OK, you're good enough and smart enough, and, well, people like you. If you are a tax attorney, you offer tax planning and tax shelters and negotiations with the IRS.
THE DOCTOR IS IN
Let's face it, the only reason you chose that stupid name in the first place was to make people think you're bigger than you are. When you're looking to brand yourself, giving yourself a name that sounds like one of the Fortune 500 is the kiss of death.
THE DNA OF A PERSONAL BRAND
WHY BRAND YOURSELF?
First, your personal brand is you, reinforced and expressed through polished, well-crafted communication methods. Your personal brand is the mental image your potential customers get when they think of you.
WHAT IS A PERSONAL BRAND?
A Personal Brand creates expectations in the minds of others about what they will get when they work with you. In this book you will learn how to create a brand that will help you build a relationship with your partner.
WHAT A PERSONAL BRAND DOES
Divide all your clients/patients into three categories: A (most desirable), B (moderately desirable) and C (clients you would rather not keep). Contact the companies that run your phone book ads and any other advertising and renegotiate your rates or pull your ads until you build your new brand.
FEWER CLIENTS, BETTER CLIENTS
Today, Bach has had nine consecutive best sellers, including Begin Late, Finish Rich; The Automatic Millionaire Homeowner; and The Automatic Millionaire Workbook. Smart Women Finish Rich' has an emotional impact on people that drives them to the seminars," says Bach.
EVERYTHING IS BRANDING
That's why it's so important that your brand reflects who you really are - what you're interested in, what you enjoy and how you live. If you're not the authentic you, you won't be able to sustain it in the long run.
PERSONAL BRANDING TRUTHS
David Bach, who you met earlier in a personal brand case study, says that he built his brand primarily by staying on the road and constantly pitching his. Toss any cheap brochures, flyers, business cards or Yellow Pages ads you've used in the trash.
HOW PERSONAL BRANDING WORKS
That is the rationalizing side that uses facts and figures to justify the purchasing decision we have already made based on our feelings. But in reality, you're probably looking for the car that feels the coolest and is the most fun to drive.
WE DO BUSINESS WITH PEOPLE WE FEEL COMFORTABLE WITH
THE FOUR LEVELS OF BRAND RESPONSE
This is why all the informational brochures and information packages in the world, no matter how much they tell potential customers about your education, certification, and experience, will never get people to you as effectively as a personal brand that creates a level of engagement. comfort and familiarity. Can't you just go out, sell people to yourself and bring them in?
OUR EIGHT-STEP PROGRAM
It's a combination of many things and you have to mix them all together, like mixing cookies. If there's one piece of advice I have, it's to do whatever you have to do, and do it diligently every day.
THE KEYS TO A WINNING BRAND
You never know when you're on the cusp of a flood of new business, so it's important to stay consistent. Resist the temptation to jump the gun and send direct mail or run ads "just to do something." You'll be wasting money with little effect, and you could be damaging your brand.
WE “DO KNOW WHY” SHE’S A SUPERSTAR
YOU’LL HATE THIS
Regardless, if you're not seen the right way by the right people, over and over again, you'll lose business to lower-quality competitors who are more visible. If you're not keeping your brand in front of members of your target market, they'll assume you're out of business.
GETTING AND KEEPING THE CREAM OF THE CROP
DO YOU WANT TO DOUBLE YOUR EARNINGS?
You can do much more and become like Omaha, Nebraska-based financial advisor Ron Carson, who developed an outstanding customer service program and is today ranked the number one independent financial advisor in the country by Registered Rep magazine. Ron generates more than $7 million in commission and fee income per year and manages more than $1 billion in assets.
IT’S ALL ABOUT THE CLIENTS
But you don't cut them loose because you're nervous about replacing even the meager income they bring in. If you are a general dentist, you might make good money, but the real money is in pediatric orthodontics.
WHO’S YOUR IDEAL CLIENT?
It's nice to be able to do things on your own terms because you only have so much time. It's one of the main reasons he gets up in the morning: to protect what he loves.
