The best marketing book just got better. Book Yourself Solid, 2nd Edition. Now available. Updated and Expanded!
All posts written by Michael Port
SELF-PROMOTION: IS IT SELF-EXPRESSION OR SELF-ABSORPTION?
This post is by David Jehlen. He’s the Director of Coach Development for The Book Yourself Solid School of Coach Training and one of my closest collaborators. Enjoy and offer your thoughts by commenting. Because if you’re not in the conversation, you can’t influence the conversation. – Michael
You like almost every entrepreneur, service professional and small business owner have a big vision for how you will uniquely impact and transform your clients and marketplace. Sweet.
You want, no, NEED to be fully self-expressed. You need to know that the very essence of who you are has made the difference in a way that nobody else can. Exciting, right?
But there’s a problem.
HOW TO AUTOMATE YOUR ONLINE SALES PROCESS (VIDEO)
What happens after the sale? Online sales processes help you make the sale but you also need automated backend processes to deliver the product or service that you just sold.
In this video I walk you through how to set up a simple automated sales and admin process so that your customer is well served and super satisfied. It’ll also help you reduce waste and work less.
Resources used and introduced in the video:
Infusionsoft – all in one sales & marketing software
Xmind – brainstorming & mind mapping software
THE LITTLE-KNOWN SECRET OF BIG, BOLD PERSONAL BRANDING
This is Guest Author Post by John Morgan. He’s the author of a hot new book called Brand Against the Machine. I like the book because it’s fun, a little cheeky and full of very helpful advice. Wait, those are the same reasons I like John (there’s your first lesson in branding). Plus, John has this really bizarre condition where he feels very little pain. Like one time, he broke his color bone and had no idea. Seriously. It’s really weird. When I see him I beg him to let me poke him with needles and break his fingers. Enjoy.
BATMAN IS THE ENTREPRENEUR’S CHOICE FOR ALL-TIME FAVORITE SUPERHERO
When people apply to join my Alliance program, the final question on the application form is:
If you could be a superhero, which one would you choose and why?
Now, it’s not an obligatory question, but up until now anybody who has been accepted into the Alliance has always answered with a well thought-out reply.
Guess who is the most popular superhero among entrepreneurs?
YOUR LOGO DOESN’T MATTER
Often, after I give a speech, a new service business owner will hand me a piece of paper, on which eight or so almost identical versions of the same logo are displayed, and ask me which I think is best.
Maybe one logo might be more curvy than another. Maybe one uses a slightly different font. Or, maybe one is a lighter shade of blue than the others.
If they’re good enough I say with a smile, “Close your eyes, point at the paper, pick one, and get on with getting clients.”
Their response is usually about how they’ve been working on them for months and have been paying a designer a lot of money and that they want it to be perfect.
Of course they do. They want to be original, unique, distinct, and professional and they want their logo to represent those qualities.
But, when you’re a service professional like an attorney, financial planner, chiropractor, consultant, or coach, your logo doesn’t mean all that much. (Designers, please don’t hate me yet. Your faith will be restored in a minute.)
Can you tell me what my logo looks like?
Think… think harder…
You can’t. That’s because I don’t have one.
I have very specific style guides for all my products, books, etc. I LOVE design. I think it matters big time (Designers, you matter, big time!). But design and logos aren’t necessarily the same thing. Here’s a new look I created for my Alliance Mentoring Program. Simple, clean, stylish, and professional (at least, in my opinion) sans fancy logo. Sure, there’s a little thing in the upper left hand corner but it just has my initials on it. It’s good enough.
When you’re a service business owner, people are buying you and the results you can deliver.
If you can design a logo that is truly remarkable and gets people talking about you, then by all means, do so. But, if you’d rather spend your time selling your services, don’t waste your time on logos. I’d rather see you create a video that is remarkable or a teleclass that gets people talking or an always have something to invite people to event that is the hottest thing in town.
On the other hand, if you’re building a business that you plan on franchising or if you’re trying to start the next big clothing brand, music label, computer company, or charitable organization, then it might be a different story. Your logo might does really matter.
You decide how to best use your time, however.
Successful entrepreneurs are generally very good at allocating resources to get the best return on investment. Time is one of the most valuable resources you have. What’s the best use of it? Doing logos or doing marketing?
Update #1: Please remember to consider the context of my comments about logos and to whom I’m speaking — THOSE WHO ARE STALLING. It seems that some of those that are pushing back think I don’t think design/branding matters. As I said, IT MATTERS BIG TIME.
