Lessons

Lesson Info

Build a Distinctive Blog

I think you guys have gotten louder as the boot camp has gone on. I love it. All right, let's take a look at what today's goal is. Our goal for today is to write a blogged or other content marketing that galvanizes your relationship with customers. Would you guys like your blog's to stand out more? Yeah, that's what we're gonna talk about today. And it is. I think it's gonna be good. I think it's gonna be good. Let's take a look at what we did in the previous lesson, though first so Social media presents amazing opportunities for helping your business stand out. Of course, the key is that you can't just show up on social media like everyone else is showing up on social media. You need to show up on social media the way it's gonna work for you, the media that you want to be using, the channels that you wanna be using and making sure that everything is grounded in your quiet power, the things that make your business stand out. So using your unique voice and objectives to stand out and ge...

t things done is going to get you results with social media out there on the Internet. Right now, everyone is saying the same things in the same fonts, and it's really freaking boring. Don't you get that feeling like you click a link and it's like, Oh, this again? Then you click another link in your life. Oh, that again. Then you click another link, and it's just mawr of the same stuff because people have figured out well, you know, this word gets this many clicks and this kind of post with three things for that and 10 things for this. And here's a list of seven things about this gets, you know, a certain number, a certain number of clicks, a certain number of page views. And certainly that must be how you go about building an online presence for your business. Except it's not. You want to stand out, you have to say something different. And sure, there are best practices that you can use to get more page views to make sure more people are going to be reading. But if you're just saying the same things in the same fonts or even in different fonts and it's boring, you're not going to stand out. You're not going to build that customer base. You're not gonna be able to galvanize the relationships with the customers that you have or the customers that you want in a way that gets you sales and gets you results. Now let's take a look at the key components of a standout business and in your worksheets that hopefully you've downloaded because you have RSVP'd to build a standout boot camp. I've listed them down the first. That first area on this particular workshop worksheet for Lesson 23 listed your standout components there as I'm going through these this time, I want you to just jot down a couple of notes, remind yourself what some of these things were in your business because this is less in 23. We've been at this for a while, and you might have for gotten so I want you to make sure this is really important for this lesson. I want you to make sure that you've got some notes in there about what each of these components of your standout business are. So first using your strengths using your strengths. What are you uniquely really good at? Where do you really bring it. What comes really naturally to you? That's really the very first part of your quiet power. The second component is leveraging your passion. What is it that gets you really worked up? What is it that gets you really riled up? What do you get really excited about? It's not just your singular passion, like, you know, follow your passion and the money will come. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. First of all, that's not true. Second of all, that's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the passion that you feel for your subject matter, the passion that you bring to the conversation, the passion that you bring to the relationships that you have with your customers. So what is that passion? What excites that passion? We're gonna come back to talking about passion a lot more in this lesson. Then what was your unfair advantage was your unfair advantage, that that unique opportunity that you see your unique ability to do things differently than the other people, The other businesses in your market, your competition. What's your unfair advantage? Then what's your focus? We talked about this in terms of your chief initiative. and we also talked about it in terms of key performance indicators. What's that clear focus that you have for your business? Because, remember, focus doesn't just change the way you work. It doesn't just make you more productive or more efficient. Focus also changes the way people perceive your business. So if you want to stand out on your blogged, your blogged has to share that clear focus that you have for your business. Then you're guiding principles. We talked about that way back in less than three. Build on your guiding principles. What are the personal values, the core values, the guiding principles that you bring to your business, that again highlight how you do what you dio differently? Uh, sharing your vision, our penultimate key component. What's the unique vision that you bring to your business? Where do you wanna be five years from now or 10 years from now? What impact in the conversation do you want to have made five or 10 years from now? And most importantly, where do you want your customers to be 5 to 10 years from now? And then finally speaking with a unique voice, What is your unique voice your unique point of view. How do you represent yourself differently? I talked about my great love of Star Trek and doctor who and other science fiction was to talk about my great love of craft beer. And these were some of the things that I bring into my voice in my online space on my blogged. What's your unique voice, your unique point of view? If you don't remember this, remember that in in that lesson we built a Pinterest board or or another collage that brought in all of those different voices or brought in all of those