Imagine your ideal client scrolling reels on Instagram and boom – you’re scroll-stopping content makes them stop.
They make it to your website, read about your coaching program, see your call to action, and click the the buy button right after reading your content.
Just like that you made a sale. Easy peasy right?
As you probably already know, it doesn’t usually happen that way.
Even though most of the time your potential clients will scroll right passed your content, selling starts the moment a potential client sees your online content – whether thats social media – the least effective if you have a small following, your website, your blog, podcast or on demand trainings.
Because of that, it’s critical for you to build a brand that demonstrates your skills, authority and capabilities.
So how do you stand out among a sea of sameness? An ocean of online entrepreneurs vying for your ideal clients time, attention and dollars?
Be Yourself
You need to be the one thing, no other business can duplicate.
Yourself.
Sounds too simple, right?
Here’s the thing your ideal clients don’t want everybody. They want someone they connect with who can help them solve their problem.
To grow and scale your business you need to build a unique and distinct brand based on your values, your language, your everything because that will be what attracts your clients.
When your branding is effective, your content sells your offers because it connects with your audience on an emotional level.
People buy with their feelings and justify with their thoughts. So branding helps you speak to your clients heart before it speaks to their minds.
That’s why branding is so important because you are the attractive character your clients want to invest in.
Your brand isn’t about what you sell, because that can always change. Your brand is your unique voice backed by your thoughts, your feelings and your experiences.
What makes you ideal client feel connected to your brand is their emotional connection to you, and familiarity with what you’ve conveyed with your brand.
It’s this connection that will make them continue investing in your business.
Tell Your Story
I started my business when our oldest daughter got engaged. I struggled to sell my services consistently on social media so I found a way that worked better for me (and my family!) to make more money, have more freedom and make more impact.
That’s my story.
We all have a story and your business is no different. People connect to people not businesses so tell your story to create that emotional connection with your ideal clients.
Tell your audience why you started your business, what happened when you did and what was going when you decided to take the leap. Let them “see” how you built it from the ground up.
Your audience wants to feel invested in your success. Contrary to what you may believe, sharing the high and lows of your journey helps people feel connected to you and your brand.
What’s your vision and your purpose behind what you do? Share it consistently with your audience.
Everything you’ve gone through before building your business has made you who you are and it’s those experiences that humanize your brand.
Your brand story helps you stay memorable to your audience and top of mind when it comes to making a purchase so tell your story and tell it often!
Your story should be simple enough to tell and impactful enough to be remembered.
Leave out the parts about how grandma always knew you’d be somebody and stick to the events that really pack a punch!
Your brand story should include facts about how you overcome adversity to get where you are now. Every business startup has had challenges so don’t shy away from those.
Be consistent
Nathan Barry, founder of ConvertKit, said “endure long enough to get noticed”.
When you’re building a business, there is no easy way. It takes a lot of time, energy and money to roll that boulder uphill.
As you keep pushing and grinding, it’s easy to get discouraged if you don’t immediately see the fruits of your labor.
Malcom Gladwell, author of the book Outlier said that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. Most people stop well before their 10,000 hours because they don’t see improvement quickly enough.
But staying the course is exactly what separates the successful from the unsuccessful.
Consistently showing up day after day, month after month, making mistakes and growing from them is precisely what it takes to succeed.
That endurance that Barry speaks of is something you get when you reject the tempation to quit or take the easy way out.
It’s something you get when you’re struggling through your day filled with tedious posts, unpaid invoices and testy clients.
It’s a sacrifice you have to be willing to make to create a brand that stands out.
So be yourself, tell your story and endure long enough to get noticed.
Your clients will root for you, reward you and happily come along for the ride.