DITCH THE LOSERS
TAKE THE A TRAIN
Since your ideal client is fairly wealthy and conservative, you'll want to create a beautiful, high-end brochure about yourself that includes pictures of golf and family. You still want a website, but because your ideal customers aren't tech wizards, you don't want to send an email newsletter or send content to their wireless phones.
BOTTOM-LINE BENEFITS
You will have more time to spend with your family and friends doing the other things you enjoy. Once you have a system in place to maintain your personal brand and keep your customer relationships strong even when you're away (an area I'll cover in detail later), you're free.
THE BRAND WITH THREE BRAINS
SPECIALIZE OR SPEND
Specialization should allow you to focus not only on the areas of your work that are more lucrative, but on those that you are best at. Specialization prevents this by telling prospects exactly what you do and who you work with, so they know right away whether or not you're for them.
THE RISKS
THE THREE STEPS OF SPECIALIZATION
For example, let's say you're a residential architect in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is the same process you will have to go through when you start developing your specialization.
KEEP IT SIMPLE
A quality prospect will pay you what you're worth, rather than trying to give you a discount by presenting you with the carrot of more work. You'll edit your statement later to create your tagline, but keep your main specialization statement to yourself.
THE BIG MISTAKES
Dilution means you've stopped being exclusive and started getting customers who are outside of your ideal customer range. When you do this, you are no longer creating scarcity and diminishing the perception that you are an elite professional.
TIPS FOR BETTER SPECIALIZATION
To increase your income, offer new, more expensive services or add a partner. Tell the customers you want to keep about your plans and ask them for referrals.
BRANDING CHANNELS
BUZZ MARKETING
Advantages: Grows organically and on its own when the imagination takes hold; very low cost. Your ability to shape people's perception is quite limited because buzz marketing is very basic and tends to take on a life of its own.
CANVASSING
Also, the more educated and perceived as elitist your profession, the more inappropriate the canvas. I would never recommend it to doctors, lawyers or therapists, as being seen as "ordinary" would do serious damage to their brands.
CLIENT REFERRALS
The downside of customer referrals is the lack of control you have, but that's not a reason not to use them. There are so many advantages to client referrals – penetration into markets you may not know about, cheap advertising, instant rapport – that it's one of my gold-recommended channels.
DIRECT MAIL
Cheap flyers on canary paper from Kinko's are worse than no direct mail at all. If you want to make direct mail part of your personal branding strategy, spend some dough on it.
INDOOR ADVERTISING
The look and feel of what you send makes as strong an impression of your brand as what you say. Make sure the company providing your mailing list practices "list hygiene." That is, make sure it deletes the names of people who have moved or died so you don't waste money and create resentment by sending things to the wrong people.
THE INTERNET
Done right, your website is a powerful tool for building your brand with prospects, media and influencers in your profession. Don't hire your cousin or your best friend's colleague's son to build your website.
NETWORKING
Networking is all about letting people know you're there, getting to know your name and what you do, and getting them to like and trust you. If you're not comfortable talking off the cuff or if you're just plain shy, you might want to at least avoid formal networking events.
OUTDOOR ADVERTISING
POINT-OF-PURCHASE DISPLAY
PRINT ADVERTISING
Update your ads regularly – no less than once a year for ads that run continuously, e.g. Yellow Pages ads.
PROFESSIONAL REFERRALS
Take the meeting. You contact every professional on your list and try to get a meeting. Take better care of them than you do your other customers, because that's the only way you'll continue to get referrals.
PUBLIC RELATIONS
If you can't capture the editor's imagination and make him or her believe that you can capture the audience's imagination, you're sunk. The downside is that you can't guarantee the coverage you get from month to month.
PUBLISHING
Well, you have to send out a newsletter every 30 days, and that's a ton of work. Having and trying to sell a book to recoup your investment can become a full-time job, and you've already got one of those.
RADIO ADVERTISING
Publishing can be a good fit for one subclass of professional: the one who's been around for 20 years, is very successful, and would either like to take their practice to the next level to sell, or want to get back their hours and make more money as a speaker. Books are great vehicles of prestige; there's something about having a book that makes you instantly attractive to the media, speaking agencies, etc.