different influences. So if you don't remember what your unique voice was or your unique point of view, go back and reference that Pinterest board those are the seven key components of a standout business on. We're going to use those to shape and influence the content that we want to create in terms of content marketing to create content that truly stands out because you could make any topic mawr different by combining your topic idea with two of these key components. I mean, even one would work, I think, to a super fun. So, you know, say you want Teoh, right? A block post on on chairs. You know, say you've got an interior design blogged, and you've got an idea about, you know, or you. You've been noticing some trends in chairs so you could write just a block post about you know, the top trends and chairs for 2015. Or you could write a trend piece on chairs that incorporates your unique point of view, your unique voice. Or you could write a trend piece on chairs that incorporates your unfair advantage. Maybe it's how you use chairs differently in the spaces you design and why that really benefits your customers. Does that make sense? So you can take any idea and incorporate your unique perspective on any of those seven key components to create a much MAWR compelling piece of content? And I think that if you think of any of the blog's that you just love to read, you could see them doing this, and that might actually be an extra great piece of homework that I didn't think about before. That very moment is if you go and you look at those blog's that you read on a daily basis or even like I really like reading news sites like slate dot com or Atlantic Wire. Both of those news sites have a really different perspective. They create really different content than most of the other news sites that are out there online, and both of them is. Both of them create content that's really based around their stand out style, you know, So whether it's depth or whether it's humor or whether it's just kind of a searing perspective, they're incorporating parts of very unique voice there on unfair advantage, their unique vision in every news piece that they right makes sense. Now let's take a closer look at one of these key components because I think seven is a little overwhelming. So let's look at just one so that you can see the power of this. Let's look at passion. And again, I wanna make sure that you understand that I am not asking you what your passion is. I am talking about the feeling that's passion. The thing that gets you riled up, gets you excited, gets you, you know, just jibber jabbering on. You know I can I can riff on I could talk on ah whole bunch of different subjects because I feel very passionately about them. What of those subjects for you? What is that feeling that you are following when you're following your passion When you're riffing on a subject when you are jibber jabbering on about, uh, some idea or some pet peeve that you have in the market or in the conversation? The first question that I like to use, uh, Thio kind of spur this on is what do you believe? What do you believe? Take your business idea. So, you know, for Kate, it's elevated medicine for Bridget. It's being a personal chef for Bree. And it's creating master classes master courses with, uh, with instructors. Rock star instructors. Take that idea. Take the basis of your business and say, What do I believe about this? What do I believe about this? So, Kate, I'm gonna put you on the spot. What do you believe about aerobatic medicine? Um, that it offers ah, of really simple and expensive solution Thio taking control of our health. Okay. It offers a simple and inexpensive solution to taking control of our health. What else do you believe? I believe that when we when we wanna make real change. It really starts from within on our ability to make changes, not on taking stuff from the outside and filling ourselves with it. Um, that everything can be medicine and everything could be poisoned. It just depends on what? And when and how much, Uh, one more, Um, that Ah, our perspective of how we see the world. Um, outwardly goes both ways. How we see ourselves, how we see the world in the place in between those is where we really are aligned in ourselves and really healthy. Yeah. Good, Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I'm so glad that the camera was on her them because Did you see her eyes? I mean, she was looking right at me so I could see her eyes and her eyes were big and clear and focused. And so even though I put her on the spot, she was able to nail those things. Clearly. Communicate them to us, get excited about them. Uh, you know, she had kind of forceful, open but forceful body language around it. That's passion. What do you believe about your work? About your conversation? About what you're putting out into the world? About what you're creating the next one is what really bugs you. What really bugs you? What kind of misconceptions? Assumptions. Misunderstandings are out there in your market in your conversation. What really bugs you? What just gets you all worked up. Kathy, what really bugs you that it has to be difficulty that you have tow have certain specific rules in place that runs. I get that there's HR policies, but you don't have tohave every little thing spelled out that limits and restricts your people because you're just killing them. What else? What else really bugs you? I that no matter what your business is, you can have a killer culture even if it is a franchise. I lived in the franchise system. I still had a killer culture. Ah, lot of businesses like Wal Marts seem to think that you have to kill people, that you have to stymie them. So no matter what the business, you can have a killer culture. Nice. Uh, yeah. Patrice were really bugs. You tell me. Give it to me. I could get in trouble for saying this, but when people that that's when you know it's good when people say that they can't afford an attorney. I feel like it burns me to see people rather run