BUILDING A BRAND
Branding answers the question - “Why You?” In a world of many options, potential clients would need a reason to believe your message, to trust you.
Branding = Trust, without which there is no sale.
If you’re new to this concept, a good analogy would be dating. Let’s say you are quite the catch and have many suitors (good for you :-), and you’re looking for that special one.
You’ll probably disqualify some suitors if they look raggedy, sleazy, or their overall appearance or demeanor don’t meet your standards. These suitors would not even get a chance to date you. They are not in the game.
From the ones you consider suitable and date, you will be looking to “click” a connection, based on time you spend together.
Flipping it to you being the suitor, to get to a point where you actually get a date, you also need to pass step #1. You can’t look raggedy or sleazy, and depending on who you’re courting, you might need to look and behave in a specific way.
For example, maybe the person you’re courting belongs to a different ethnicity or culture and they are looking to date someone from their ethnicity group.
In business that would be the equivalent of a family attorney firm that is looking for a marketer with experience helping legal firms, but you only have experience helping dentists.
In love, never say never, but in business there is no need to fight windmills. It would be much easier to just target dentists and look for a “date” that is looking for you.
So let’s start by finding you a business niche.
There are two main opinions when it comes to niching when starting an agency. One says to niche down, to help differentiate yourself. That is the opinion of the majority of the experts I talk with. The flip side of that is don’t niche, because that will open a larger potential market.
Those who agree with niching down are correct, because it builds a brand faster and hyper-focuses your prospecting and self-training. It also allows you to align with your passion or previous experience (more on that later). I spoke with Neil Patel about that on my podcast.
“The big issue with small agencies that I've seen is they don't customize their approach. They don't verticalize. Say you're a small agency and you only do it for local businesses that are dentists. You can say, yes, other people can do it, but we specialize in dentists. Look at all the dentists we work with. Here are all the case studies. We know what we're doing, hence we have all these dental clients. You can use another agency, but they don't know how your back-office works, they don't know what an appointment is worth. They’re going to go through a lot of the mistakes that we already know.”
– Neil Patel
So, Neil’s advice is, if you’re small, try to verticalize, try to go niche. That will be your main differentiator, because you know that niche better than anybody else, and client by client, you create an authority in the niche.
You could also potentially target companies that have small, easy-to-manage marketing goals that a newbie could easily deal with. However, those who oppose niching down have a good point in that a niche would have fewer potential clients and might require more specific experience than a generalist who can work with anyone.
Just about everyone agrees that when you’re starting up, you take on whoever is willing to pay the rent. But since it’s my book, I’m going to recommend niching down to start, and later growing into a generalist that can work with anyone.
How to Find a Niche
The best niche is one you have both a passion for and experience in. For example, you’re an avid biker, a semi-professional. It’s your passion, and you have some knowledge about the brands, market, prices, players, and most importantly consumer mindset.
If the area you’re passionate about doesn’t align with what you have experience in, choose an industry in which you have business experience. Perhaps you operated in that industry before as an entrepreneur or an employee. Whatever your experience, you have some insights into the pain points of the players in this market, even if you’re not an expert.
For example, if you worked in the mortgage industry, you know the pain points of loan officers, limitations, and budget, so it’s easier for you to sell into that industry.
Plus, more often than not, you have a network in that industry that would welcome a marketing conversation and can become your first clients.
If you really don’t want to serve an industry you have experience in, then follow your passion.
Maybe you love dogs, and you want to help dog product companies, vets, and pet stores get more clients.
Building a business takes time, stamina, and the road becomes that much easier when you work on a topic that aligns with your passion.
Going back to the dating analogy, how strong a “suitor” you are will be the business equivalent of your BRAND AUTHORITY.
Brand Authority is a culmination of how impressive you are in all facets of your business. How you look (brand appearance), how you sound (the content you produce), your social proof (clients you served and achievements you have like winning an award, writing a book, having a podcast, speaking in major events).
The goal is for your brand authority to be so strong that business comes to you.
Authority builds up as you spend more time in the marketing industry, have more clients, expand your network and develop as a marketer. When you get started, you would need to develop the minimum brand authority required to get small clients.
The key to branding is differentiation, breaking the noise, not being like the other marketers.
You will see that most of the tasks in the BRANDING section are about making you special, which is in many ways making you different (in a good way) from the competition.
