospects.

Let’s take you as customer.

If you’re sick, you’re looking for a doctor who addresses and clearly understands your particular ailment — and has fixed it for others many, many times.

You don’t care about size of the facility or looking at a picture of the staff or long history and framed credentials etc. – just whether that particular doctor understands your specific problem and shares believable proof that he or she can fix it.

Of course, we expect our solution to be at a clean and professional-looking location, and if so, it’s to trust and go have your appointment.

If the visuals are not comforting, you may not even stick around at all to discover whether this doctor understands your need.

If your marketing is just not causing enough orders and cash flow, you want to find a you-directed coach who talks from experience about your specific lead generation problem and clearly knows how to fix it.

If your first impression of the coach is “amateur” and not a polished, experienced mentor, you’ll go looking elsewhere…but if he/she looks and sounds like a professional coach, you’ll typically trust enough to listen to the full story.  (That transition to a trustworthy look and sound is why my Video Maestro Makeover Workshops do for my clients.)

Your ideal prospects think and react exactly the same way.

So here are the critical actions you must take to start grabbing the attention and trust of your ideal prospects online:

• Trade the old me-oriented mindset for seeing the world through your prospects eyes, hearts, and minds; and
• Learn to master ideal-prospect-oriented VIDEO online, because that’s what 85-90% of all your competition is using to steal the attention of your people.

As a four-decade career video producer for Fortune 500 companies, I learned along the way what works and what doesn’t to get the attention of the right people.

Humans think in a similar way and want answers to similar questions before they make the emotional decision to buy (all decisions are emotional, and then we justify them logically).

When I came online a few years ago, I knew human nature is still the same, but the technology and culture of the cyber world had a unique vocabulary and way to catch attention amid thousands of competing ads and emails.

So here’s how to make your on-camera work become a huge 24/7 vacuum to gather just the right people and turn them into long-term, loyal paying customers.

BIG NUMBER ONE…

Get professional help to create a CONSISTENT SIGNATURE BRAND.

Before anyone will even listen to your message… 

You need to present consistent, professional public image in all your communications that identifies you as the go-to expert in your niche who understands your ideal prospects’ major pains and needs, and knows how to get them where they need to be.

Research proves that you can sell to only 20% of your potential market when people see your brand promoted for the first 5 times.   

That leaves 80% of your potential sales floating in cyber space…

Until people see a consistent brand promoted 6 or more times.

Your various public communications are cumulative building blocks of trust adding up to a comfortable trigger point only if your signature brand is consistent from touch to touch.  It doesn’t accumulate interest if each contact looks and feels different.

The first key to a consistent, attractive brand is VIDEO (any time you’re on camera or your recorded messages).

• Learn to spot and eliminate distracting, amateurish behavior and choices…
• Get yourself positioned properly on screen…
• Set up lighting that makes you look your professional and personal best…
  Ensure quality sound that is as natural as talking to someone in person…and
• Keep both clothing and background free of distractions so your prospect’s attention is on your face, eyes, and message.

So then it’s easy to clone the same look and feel of your video brand for all of your other communications, for that building-block consistency that gets people quickly to full trust and open up the floodgates of that 80% of potential buyers.

Your website, online ads, social media posts, guests appearances on video podcasts, etc. must each mirror your signature color scheme and your profession look and message that you established in your on-camera brand work.

All photos of you in your communications should further your signature look and brand…including on thumbnails for your videos on YouTube, for example.

And BTW…

The best way is to create a library of images of yourself in various poses in each of the 3-4 outfits your branding coach led you to choose that work well with your skin tone and flatter you.

With your good video lighting setup and a smart phone…

Wear one of your best outfits and shoot still pictures of every imaginable pose you can think of… straight to camera, turned ¾ left, turned ¾ right…smiling, quizzical, pointing different directions, being surprised, etc., you name it.

Then do exactly the same in the next outfit…and the next…in at least 3 different but brand-approved outfits.

In Canva Pro you can import all the pictures and remove the backgrounds, saving each as a png image.  Then you can quickly insert any of them on your web site, build thumbnails for your videos, create Facebook and other posts and ads, and so on.

In summary…

1. Adopt the mindset of always talking about your ideal prospects’ problems, using their own words, to connect with them and develop trust.
2. Use that approach on camera and in recorded videos as your main form of attracting a steadily growing stream of your ideal prospects.
3. Clone your video brand look and feel to all your other communications, including lots of images of your branded self to choose from whenever needed.

The result will be that campaign-wide professional brand that accumulates good “touches” and leads to find that missing 80% of your market.

Follow all these steps and guidelines to put the “WOW!” and “AHA!” into all of your communications.