Update #2: Take, for example, a few of my successful colleagues:
Brain Clark is Copyblogger
Scott Stratten is Unmarketing
Les Mckeown is Predicable Success
Pam Slim is Escape From Cubicle Nation
Michael Gerber is The E-Myth
Notice how they have all done a great job of branding an idea along with their name.
However, I can’t, for the life of me, picture a logo that accompanies the idea. In this case, it’s the name that matters and the person behind it.
Update #3: The Sharing icons below will let you share the post but they stopped counting the shares for some reason (in case you were wondering).
How to Become a Successful Business Coach or Consultant
There is ONE major differentiator between successful coaches and coaches who are struggling.
That differentiator is what you sell.
The most successful coaches in the industry sell their services bound up in comprehensive, proprietary intellectual property. The rest sell general “coaching.” There’s a big difference between selling general coaching services and selling a very specific system that produces a very specific result for a very specific client.
Book Yourself Solid is that kind of system. It’s why I’ve been so successful.
If you don’t have a system like that to offer potential clients, what do you have that they’d be compelled to buy?
You ARE compelling on your own. That’s for sure. But, is it enough to have a never-ending stream of new clients clamoring for your services? Maybe…but usually not.
Here are three solutions. Choose which is right for you and you’ll see an immediate change in your client-flow and as a result—your cash-flow.
SOLUTION ONE
Create your own extensive, comprehensive intellectual property that makes a major statement in your industry.
This is what I have done with Book Yourself Solid and it’s one of the main reasons I have been so successful.
Dale Carnegie’s leadership and public speaking coaching business all stemmed from his seminal work, How To Win Friends and Influence People. Without this crucial piece of intellectual property, his hugely successful training company wouldn’t have got anywhere near the amount of traction it has.
Ken Blanchard is another example from the same industry. On the back of the success of his short book, The One Minute Manager, he now runs a worldwide coaching and training company.
But you don’t need to have an international best-selling book to get these results; we can look at other examples.
Who is the world’s most successful sleep coach for babies and toddlers? You might not know the answer to that, but Kim West dominates the industry based on her proprietary Good Night, Sleep Tight solution.
Bikram Choudhory is another example. He created a copyrighted, proprietary yoga system based on existing principles and became a huge commercial success in the health & wellness industry.
Admittedly, this approach isn’t for everybody, but if it IS for you, then you’re backing a winner.
Here’s a potential downside: it will probably take you years. If successful, these will be years very well spent.
Ultimately the market-place will decide if the intellectual property you create is actually worth paying for, but in the meantime, let’s see if you are, at heart, an intellectual property creator, or if your true calling is to be a coach.
Written Exercise:
- Right now, take a pen and paper and jot down a title for a four-part program.
- Within that program, create seven unique components for each part, each one addressing an urgent and compelling need for your target market and delivering a single big result for your audience.
- Each of the 28 steps should contain new insights and actionable content. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel at this stage – most skilled intellectual property developers are adept at repurposing (but not stealing) existing content – but your result should be brand new to the marketplace.
- Once you’ve done that, can you formulate, on no fewer than, say, two pages, a comprehensive year-long marketing campaign to get people into your programs based on this intellectual property? You’ll first have to design the format, delivery, pricing and structure of these programs.
It’s a lot of work, huh? But don’t beat yourself up if it doesn’t come naturally. Whilst content creation is something that can be learned, it isn’t necessarily going to be the best use of your time and resources.
Many of my Book Yourself Solid Coaches, for example, are fantastic at the coaching and consulting side of things, but haven’t the inclination or skill-set or desire to go about creating proprietary intellectual property. Instead, they use mine.
Decide if this course of action is for you. If it is, then run with it. As I said before, the market will ultimately decide if it wants to pay for the fruits of your labor.
But if you don’t try, you’ll never find out.
SOLUTION TWO
This solution allows you to use other people’s intellectual property. You can’t, of course, do this by stealing it (but I know I don’t have to tell you that).
Coaching franchises exist that will give you the tools and marketing materials you need to sell their products to your audience.
In buying into a coaching franchise, you’ll be given the opportunity to use materials previously developed by somebody else, and sell them to your own clients under that original brand name.
In return for a lump-sum payment and an on-going monthly fee, plus a percentage of your sales, you’ll be given the right to sell the franchisor’s materials to individuals or companies within a defined geographic area.
There are several opportunities like this available, ranging from sales training schools to marketing programs and entire top-down business coaching.
The franchisors — and this differs from organization to organization — should be keen to make sure that you have the necessary tools to sell their products and programs. After all, the more money you make, the more money they make.
The most successful coaching franchises have a strict Red Velvet Rope Policy in place, which means they put a barrier to entry in place to ensure that only the most committed coaches become franchisees.