Personal brand concepts are in no way a must, but if you can come up with one, and you feel natural in it (which is key), it will be very helpful to align you with your target audience. A personal brand concept is something in your personality or belief system that can take on a physical manifestation. Here are a few examples:
There is a very acclaimed and talented Sales Coach named Jason Forrest. Jason’s demeanor is direct and fearless, and as he trains salespeople, he decided to brand his program the “Sales Warrior”. Once that was established, the Warrior branding was utilized in his marketing collateral, conversation, i.e., “We make Sales Warriors, not salespeople” and even in his visuals. For example, in his office you’ll see a Samurai Karuta (Armor), katanas, gladiator armor, a spartan helmet and more.
And he makes sure that even on Zoom meetings you have some of these figures in the background. It’s all part of a business brand that was born as a personal brand, that fits Jason, and he wears naturally.
A completely different example is Norman “The Bird Guy” Farrar. The name already speaks for itself.
Norm is a super expert eCommerce guy with a focus on Amazon. He helps product owners to brand, market and sell their products on Amazon and other eCom venues.
The depth of experience and success he generated for businesses comes to light in the first conversation you have with him. But before you ever talk with Norm, you already remember him. He has a 15-inch boss-style beard that makes him stand out on stage, in zoom calls and networking events. It is quite different from the scenery.
Norm, being a smart marketer, helps extend the echoes of his beard by adding it to his logo, and as part of his name (Norman “The Bird Guy” Farrar) everywhere. He didn’t grow a beard for the brand, the brand came from the beard. It was a natural extension of him.
I’ll give you another example, because I know it’s hard to think how to implement this for your own brand.
Joe Pullizi is the founder of The Tilt, a community of content creators, and is one of the best-known Content Marketers in the world.
Joe has a dominating color he wears, uses on his swag, logo, and even the charity he founded. It’s ORANGE. When he goes on a zoom, podcast, and meetings, that’s the color he wears. It’s a flashy color, it makes him stand out, and as you see him more and more, you start to associate the color orange with him.
Take some time to think about it. If you don’t know yourself well enough, it’s time you do. Ask the hard questions like “What are my motivators?” or “What makes me, me?” Enjoy the creative process and create your personal brand.
If you hit a brick wall, no worries, move on. It’s not a must to get started or get sales. Your personality will find a way to shine through.
If I’m a potential client, and you reached out to me, odds are I’m going to research you online.
If I look for you online, are you there? Do you have a website? A LinkedIn profile? A Facebook page?
What other online footprints do you have? A Google-my-Business page? A blog? Podcast? YouTube channel? Do you have online reviews? Would I find that you’re a guest blogger on different online magazines? Are you a Forbes contributor? Were you interviewed for other podcasts?
When I visit your online venues, would I find out what you do? What about who you work with? Will I see examples of clients you’ve worked with? Will I see awards you won? Certifications you have?
Ideally, I should find you everywhere, with the best content and achievements, that will make me want to work with you.
“Always remember that your present situation is not your final destination. The best is yet to come.”
– Zig Ziglar
As you build your initial online presence, ask yourself - What is the minimum online presence my target audience is expecting, to consider me as a potential partner for their marketing efforts?
This is constantly changing and evolving, but as of the time this book was written, here is what you need to do:
Website
This is a must - a quality website that presents your services, why you are special, WHO YOU WORK WITH (niche), and examples or testimonials of a few clients. (How do you get them when you’re starting out? Stay tuned for the answer). If you don’t have the budget to build a website and don’t know how to build one yourself - you can’t really move forward. This should cost you $1,000 tops including design and building.
LinkedIn Profile
This is free, so there’s no excuse to not have a good LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn is by far the best B2B social network. Its B2B lead conversion stats are 3x those of Facebook or Twitter. There are many one-page guides online to show you how to set up a professional LinkedIn profile, so we don’t need to get to the nitty gritty here.
What is important to mention, and this is true for all your online venues, is the copy. What you write and how you write on your site or any platform, needs to be from the reader’s perspective; your potential client.
Be smart and craft the right message, which will be a derivative of the NICHE you're going after, your PERSONAL BRAND and your OFFER (we’ll go into details on that in the Products section).
Don’t address it as a tedious job you must complete so you can start prospecting. Relish in writing about yourself and your business. Be proud and care about every word. Write, rewrite, and rewrite again as needed. This is your online face. It is you. And on a practical level, good copy will get you more clients, plain and simple.
