Part 3 Business is Different For You: Don’t Do This!

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So, did you do it?  Did you go into the fields last night and have your Scarlett O’Hara moment? Did you feel that full-bodied determination to get out from the middle-of-the-curve, where everyone is okay with average?

Did you feel the hope and belief in something so much bigger for your life and your business than that?

Did you then cut-off all other options? Burn your boats? (Read part 2 here.)

I told you yesterday that if I’d had time, I would have stimulated a reckoning like this with my lackluster audience (read part 1 post here), who revealed that, deep down, good enough might just be good enough for them. Even though they’d been called to so much greater. Even though they were born to lead.

If you’d been in that room while I facilitated such a reckoning—but decided to sit it out, I’d have lost it again: you have the chance to leave average and ordinary and you’re staying in it?

So, for all of our sake’s, I’m going to assume that you went into the arid fields of your business last night and declared, “As God is my witness, I will never ___________ again!!”

And now that you are all dressed up, let’s give you some place NEW to go. Your decision to leave the crowd behind must be rewarded—and sustained—by much, much better solutions.

NonConformityWomenFashionLet’s remember what we’re achieving here by leaving the pack: the ability to be seen, to have your message heard over the roar of thousands of competing voices. The capacity to honor the Impulse that brought you to this work in the first place, which isn’t possible when you’re looking and sounding like everyone else and offering superficial, cookie-cutter business brands, packages, workshops and presentations.

So, now that you have made the courageous decision to walk away from the middle that most everyone else calls home–how do you do it? How do you stand out?

Well, not the way you’ve been taught to. Business is different for you, so you have to do business differently—which means, giving up strategies meant for everyone else.

How many of these techniques for differentiating yourself in business have you heard?

  • Stand out with your personality. Wear some signature clothing item, or accentuate your heritage, or embellish your attitude—maybe your in-your-face irreverence or quick-witted humor.
  • Stand out with your past career or adventures. You’ve been a mountain climber, so be known for helping others scale the highest peaks in their own life. Or you once were a musician, so you should help others sing their life’s song.
  • Stand out by merging credentials with a contrasting industry. You are known for having a PhD in theology but consult to corporate clients. Or you’re known for uniquely bringing your experience as a high school principal into coaching political leaders.
  • Stand out with a narrow target market. You are known for working with mothers of newborns, or with teenagers, or young couples or retirees. Now, don’t get me wrong—every business needs a narrow market!!! But in this typical strategy, you’re known for it.
  • Stand out with your unique work style. You lead education cruises or do wilderness, beach or equine coaching.
  • Stand out with your specialty. I’m a divorce coach, an ADHD therapist, a career consultant, and EFT practitioner, and on and on.

These are familiar to you, right? Straight out of the differentiation handbook.

And sometimes they workfor much the same reason that our eyes are drawn to bright, shiny objects: they have flash-appeal. But they do not last.

Furthermore, there’s a MUCH bigger problem with all of these. Can you guess what it is?

All of them are much too superficial for what you are here to do. Again—you are a different BREED of entrepreneur; a “transformation artist.” None of these brings out the voice of the Impulse.

That voice is a leader’s voice. And it’s YOUR voice.

And it’s that voice that will differentiate you in a way all of these other strategies NEVER, EVER will.

You have something the world needs–and it won’t get it unless you lead.

Business is different for you, so you have to do business differently.

Go ahead, repeat after me:  “Things are different for me.”

Yes, they are. Now this: “Leadership is going to differentiate me!”

Click here to continue this 5-day story-series and find out just what kind of leadership will set you far apart…

Getting The BEST Answer In the Room

Have you ever seen that improv game, Questions Only, where the actors can only ask questions, and the first one who answers (with a period at the end) is out?

In my public speaking training, I would bring in an improv instructor to take my students through the same exercise. Overall, each participant made it through no more than two rounds of responding to their partner’s questions before having to drop out.

Why did I have this exercise in a public speaking training? Because I had taught this point earlier in the day and I wanted to embed it in their brains:

The brain cannot abide an unanswered question. In other words, when listening to a presenter on stage, it cannot drift off to sleep, or comfortably scroll through a Facebook feed–if a question has been asked.

So, I had taught them, make sure your talks are peppered with questions!

But there was another point I wanted to drill into them—any idea what it is?

No matter how good you think you are at asking questions (if you’re a coach, you have been taught the skill, however…), you are not good enough. Far more than you will ever realize, you put “periods” at the ends of sentences that deserve question marks.

If you teach anyone, ever, at any time—or want to elicit wisdom or bring the best answers into the room–from your children, your best friend, your clients needless to say, your prospects, anyone….(Do you know what I’m going to say?)

failing to ask questions is to fail to achieve those outcomes.