This barrier is usually financial. The two leading business-coaching franchises will not let you become a franchisee unless you are prepared to make an initial investment of the better part of $100,000.
That means that only those who have the means apply.
The advantages of this system are that you have the materials already created for you. Some of them will even allow you to rent a virtual office assistant to answer the phone on your behalf.
This is a viable solution for many new coaches out there who feel comfortable within a more corporate structure. With monthly financial reporting to head-office, the accountability factor is high.
Also, in order to succeed you’ll have to reach for the skies with your pricing, as the continued cost to remain a franchisee are usually considerable.
SOLUTION THREE
The third solution is to license the use of somebody else’s proven intellectual property. This is different to the franchise model, as it is often against a one-time investment and you will have the right to re-fashion and repurpose the material as you see fit.
Sometimes, you can even put your own name to the material, mix it up with your own ideas and intellectual property and rebrand it as something that you can legitimately call your own.
All of my Book Yourself Solid coaches, for example, have a full legal license to use all of the material that I have put together over the last decade, including course structure, marketing material and even promotional graphics. This is in return for a one-off investment and a period of intensive personal training with me.
I’m fully aware of my bias to this solution because it’s the one I offer. I do so because I think it’s most profitable for the coach (and the fastest way to get in the game). Another advantage of this method is the advantage of transferred credibility.
Surgeons, musicians, hypnotherapists, athletes and life-coaches boost their credibility by making reference to their mentors. If you’re looking for an NLP trainer, you’ll be reassured to know that your trainer has studied personally under Richard Bandler. If you’re looking for a chess teacher, then a student of Kasparov is almost as good as Kasparov himself.
So it is with Book Yourself Solid coaching. Teaching a system that is proven to work and that is internationally respected will confer the benefit of recognition and credibility to your own practice, even if you’re just starting out.
IT’S NEVER TOO LATE
So there you have it, the single biggest difference between very successful coaches, and coaches that are just getting by: intellectual property.
You mustn’t forget this as you forge ahead with your career as a coach. It should be the cornerstone of the services that you offer and the brand that you create for yourself.
If you’re just starting out, or you’re already a coach without recognizable IP, it’s never too late to start.
Choose one of those three options above:
- Create your own IP
- Become a franchisee
or
- License proven material
And don’t stop until you hit the top!
I’m always looking to speak with good, motivated and passionate coaches about joining my team as a Certified Book Yourself Solid Coach. To find out more about that, click the link below:
Book Yourself Solid Coach Training – more details
In the meantime, stay safe, stay strong and think
HOW TO FINISH WHAT YOU START
Promises. Promises. Does the very word make you uncomfortable? Conjure up images of promises forgotten, broken, or never fulfilled? If promises don’t make you uncomfortable, then you haven’t been trying hard enough. Or you haven’t been taking your promises seriously. A promise without delivery is worse than no promise at all.
Promises are, to some extent, uncomfortable because you have to keep them. Sure, sometimes they can be and may need to be renegotiated. But, ultimately, when you promise and commit, someone is counting on you. Someone is, maybe many someones are, expecting you to deliver something.
People are counting on you.
When you say you’ll do something, then you will. You won’t just try to make good on your word, you will fulfill what you have undertaken. Possibly more. Too many people avoid making promises in the first place, fearing the accountability, preferring to hide under a cloak of diminished expectations. How often have you heard (or said) the words, “I can’t promise you that I’ll do it, but I’ll try.” Why would we want to live in the half-light, of such a soft engagement with others and the world?
Take your Pulse… Answer the following truthfully:
At present, when I am asked to or consider making commitments I feel…
Still, developing outstanding habits of commitment making and fulfilling doesn’t ensure breakdown won’t occur—it will. How do you handle it? Are you comfortable with the discomfort that comes along with making commitments, with doing big things in the world? If not, it’s time to get comfortable with discomfort (if the shoe pinches, it fits).
Control is an illusion.
When you are thinking small, you crave preordained outcomes. You want to know what’s going to happen before you begin. Control is an illusion. The need to know how, where, and what prevents all progress.
The twin demons of failure and rejection are mental illusions, the standard bearers of “excusitis.” They sap your will. They suck away your energy. Pressures exist. Deal with it.
To do big things in the world is dangerous and vital. Avoid control. Seek challenge. The more uncomfortable you are, the more challenged you are. Only then will you see the true liberation of breaking free from what you fear.
Every time you find an answer, you find a conflict with that answer.
When you seek to control something, it’s because you fear the unknown, the out of control. What you fear is reality, because ultimately it can never be controlled. The reality of reality is this: Every time you find an answer, so, too, you find a conflict with that answer. The closer you come to the core of a matter, of yourself even, the more you realize the contradictions in the world and in your own nature.