Have at least 500 connections. Reach out to friends and family, past colleagues, ex-clients, people you meet at events, and of course potential clients you want to connect with.
Getting 5K+ Facebook Likes for Less Than $1K
Depending on your niche, Facebook and Facebook Groups could be more effective than LinkedIn to find clients and colleagues to network with.
In that case, you need a solid Facebook page.
If your agency has 112 fans on your page, it’s not very impressive. It needs to be in the thousands. And that’s easy to get. For an investment of a few hundred dollars, you can have 5K-10K fans on your business page.
This effective tactic was introduced to me by Facebook maven Kim Walsh Phillips. I tried it myself and it worked very well.
Here is the tactic - word for word directly from my podcast interview with Kim…
Kim Walsh Phillips:
You can actually get Facebook followers very quickly. It’s called a promote your page ad, and you can find it right on your business page. You can choose all of the demographics that make a great client of yours. Maybe you're specializing in law firms or health coaches, whatever your niche might be. And then, you want to make the location. You're going to type in this secret hidden option, which is worldwide, and when you type in worldwide, it actually creates this huge audience for you to go after.
And the secret with Facebook is, the bigger you can target, the cheaper it is. So, you'll be able to grow a following that has the right demographics, but maybe isn't the right location. But it will bring that number up, and it will also set up Facebook's algorithm for you because now it's showing these are the types of people that you want to work with. Then, when you place an ad to get clients later on, it has set up the campaign to say, "Oh, okay, now I see that these are the types of people that you want to be able to work with." Now that you put United States on it or Canada or London or wherever you might be located, then you're going to be able to get the clients for your business, and it will be much less expensive.
Itamar Shafir:
That’s amazing. When I promote a page, do I need to create a special ad for it or is it kind of an automatic thing by Facebook?
Kim Walsh Phillips:
You do create. They will let you run just with an image of your page. I recommend that you create an ad. You're going to create a quote post because it's something that anybody could like. It should be a motivational quote, five words or less, and you want to make sure it only takes up 20% of the image with the text. The rest should be white space around it. The background should be yellow, the text should be black and you want to keep it so it's super obvious in the newsfeed. You do that so it stands out from a very crowded newsfeed. There's this bright sign in people's way to show them a quote. And then when they like it, they'll like the page.”
Review Site
You need a few online reviews/testimonials. Now it’s Google-My-Business, but there can also be recommendations on LinkedIn (very powerful), or reviews on your Facebook pages. You can also use those reviews as testimonials on your websites. More on how to get reviews when you get started in the next few pages.
Once you have a website, and LinkedIn and Facebook pages, you need to create content on a constant basis, gosh darn it.
Generating content on an ongoing basis, especially if you’re not accustomed to it, is time consuming, energy draining, and you feel that you’re wasting your time because hardly anyone is visiting your online venues (yet).
And it’s true, I’d rather have you prospecting and making sales. Luckily, smart people dealing with the same problem already found a way to create content fast.
But before I tell you how, just a word about content creation.
I remind you again, the content you put out, especially when you’re a one-man show, is your personal voice.
You MUST treat it with the same respect, preparation and thoughtfulness you would treat what you would say if you were standing on stage and speaking to an audience of your target market. Take pride and joy in it.
I’m reminded of a famous saying attributed to both French philosopher and mathematician Blaise Pascal and Mark Twain. In a letter to a friend he wrote -
I would have written a shorter letter, but I did not have the time.
Don’t be the fluff guy/gal.
Doing Content in 20 to 90 Minutes a Week
Earlier I mentioned content marketing guru Joe Pulizzi. He defines a very simple strategy to deal with content creation on a limited time and budget. He says “Focus on one content creation channel,” and in his opinion, podcasts are the simplest form. He spends 20 minutes a week creating a five-to-seven-minute podcast on a subject he promotes, and uses this content across his channels.
Time investment
The content creation, if you already have an idea in your head, because you engage with clients throughout the week and read some interesting content, can take 10 to 20 minutes.
You can hire a virtual assistant for $10-$30 (Onlinejobsph.com, Fiverr.com, Upworks.com) to do everything else for you.
What should your podcast be about? Of course, it should be about the NICHE you want to target and how they can grow their business.
*NOTE: You’ll need an HD 4K video cam for your podcast or online meetings with clients. If you don’t have one as a default on your laptop, it would cost you about $100 to buy one. Logitec is good. Also make sure your background is neat.