Of course, Socrates understood this. The Greek philosopher invented the teaching practice of “pedagogy,” known as the Socratic Method, a dialogue between teacher and learner, where the teacher asks continually probing questions in a concerted effort to explore the underlying beliefs that shape the learner’s views and opinions.

The reason that questioning is so vital to getting the best answer in the room is that too often the answers being brought into the room are superficial. The Socratic Method naturally promotes critical thinking—the lynchpin of powerful solutions.

Political Science professor, Rob Reich, a recipient of the Walter J. Gores Award for Teaching Excellence in 2001, describes four essential components of the Socratic method this way:

  • Socratic inquiry is not “teaching,” as we know it. The students are not passive recipients of knowledge.
  • The Socratic Method involves a shared dialogue between teacher and students. The teacher leads by posing thought-provoking questions. Students actively engage by asking questions of their own. The discussion goes back and forth.
  • The aim of the questioning is to probe the underlying beliefs upon which each participant’s statements, arguments and assumptions are built (so as to ensure the soundest reasoning.)
  • The Socratic leader does not have all the answers and is not merely “testing” the learner.

The focus is not on the participants’ statements but on the value system that underpins their beliefs, actions, and decisions. For this reason, any successful challenge to this system comes with high stakes—one might have to examine and change one’s life, but, Socrates is famous for saying, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”

So, how is this relevant to you?

Well, how about using systematic, probing questioning whenever an answer is needed? And only when the best answer is needed?

If you’re a consultant—how about asking yourself, “Am I “telling” too much when “asking” should be the style of communication?”

If you’re a coach, trained in questioning–ask yourself, “Do I ever ask my clients ‘leading’ questions that yield an answer I think they should have?”

As a business leader, are you asking what your team knows–or asserting what you know?

If you are a parent, and your child comes to you, as mine did a few weeks ago with, “What should I do??” – can you bite down hard on your tongue, sit on your hands and reply with, “What are you considering doing?” Then, “How well do think that will work?” Then, “How will you feel if you do that rather than the other option?”

No answers but his/hers!

I challenge you to play the improv game this week: imagine each question is the “bird” in badminton that must be kept volleying in the air. One “statement” from you (other than “good job” at the end) abruptly ends the game of “Best Answer In the Room.”

(Warning: Teenagers detest this!!! But don’t let that deter you!)

This is such an ingrained part of my communication style, I go fairly mad when others can’t do it with me. The other day, I came up with an inventive solution. I was in a particularly difficult mental logjam and, knowing that my guy cannot for the life of him think in questions and therefore cannot ask them (despite 13 years of my trying to teach him)…

…I wrote out a series of 16 questions for him to ask me. I knew the best answer in the room could only be elicited through a series of stacking questions, and if he wasn’t equipped to conjure them, I was. He delivered them and it worked like a charm! My thinking was clarified and my decision became obvious.

According to my oldest brother, I was an interviewer at a very young age; always profoundly curiosity about others. But then, somewhere along the way, the courtroom attorney in me woke up, and the probing questioner arrived on the scene—the part of me that spots a superficial answer and knows a better one can be found.

Everyone close to me has encountered the attorney-at-law in me—or, perhaps a kinder, gentler image to evoke would be Columbo—and it is often met with resistance. I find that most people get triggered when asked to stretch their assumptions. But like Socrates, I am absolutely, positively committed to the best answer, no matter how frustrating it is for those who hit walls in attaining it.

Alanis Morisette told Oprah recently, “I like to get to the bottom where there is no lie left.” Yes. Yes. I think she channels Socrates, too.

My clients experience this level of probing inquiry from me when developing their thought leader brand and message. I puncture that surface and, at times, they wail in frustration at the wall of blankness they encounter at some points in the process. But we just keep at it, and all of them rejoice in the epiphanies that arise–that wouldn’t have if not for the really hard questions.

Inquiry of this depth may trigger your “I’m dumb” story (this is what I encounter most), but in keeping with it, it will activate the “I am so damn wise!” story. Isn’t that worth it?

And isn’t it worth giving that experience to those around you—particularly those who pay you??

So, here are a few questions:

  • What is your number one take-away today?
  • What is the first question you are going to ask once you’re done reading this—and to whom?
  • And when are you going to employ the improv game: “nothing but questions” for an entire conversation?

Can you imagine what would be possible for your work if you were asked nothing but one deepening question after another?

Do you really think that you can imagine it? Or do you just need to experience it?

Coming next week: An exciting new program from me…for thought leaders and aspiring thought leaders…if you are determined to get the very best answer in the room for your business and your legacy.

Stay tuned!!

Remember: the brain cannot abide an unanswered question. What’s your next one?

Freedom to Lead Series-1: Freedom from the Establishment

This 10-day video series honors our upcoming Independence Day here in the
States–July 4; honors the determination our forefathers had to be free by
looking at the freedoms entrepreneurial thought leaders must claim in
order to be successful in business and in changing the world.