SEMINARS—PRIVATE
However, 80 percent of the business owners I've spoken to are in businesses that would benefit from seminars, so there's a good chance that a seminar will help you grow when you're ready. Practice your presentation until you can recite it in your sleep, and don't be afraid to change it.
SEMINARS—PUBLIC
Even if audience members don't fit your goals, they can still become referral sources. Complete your personal brochure and send five copies to your A customers, along with a letter explaining your new brand and asking them to pass four copies on to family or friends.
SPECIAL EVENTS
Special events can be almost anything where you bring clients and prospects together in a social setting for fun: parties, Client Appreciation Night, poker night, wine tastings, fundraisers, sporting events, open houses, and so on. The most important thing to remember about special events is that they are sale-free zones.
SPONSORSHIPS
Make sure you treat special events like you would a private dinner party: send invitations and collect RSVPs. Make sure you get enough bang for your buck and make sure you turn your sponsorship into a press release.
TELEMARKETING
TELEVISION ADVERTISING
But if you want to pursue it, local cable TV advertising is your best bet.
TRADE SHOWS
If you can worm your way onto a panel discussion team, you can further increase your visibility and reputation. Make sure you have a way to either get a business card or scan an attendee badge so you can build a contact database from your show.
THE RULE OF FIVE
The big shows may have the glitz, but you'll get lost in the crowd. To build and maintain a successful Personal Brand, you must have at least five channels through which you can reach your target audience with your brand message.
THINK SYNERGY
So you can use the three essential channels (a personal brochure, a website and professional referrals) and add outdoor advertising, special events and teleseminars. His business has grown tremendously thanks to his creative use of a channel and his hard-earned knowledge of his market.
CREATING CUSTOMER DELIGHT
You'll also create raving fans who will fall over themselves to refer new ideal clients to you. So how can you create customer delight and give people an experience they'll talk about for days.
WHAT TO DO
If that doesn't work, or if you want to do more, I highly recommend the following. When you then provide a much higher level of service, you will surprise your customer in a state of delight.
CLIENT DELIGHT TENETS
Make sure they understand how to answer the phone and transfer calls, how to greet a client, and how to handle the first stages of a customer service crisis. Most importantly, make sure everyone knows that even if their job title doesn't involve customer service, client satisfaction is still their first responsibility.
PEOPLE MAKE MISTAKES
Listen, give them feedback on the suggestion, then before ending the meeting, give the client a specific and detailed list of what you will do to make things right. Thank you to your customer. The customer alerted you to a problem that could cost you business.
IMPROVE AND NEVER STOP
Ask what you can do. Ask your client flat out, "What can I do to make you happy?" or "What can I do to remedy the situation?". Call or email to say something like, "I'm personally working on the situation and by the end of the day tomorrow everything will be as you requested."
ANATOMY OF A PERSONAL BRAND
BRAND IDENTITY
BRAND IDENTITY MATERIALS
But the heart and soul of your brand identity materials isn't your business card; this is your logo. Have a staff member call your main competitors in your target market and ask for their marketing materials so you know what you're up against.
COMPANY NAME
If you can describe what you do in a one or two word sentence, go ahead and put it in your name. If you are in a conservative business such as accounting or financial services, consider simply using your name with "Company" or.
NAMING MYTHS AND REALITIES
Myth: "If I give my company a corporate name, it will create the illusion of something bigger than a sole proprietorship." If you're in a creative business, be creative. Your logo should reflect how you want prospects to see you.
PARTNERSHIPS
If you are in serious business, like anything related to regular health care or money, look serious and calm.
SLOGAN
Here's a good rule of thumb: If a graphic image seems incredibly obvious for your profession (like a chef's hat for a caterer or a quill pen for a writer), don't use it. I get calls from people I don't even know,” she says, citing a mortgage broker who found her a buyer out of the blue.
PUTTING TOGETHER YOUR LOGO
Once you've customized your logo for your business card, you'll see why I recommend keeping your icon simple. But the basic guideline is, don't make your logo smaller than your prospects can easily read.
YOUR IDENTITY SYSTEM
Make a U.S. Trademark and Patent Office search (www.uspto.gov) to ensure that no one in your area and type of business is using your slogan.