Getting Killer Content While Getting a Client a Week!
Taking up on Joe’s tactic, imagine that instead of recording yourself for the podcast, you would be interviewing potential clients in your niche or people who are the center of influence in that area.
As an example, let’s say you want to go after CPAs (accountants). Imagine reaching out to accountants you would like to work with and say -
“Hi, we are doing a podcast with leading CPAs in [City]. I would love to get [Mr. CPA] on our show to discuss [something they are experts in]. The podcast would also be turned into a blog and posted on our Facebook page [we have 10K fans], and we’ll also be doing some advertising to get this podcast in front of potential clients in your area.”
You accomplish much by doing this -
1. You create valuable content from experts (without creating the content yourself)
2. You gain authority by affiliation (to this known CPA)
3. You get other CPAs wanting to talk to you (everyone wants to beat the competition)
4. You get a chance to engage with a potential client, in a low-pressure environment (the interview) and develop trust
Not every guest on your show will become a client, but some will, others will become referral sources, and some will just provide the good content you need.
*PRO TIP: The same concept can be applied with writing a PR article instead of a podcast.
*PRO TIP2: Remember, whatever content you create (video, audio or text) always repurpose it on your other channels.
A word about your personal voice:
Many people don’t feel comfortable with the written word, and more feel awkward on camera.
You might have this image in your head of the amazing radio talent with the crystal-clear voice, or the charismatic show host who everyone loves. Stop. You are not building a career in radio or TV, you don’t need to be that ‘talent’. You just need to be the best version of YOU, and your PERSONAL VOICE is actually the attraction to YOU.
Shay Rawbottom, one of the leading LinkedIn video marketers, explained it best in one of our podcast calls:
Shay Rawbottom:
A lot of people in their storytelling on social media and in their marketing and their promotion make the mistake of thinking they need to be extraordinary to get the attention. It's actually the opposite. You need to be ordinary. The more ordinary you are, the more relatable you are, the more people are actually going to come in the door and think, "Oh, wow, this Itamar guy, I actually relate to him. He's talking about his family. He's talking about work life balance.
Maybe you share an experience of hardship in business, getting fired or having a rough exit. So many people can relate to that. That's not extraordinary. You didn't just go climb Mount Everest barefoot like Wim Hof, you're just ordinary, but that's actually more relatable. The storytellers and the influencers out there who try to be larger than life, "Hey, I'm amazing,” will actually get less sales because they're less relatable. I say if you feel like you're just a plain Jane, an average Joe, an ordinary person, that's exactly why you should get on camera, because so many people out there are going to relate to you, and they're going to see you from that perspective in these videos you create, and it's actually going to get them in the door to do business in a way that perhaps they never would have been curious about your business before if you didn't connect to them first on that human level.”
Itamar Shafir:
What you’re saying is be yourself, be the authentic self of you. What tips can you give to bring that out? People can say, "Okay, I'm ordinary, fine, I'll just talk about things,” but they still need to be interesting. What does it mean to be authentic? How would that help me?
Shay Rawbottom:
That’s a great question. There are a couple different paths people can take, and the reality is, we are all different. I always say for anyone who’s new to getting on camera, and you’re nervous, you probably don't want to start with trying to be raw and vulnerable, and share all your personal life. I totally understand that can be really overwhelming. Instead, what you can do, and this is something I break down in my program, is just be helpful. Ask yourself this: “What do I know, as an expert in my industry that my target market doesn't know, that would simply just make their lives easier?”
For example, my target market is anyone who needs help starting videos. They don't even know where to start. I could be helpful by making some content. “Here are five tips for writing headlines for your video content,” or “Here’s the ideal length of a video for the LinkedIn platform,” or “Here’s how to overcome your fear of getting on camera.” These are all things that are going to be valuable to my target market.
So, figure out exactly what it is that keeps your target market up at night. What are the FAQs? What are the frequently asked questions that people are confused about in your industry? Just start knocking down those objections in your video content. When you do that, you start to position yourself as an authority in that space. I don’t pitch, I don't ask for anything. I'm just simply giving away free video marketing tips, and at some point, people decide, “It’s time for me to do video. Who am I going to go to? Well, of course, Shay, she’s already been providing me all this free value on her blog, I'm going to go hit up her and her team, because they know what they're doing.”