As you hone your commitment to fulfillment you will:
- Improve and act on your intuition, which is your highest intelligence and derives from your place of truth. This is to up the visibility of your purpose, what you stand for. Such candor in turn will make you more accountable and increase the number of situations that make you uncomfortable. Ouch.
- Improve your promises. When you think big, you promise to deliver a remarkable outcome. The pressure is on. Uncomfortable pressure. Ouch.
- Take more risks, a lot more. It takes daring to invest in yourself and others, but it will bring you to that place of great discomfort faster, that place where you can accomplish big things. It’s too easy to live with the daily, small, inertial discomforts of avoiding your fears. Risk induces activity. Activity disperses fear and inertia. As a Japanese proverb says, “Fall down seven times, stand up eight.”
Candor, promises, risks; at first it’s like a giant shot of wasabi—all that accountability, all that visibility. It’s going to sear your nostrils with every breath and make your scalp sweat—all the better (and if you have a head cold, presto, it will be gone, too). Once you’re thinking big, you will call like-minded people to action.
Rock the boat. Maybe it sinks. But maybe it doesn’t.
Anatomy of a Viral Video – A Case Study
It’s not often, but every now and then I produce something that goes viral.
Here’s a breakdown of why it works.
There are five key points to making your stuff shareable. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a video, a blog post, a sales page, or an e-book; these principles apply.
1. Give people something to talk about.
There’s this (wrong) idea being bandied about that the only way to get a reaction is to be controversial.
Certainly, that can work, but if you’re not in the business of picking fights in order to provoke a reaction, try being remarkable instead. According to my friend, Seth, that means people are able to remark on what you’ve done. It doesn’t mean that you have to paint the Sistine Chapel. But you do need to make something that is really marketable.
The first seven seconds of the video fit the bill and got people talking.
Admittedly, it pokes a little fun at some of the all-too-common Internet marketing techniques, but it’s done with tongue firmly in cheek and in the best of spirits. You can hardly call it controversial.
Instead, it’s what’s called a “pattern interrupt.” You make the viewer (or reader) think they’re getting one thing, and then, with a sudden change of direction, you make them laugh, think or feel different then expected. It disarms them.
Which brings me neatly to point two.
2. Make people feel comfortable.
People are going to share the stuff they like, stuff that makes them feel good. Nobody wants to share a cold or flu virus, and nobody wants to share something that makes them feel queasy.
I put a lot of care and attention into getting the tone of this video just right. Everything from the visuals, to the timbre of my voice, to the background music (or lack of it) was designed to put the viewer at ease.
If you can put your audience at ease, then they’ll be receptive and open to sharing your message with their network.
3. Respect your audience.
How many times have you visited a sales page and left feeling a little dirty, a little taken-advantage of?
One of your biggest bugbears, if you’re like most of the people I polled on this, is visiting a web page with a video that doesn’t let you pause, play, rewind or fast forward.
By providing my audience with full control over how the video plays I’m saying, “I respect you.”
If you feel dirty watching it, you won’t forward it. Conversely, if you feel respected, you’re likely to forward it to people you respect.
4. Be unconventional by being yourself.
According to popular wisdom, because attention span has never been shorter, if you’re trying to sell somebody something, you have to hit them between the eyes with loud headlines, catchy bullet points, flashing colors and loud noises.
The video I made to promote the Alliance doesn’t do any of that (expect for the bit at the beginning to point out what you’re not going to see).
It runs 23 minutes and 23 seconds (yes, exactly) and the viewing stats are excellent with many, many people watching it all the way through. Most of the video is just me as me, addressing the camera. There’s no fancy lighting tricks, no kittens falling off tables and no laughing babies.
And you know what? People are watching it and sharing it.
If I’d listened to all the “gurus” and followed their advice, you’d see a very different video out there. You would have seen a video that didn’t represent me, my brand, and what I stand for.
I’ve always been a little skeptical of my industry with all its hype and anti-intellectualism. Don’t get me wrong, I admire many of its leaders and you know how much I love and respect the people I serve.
Nonetheless, I do my best to be true to my beliefs and what I feel is appropriate. That’s all each of us can do. And that truth is a moveable line so I’m careful that it doesn’t creep in the wrong direction. When it does, I try to quickly move it back to it’s rightful place.
Trust your gut. The best way to be distinct is by being more yourself, more fully self-expressed.
5. Be useful and relevant.
Finally, you have to provide useful, relevant and timely information. That’s the real key. Truly relevant and useful material is always shareable.