their business on a wildcard. Rather, just leave it to chance, um, than hire an attorney, which is really a key person that will help your business last beyond the first few years. Um, when most small businesses are failing in those first few years, people will invest in shiny business cards and brand new logos in a great website, but won't pay in business coaches, Um, but won't pay to protect the brand and then come to me in tears after the fact because someone has jacked it from them. That burns me. Oh, that's it. That's the big one. That's Yeah, that's the big one for me. What else bugs me is Okay? Well, no, I just don't think they don't bug me. I don't think they're exciting. Um, what else burns me? Um, people who make excuses for not going after their dreams. Um, that really bugs me. I feel like anyone can do anything that they want to. So I hear excuses. And it's just that, um, or I hear people frame them as challenges, and it's just excuses. So that's my other big one. All right. Awesome. Oh, Amy, what really bugs you so many? Um Okay, well, one that I really can't stand that's huge in my space right now is like, Well, okay, couple become a life coach in three days. Uh, people hanging up shackles, saying like, Alright, hanging up, uh, shingles. They're saying shackles to saying, saying I'm a life coach and it's not coaching. It's just I happen to give good advice. And so I think I'm gonna be a coach. Um or, uh, make six figures in your first weekend spending, you know, two hours on your business. I can't stand that. I also I also really, really can't stand fluffy, nonsensical, feel into the aura and your chakra and make love to the trees. And then somehow that's supposed to increase here about a communication with your spouse. Like bring it back, Thio Applicable riel world step by stuff. Stuff that can actually make a difference in our lives with our with our kids and our families and our communities. That's not gonna help us. And, like, just be one with tree and the joins me nut. Thank you. So do you see how really getting in touch with what? Bugs. You could create some pretty awesome content for your blogged. This is where I mean, look at these women. This is where they come alive. We do this in quiet power strategy in a In an exercise I call our quiet power inventory. And in the quiet power inventory, this is one of the big questions. And it's one of my favorites because I can really see finally who these people are. I've talked to them on the phone. I've answered their questions. I've seen how they run their business so far. But it's this question that really tells me who they are, what they stand for, why they do what they do, how they do it differently. This is the key, Teoh A standout blogged or content marketing of any kind. You wanna put it on video? Great. You want to write a block post? Awesome. You want to do white papers? Cool. You wanna do webinars? Awesome! This is the key. One more question. What do you really love? What do you really love, Shelley? Giving, giving, giving my time. Giving my expertise. Giving toe. Make other people's lives better excellent. What do you really love? Two things are my pillars for their create expressing myself creatively and making a difference for other people expressing yourself creatively and making a difference for other people. What else? What do you really love? Meghan? I really love the simple beauty of gardening, the aesthetics. Just every time I walk across my garden and it's looking really beautiful, I just It just fills me up with a lot of joy. Awesome. Lisa, Um when like the people in my community actually really help each other Like, if I'm not around like this week, they're just so kind to each other. Yeah, on your support. Yeah, they're really awesome. And also like the creative flow that people could get into when they actually start to get how they create and how fast things can change. E love that I could see the whole blog's Siris on not getting into flow and how you get into flow. Awesome. One more. What do you really love or shell? I really love making other people feel good. Really love making other people feel good. Awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome talking about what you really love, whether it's what you really love when you see your customers doing this thing and you see your blogged readers realizing this thing. Or maybe it's just what you really love on a day to day basis about yourself, about your work, about your environment, about what, what you're up to in the world, what you really love is another great source of compelling content. So what do you believe? What really bugs you and what do you really love? Dig deep. One thing that one exercise that I often recommend to clients is if this is at all troubling to you or if this is it all confusing if you're not, if not, really getting where I'm going with all of this, something that could be very helpful is sitting down with a friend sitting down with your spouse, sitting down with a colleague and having them ask you those three questions and maybe have them pull. You push, you challenge you a little bit so that you're not just stopping at the surface, but you're really digging deep and finding out what's really in your gut. So sit down with someone, let them interview you, or, you know, if you're you know Melissa. We talked in an earlier lesson about how your you want to be more proactive about welcoming interviews from podcasters or bloggers or whoever. Um, getting interviewed by other people outside other people is also really, really helpful. The more you get interviewed, the more you'll start to uncover these things. And you know, it's OK that at the beginning, maybe it's a little rough or that you don't have those talking points down. The more you get interviewed, the more this stuff comes up over and over again. And the more you'll start to see. That's what I really believe. That's what really bugs me. That's what I really love. And to take that and then use that on your blogged is really fun.