In this first video. we look at the most important freedom for an entrepreneur.
Enjoy!

[youtube width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtAf6KfcEqc&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

A 10-Step Pitch to Prospects to Buy Your Expert Service

A client and I were concluding my 7-session private process, The Powerhouse Method, and now armed with her one-of-a–kind differentiation and message, we had time to role-play the pitch she was going to make to decision makers at NYC media companies. We had developed a strategy where she would go to those whom she knew best first, so the “pitch arc” we created keeps in mind the warmth of her relationship to them.

I am sharing it here with my answers, rather than hers for confidentiality’s sake. The example should help you adapt it to your own situation and content.
[Read more…]

Winning the Story Wars, Shaping the Future as Inspired Leaders

It’s pretty rare to come across a book that expands a business’s creative potential quite exponentially; has real and practical application, and is profound. I believe that Winning the Story Wars by Jonah Sachs is one of the best books I’ve read in a decade because of these elements. It tells a unique and potentially world-changing story as it invites you to do the same. You’ll want to read it yourself and glean from it whatever your business most needs, but I’d like to share the impact it had on me–and it was, indeed, profound.

First, for you to feel the impact yourself, it’s necessary—in reading the book or in reading this post–to view yourself as a marketer. I always tell my Inspired Leaders that selling and marketing is 80% of their business, but I’ve never really called them or myself, “marketers.” Now, I will–and proudly, as you’ll see. [Read more…]

Determining Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered–Part 6

This is the final installment in this series and is most relevant for those who sell business-to-business.

#6: The size of the company will determine your market.

You will always need to get in front of decision makers, and the size of the company, business or organization whom you approach determines who that is and thus who your market is. It’s well worth your time to think this through.

If you want to target a large company, your market is HR or perhaps a top executive–and most likely, they will not be your final audience.  This awareness, then, tells you–as any target market will–how to craft your marketing communications. They will not be directed to the C-levels, managers or other employees with whom you will be directly interacting–everything will be constructed around “what’s in it for” the decision maker. [Read more…]

Determining Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered–Part 5

# 5: Your 4 Business Roles

As a service-based business owner, there are 4 roles you will likely play in your career. But only one is where you want to spend most of your time. One is the best option given your mission. One is the best option given ethical behavior toward your clients. And it is very important to build your business so that you are utilizing the best role in your Signature Program—the program that is central to your entire business. Since your Signature Program will be populated by a certain target market, it stands to reason that you need to know which of these roles you’re playing in that program so you can determine who should be “in the room.” [Read more…]

Determining Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered–Part 3

Today, we’re moving to the 3rd post in a 6-part series designed to help you determine whom you should be leading. I expect this will be enlightening and helpful to even the most successful service entrepreneurs.

 3. Who are YOU? BE your market.

Richard Branson was featured yet again in Entrepreneur Magazine, June 2012, and was quoted as saying, “All startups should be thinking, ‘What frustrates me [as a customer] and how can I make it better? It might be a small…or…a big thing, but…if they think like that, they’re likely to build a very successful business.”

The most relevant piece to our discussion is this: he spoke of the fact that he has always been his own customer. Everything he ever created, from Virgin Records to Virgin Airlines and everything in between and after, came from his own need. And he credits “being his own  customer” to his success.

This has now become a topic of conversation between me and my clients who go through my 7-session private program, The Powerhouse Method, looking to build a highly-marketable, one-of-a-kind business. The first order of business is to determine whom they will be serving. To aid in this extremely (for most) challenging act, I tell them what Branson advises: You should be your market. But the converse is equally true: your market should be you. Either who you once were, or who you are now. Do not try marketing to a group you are not. Branson never did. Help those with the same needs you had once upon a time. If you’re frustrated now by how things are being done in your field–close the gap with an innovation and then sell it to others just like you with that need.

When you are your market, and your market is you, you secure one of the most important factors of success in business: credibility. They will listen to you because you are them and have an answer relevant to them. It means you will communicate (i.e. sell) to them like no one else because you speak their language and understand them at a deep level. It means you will design “urgently wanted” programs and products that nail their needs and desires because you know them so intimately.

I have always been my market, and as a result, every one of my programs through the years has knocked it out of the park. I have also always sold quite easily (once I overcame my issues with selling), because I created content *I* would have wanted and that my market (me, in an earlier time) wants and needs.

So, in trying to decide who your market is, look no further than your own mirror.

Determining Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered–Part 2

This is the 2nd in a 6-part series on mastering who your sliver-population market is. I’ve said to my students and clients for years that your market *is* your business. Without a market, you have either an unwieldy, undefined business or you have no business at all.

It is your market that will determine how you sell to them–the communication that will actually work.

Your market that will determine the free and paid programs you offer.