PERSONAL BROCHURE AND PERSONAL POSTCARD
PERSONAL BROCHURE
You may think you are not interesting enough for people to care to read your story. Send a copy to each customer in your database with whom you have had contact, along with a cover letter.
PERSONAL POSTCARDS: THE ULTIMATE DIRECT MAIL
After you've sent a few mailings to your target market, start calling people to introduce yourself. Always delete names from your database as soon as you are prompted to do so.
THE INTERNET
THE BIG THREE
If you have one but haven't updated it in three years, talk to your developer about updating it. Talk to your banker about possibly getting a business loan to pay for a really aggressive personal branding campaign.
WHAT YOUR SITE SHOULD DO
Go to www.webaward.org to see award-winning small business websites and be inspired. Today, small business websites are communication hubs that give customers a way to get updates on what a service provider is doing for them, prospects a way to take free online courses, and media the ability to download interview facts or a video. cut.
THE BASICS
First, go to a domain registrar site like GoDaddy.com and grab "yourname.com" right now. You, your assistant, your First Impressions Director, everyone should have an email address that is "[email protected]." Do not use an email address that ends in aol.com, yahoo.com, or gmail.com.
THE BELLS AND WHISTLES
You want customers to love your site so much that they refer their friends to it, and potential customers to love your site so much that they can't wait to call you. You don't want to be caught without a signal when you're trying to serve a customer or pitch a prospect.
SOME WEB BASICS
As long as you hire the right team, you don't need to know the difference between XML and HTML. Get to know the latest technology, but don't fall into the trap of adding the latest features every few months.
WEB DEVELOPMENT
I've chosen to take the most important elements of the reality TV aspect of my brand - the young woman who aspires to succeed, the entrepreneur - and bring them to the fore. I started building a brand that reached real estate investors, and that was very successful for a few years, but because of the opportunities that were put in my path—the HGTV show, becoming a money expert on Living Well.
GETTING PEOPLE TO YOUR WEB SITE
When someone searches for “Corvallis Oregon chiropractor” in your city, you want your name to be the first thing that person sees. If anything is incorrect or incomplete, please scroll all the way down the page to "Edit this listing." You must correct your company details.
TIPS FOR GETTING THE MOST FROM THE WEB
If you're not listed at all, go to your Google Account, go to Maps, and click "Add/Edit Your Business." The website will guide you through all the steps. Create a proposal for a regular column written by you and send it to the local print media.
OTHER INTERNET TOOLS
Direct mail is cheap and very easy to manage as long as you have good lists. The great thing about direct mail is that you can send it as often as you want for pennies, and it can replace or supplement your direct mail.
PUBLIC RELATIONS AND COMMUNITY OUTREACH
The right media can make the phone ring or, at the very least, give a fence-sitting prospect another reason to choose you. You have as much chance as anyone else to land a prime spot in a local - or even a national - publication.
HOW PR HELPS YOUR BUSINESS
If you are the subject of a feature in a newspaper or are cited by a professional publication for a research article, you must be among the elite in your field. But the media can't get enough of him: he's young, ethnic, good-looking and astonishingly talented on the golf course, a sport that makes for perfect photo ops.
LORD OF THE DANCE
THREE TYPES OF PR
If they never publish your type of story, don't assume you're a special case. Even if you are a fantastic architect, don't position yourself to an editor as generic.
RADIO DAZE
More importantly, you will almost certainly have to bring in your own advertisers or pay for airtime yourself. I've found that few professionals have the time or connections to pull this off, but if you're one of the lucky ones, a regular radio show can turn you into a celebrity and really help your personal brand.
COMMUNITY OUTREACH
You might be able to get some voice coaching if you really want to be on the radio. But if done right, community outreach shindigs can become highly anticipated annual events that become closely associated with your name.
NETWORKING AND REFERRALS
Formal networking is where you attend an event that is organized for the express or implied purpose of allowing people to network. At formal networking events, you should primarily seek out industry professionals who are related to your own, who can become professional referral sources.
YOUR PROFESSIONAL REFERRAL NETWORK
You need to find out if they are trustworthy, as you will be sending them business and relying on them to do the same for you. Then you'll make phone calls and ask honest questions about how this professional cares for his or her clients.