It’s December and many small business owners like you are looking at their accounts and performance over the last twelve months, and starting to put a plan in place for 2012.
That’s timely and relevant.
Of course, I’m telling you about my program as well. But if it’s not right for you, you’ll still get value from watching the video (I believe).
Take a look at the video I put together, and see how it ticks the boxes above:
- It gives people something to talk about (especially the first seven seconds).
- I make you feel immediately comfortable so that you want to stick around.
- My love and respect and gratitude for you shines through from the very beginning.
- It’s unlike many of the sales videos you’ll have seen recently.
- It’s useful and relevant.
Keep thinking big about who you are and what you offer the world. Much love and big hugs to you this fine day.
Everybody Does It (Do You?)
Your perspective, the way you see the world, can influence your language, the way you use words. But your language can also influence your perspective.
If you’d like to think bigger about who you are and what you offer the world, then just a small change in your choice of words may open up whole new worlds.
A number of years ago, while speaking with my teacher, I made a statement declaring, “Everybody’s like that.” My teacher replied, “Are they?” “Well…I guess…no, not really,” I stammered. He asked me if I would be open to observing my language for the use of generalities and declarative statements that were not empirically based. I agreed and was surprised by what I found.
You too, may be surprised by how often you use declarative statements that don’t allow room for alternatives or other possibilities.
Notice my choice of words in this post thus far. The above sentence leaves room for an alternative by suggesting that, “You might be surprised” rather than “You will be surprised.” Earlier I said that a “small change in your choice of words, may open up whole new worlds,” and that “the way you see the world can influence your language” and that “your language can also influence your perspective.”
You’ll often find declarative and general statements in the language of marketers, especially aggressive marketers. “This is the only thing you’ll ever need to learn and the only thing you’ll ever need to know and the only thing you’ll ever need to do…”
From the marketer’s perspective, that kind of language is often designed to close you off to the possibility that it might not be the right product for you and that it might, in fact, not help you. Sure, you’ll often see “may” and “should” used to reduce the marketer’s liability but, for the most part, marketers try to close off your thinking so that you focus only on what they are suggesting you buy into.
I imagine that you don’t care much for that kind of language when it’s directed at you. Although, you might love it, I don’t know. But, putting that aside for the moment, think about how your mind might react if all of the language you used included declarative statements.
If you emphatically declare, “All men are like that,” or “I can never trust again,” how are you going to create space in your mind, your perspective, for a man that does meet your expectations?
If you generalize that, “All rich people are snobs,” how are you going to see yourself as a wealthy person so that you can improve your professional and financial status?
If you state that “All liberals are socialists,” or that “All Tea Party members are crazies,” how do you come together to make things better?
Often these viewpoints are a reflection of something that scares us but even the simple, little things can make a difference. When you say something like, “You didn’t take out the trash,” the other person is immediately accused of doing something wrong. However, if you say, “It seems like you didn’t take out the trash. Am I correct?” you leave room for an alternative.
So does the way you see the world influence your choice of words or does your choice of words influence the way you see the world? I believe it’s both.
Often, it’s suggested that you simply change your actions to get better results. However, if your worldview doesn’t change to support the new actions, you may find it difficult to sustain the new actions. Moreover, it can be difficult to simply say, “Ok, as of today I’m going to see the world in a different way,” if your language doesn’t support the change.
If you’d like to quite smoking but every time you attempt the feat, you find yourself repeating, “I can’t get through the day without a cigarette,” how do you think it influences the way you see the world and the outcome of your effort? By making a slight change in your language to something like, “It’s been hard to get through the day without a cigarette,” leaves room for the possibility that it is doable.
If you’d like to lose weight but you consistently say things like, “Oh, I could never do without my chocolate fix,” how do you think it influences the way you see the world and your waistline? Instead, trying saying, “I am used to having a chocolate fix.” That slight change alone might open up the possibility that you can live without it.
If you want to build a business and hear yourself saying things like, “Marketing takes too much time,” or “Getting clients is just hard,” or “Every time I get a lead, ‘this’ happens,” how do you think it influences the way you see the world and influences the actions you take?
Using different language like, “I’ve found that when I get a lead this has been happening,” allows you to explore alternatives. Instead of generalizing that “marketing takes too much time,” saying, “I’ve found that marketing has taken me a lot of time,” might leave room for exploration. And, well, saying, “Getting clients is just hard,” doesn’t seem like it will help the situation, now does it?
I would venture a guess that you have made a declarative statement or two over the years. I know I have. I now do my best not to. But when I do, I try to catch myself and amend my statement.
Whether it’s on little things or big things, all generalities are false (including that one).
And just think about how your choice of words makes the world see you.
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