Your market who will create your expert-status.

Your market who will make you money.

And your market who will determine your destiny. If you are here to change the world, it is only a very segmented population that will help you do it.

There are many things I ask my private clients that enable them to take the vital step of shaping their all-important market, and recently, I’ve been directing them with these 6 tools. Today, I’m giving you the 2nd one.

 

2.    The 4 Criteria

I have found these 4 questions quickly answer whether or not a market is a smart decision. You need to have a sense of a market in order for this to help, but once you have an idea of one or even two markets, measure your options (independently) against these 4 criteria:

On a 1-10 scale (0=not at all; 10=extremely), how would you rate your TM option on the following:
 
1. How “on the surface” is their awareness of their pain?

2. How credible are you to them? (They would believe you; respect you; resonate with you.)

3. How passionate do you feel when you think of working with them?

4. How able are they to pay for you?

Every single one of these is important.

And you want to be answering at an 8 (lowest), and preferably a 9 or 10.

If a market is a 9 or 10 in awareness of their pain, this is very good. It means they have an urgent need, and your business *must* be “urgently wanted”–or you will simply sit on the shelf as a one-day possibility (if you’re lucky.) Sound familiar?

You are credible to a market if you have been through what they are going through; if you have overcome what they’re in the midst of; if you express beliefs that immediately align with theirs. If you are an 8-10 in credibility, there is a high likelihood that they will buy you.

You must be at a 9 or 10 in passion for your  market. If you are a follower of mine, you are here to effect change in the world and must want that change for a particular segment far more than for any other segment. You must be passionate about what you see is possible for them; what you think they’re here for–after all, you’ll be helping them get it. I am off-the-charts passionate about visionary entrepreneurs, those who are here to inspire change. I could do what I do for corporations, but I believe the world should be run by entrepreneurs, so I have no interest in helping executives. I used to work with any type of coach and consultant, but then decided that I only had interest in working with those who want to have a powerful impact in the world. I believe they have a purpose on the planet at this time and am extremely passionate about that and them. So, they are now the only type of service provider I work with.

And finally, needless to say, you want your market to be able to pay you at an 8, 9 or 10 level. If you answer anything lower than an 8, you will pay for it.

So, what are your answers when you take yourself through all 4 criteria?

How to Determine Your Target Market: 6 Ways You’ve Probably Not Considered

It is a constant trouble-spot for my market of authors, speakers, consultants, coaches: Determining their market. I have a free ebook to help the process, but there are so many fine hairs to split, that it’s not really enough.

The Target Market question is the biggest boulder in the way of success for an entrepreneur; the hidden answer to their struggle; and the place that gets nearly every one of them—to use a term favored by a dear friend—“wonky.”

Tussling with who it is they will serve reveals commitment issues (I have to work only with them? For years??). Trust issues. (What if this market is a mistake and everything I build for them doesn’t work?) Ego and pride. (The big successes don’t target their market; I’m going to follow them.) When these issues become so obvious that they need to be pointed out lest we spend precious time extracting bullets from their feet, I provide these incisive insight–then end the nurturing with, “Get over all of it. Just pick.”

The other day, I was working with a client on his market and heard myself moving him through six ways to grab hold of a possible market for him. I am going to share them all with you in this diagram today and comment on the first, and then write content for the other five over the next week.

So, you can, and must, evaluate your market on at least the following conditions:

 

  1. What Market “Urgently Wants” What You Have?

Even this is not a cut-and-dried question, and is hair that can be split dozens of ways, but it must be answered! The biggest problem I see for service-based entrepreneurs is that they do not ensure that they are delivering something to the market that the market would “climb over chairs to get.” They’re putting out what they want to put out.

But even if they work on this some, they’re still not reasoning it through enough. They really believe “everyone” could be served by what they offer. But this is not true. Some age-group (the fastest way to get at this if it’s a consumer market) or some company desperately wants what they have more than another. So, what is that age group? And then, what is the situation they’re in that heightens their urgent want? Did they just get divorced? Just graduate college? Did the corporation just merge? Who is in urgent pain and therefore urgently wants what you have?

You *must strike* where there is pain, or you will gather dust very quickly. And there are times in life when the pain out there that you can heal is more acute than at other times. Yes, you provide outstanding marketing services–but at what stage does a business recognize that it REALLY WANTS marketing help? Probably after about two years of failure.  Yes, you’re a great parent coach, but what situations would cause a parent to come seeking your services? There are only a few times when pain is acute: during pregnancy; toddler years; teen-age years.

Look for stages of life and situations that will cause an upsurge of interest in your solution. You are not wanted all of the time. AND you are not wanted by everyone. You are wanted at a specific moment in time, by a very specific type of person/company.

So, what are the crackling synapses in your brain telling you right now?

Stay tuned for the next installment…

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