The Best Kept Secret in Marketing

One of the most important steps in marketing is building the know, like and trust with your potential clients. This is where you will be spending a lot of your marketing time. When someone new joins your community (your list), you have to assume they know very little about you yet. Your job is to allow them to get to know you. It's no different to any other relationship. Not in the authentic marketing world it's not anyway. This, for me, is paramount. And I'll explain why.

As I so often say, it is really important to choose your niche market and create a message around that. When you do that, it separates you from the sea of people out there that are all selling the same services or products as you. So for example, if you are a life coach and you decide that you are going to niche into the relationship area, in fact you are going to help women who are 40 something, and struggling with the aftermath of a relationship, and you have created a message in their language. Now you have really distinguished yourself from all the other life coaches.

Imagine, if you will, that you have lifted yourself out of the sea of life coaches, you are head and shoulders above them because you have a message that your people can hear and recognise. So what makes you different from the life coaches that have chosen the same niche as you, how can you put yourself head and shoulders above them, stand on a platform as they say in the marketing world?

This is where YOU come in. Yes YOU, the real you. This is probably the best kept “secret” in marketing.

You are the heart of your business and when people buy, they buy from people. People buy relationships and they buy solutions. So your first job is to create the relationship. And the way to do that is to share with your community, your tribe, share who you are.

In today's market place there are hundreds and thousands of marketing strategies you can use, but there is only one YOU. There are thousands of service providers offering the same services as you, but there is only one YOU. Only one YOU with your experiences, your wisdom, your knowledge, your skills, and your thinking. Your ideal clients want to work with YOU.

Yes, you have to put certain marketing strategies into place, you have to make yourself visible, provide value, help someone to find you, put yourself on that platform. But at the end of the day, people buy relationships. So create that relationship. That's your job. As soon as someone says yes, I want a taste of what you have to offer, boom, now they are in your community, you can build that relationship.

And let's face it, it has to be the easiest way to market, just being you. No fancy airs and graces, just you. Now I'm not saying you have to do a happy dance on screen for your tribe, you can share as much, or as little as you want! This is about your tribe getting a flavour of who you are. Sharing personal details is great if you can, and what is especially helpful is showing that you are human, and that you do make mistakes too.

I used to think that if people were going to employ me to help them, then I had to know it all, and be it all and basically be perfect! Woah, what a lot of pressure that was. Now I know better, people relate to who I am, warts and all! Doesn't it feel better when you know you are not the only one that isn't perfect?!! That there are other people out there and that even the so called experts make mistakes and have their off days?

I encourage you to really use this best kept secret, YOU! Share, be authentic, and build that authentic relationship with your ideal clients. If someone doesn't like the real you, that's fine, they weren't your ideal client in the first place. Easy for them to self select. That's the win-win.