Something else I’ve helped a lot of business owners overcome is this misconception that we all need to be professional on LinkedIn. We can't share anything personal there. We’ve all heard that emotions don’t belong in business. But emotions do belong in business. Maybe I’m a little biased because I'm a very emotional woman, and that's my edge. But I think at the end of the day, people do business with people, not businesses.
If you only talk about your business, you’re still going to get business. I have clients who are very private, who are very reserved, who work in corporate and have restrictions, who can't overshare or open up and be personal or opinionated, and they do still get business just doing the route I mentioned about being helpful.
However, if you want to really level up your inbound leads, I recommend you get authentic. I recommend you share who you really are and what you really believe in. People buy from people who believe in things, who stand for things. If you look at my content it's not always about marketing. I'll get on there and share my beliefs about things like why I think college is bullshit. I don't worry about all the people who are going to disagree and get offended and say, "Well, actually no Shay, this is my experience."
Using Curation System
There are online platforms that curate content for you from thousands of sources (such as Upcontent.com) which you can filter based on your interest categories, site preferences and more, and just get 10-20 content suggestions per week.
These systems also tell you how engaging this content is, how it’s trending, etc. These parameters make it easy for you to choose the content that is best to showcase NOW.
You share the content and write a small comment about it, which can be personal or business oriented. It’s a simple way to push content that you know will engage with the least amount of effort.
Scott Rogerson, founder and CEO of UpContent, explained this concept of showcasing content on my podcast:
Scott Rogerson:
How do we organically drive more traffic to these great pieces that we've already created? How do we grow the audience so that when we create the next great piece, there's a lot more people to look at that and we don't have to wait for the SEO curve to catch up with us? That's where curation came in for us.
We were initially manually going out and finding these articles. We would have Google Alerts that would hit our inboxes. We would have our favorite sources for each client we would go to and see what they put out each day. Read through it, have to get approval internally, have to get approval externally, and then do a lot of copying and pasting to get it into whatever social tool we were utilizing for our clients, whether it's Buffer or HootSuite or HubSpot or what have you. More copying and pasting to get it into an email newsletter. And then, forbid we ever tried to actually get that interesting piece in a “Here's what we're reading” section of the website or something valuable, because that required logging into WP admin and some people were afraid of letting us touch it.
Really, this is taking more time actually than writing the fluffier content. That's not great either, because these are third-party articles. So, is there a way to achieve true curation on a consistent basis, showcasing the authority and thought leadership? We came down to utilizing third-party content to create context for the content that you've created. That's a lot of C's. But that really was the focus of finding these third-party articles that are going to be engaging, going to be valuable for the audience, help to showcase that thought leadership saying, “Hey, you don't have to go out and find this stuff yourself, trust us as your service provider, as your advisor. The best thing is out there about the topics that you care about.
Then, when we put out the original piece, there was a greater audience, because we saw twice the engagement rate on these third-party articles. And then when we actually blended it together, we saw twice the conversions off the original pieces, because the audience is now bigger. That's what necessitated the creation of content, because then we needed to get it efficient and we couldn't find a tool to help us do all those steps efficiently, across different social media, different email marketing, different websites. Every tool we looked at said, “You can do those things, but you have to use our social media sharing tool and our email tool and our CMS to distribute that content.” It felt like we were settling on those distribution channels to get great curation. The focus of UpContent is great curation to support whatever stack your agency is using and your client is using without you having to switch between tools.
How to Get Testimonials/Case Studies When You’re Starting Your Agency
Scenario #1
Potential clients visit your site, they don’t see any proof you did a good job for anyone.
Scenario #2
Potential clients visit your site, they see case studies of how you generated success for businesses just like them.
Hmm…which scenario is more beneficial for you?
Yes, the answer is painfully obvious, and it could be painful to you, as you might not have any case studies or testimonials at this stage.
Buck up, we’ve got you.
Here is a list of ways to get social proof on your site and into your conversations.
Freebies - you talk with colleagues, friends, family and even your service providers (your dentist, mechanic, lawyer, lawn care company, anyone with a business), and you offer to do something small in exchange for a testimonial.
An example of something small would be writing a PR article about them and boosting it on Facebook, building a landing page, offering a few hours of free consultation, setting up a campaign, designing a deck, or increasing their reviews.
It might cost you a bit in tools/ads/time to deliver, but think of it as the cost of buying social proof and real experience.
Let’s say you allow yourself $100 in real spend per client. Imagine having five great case studies and testimonials to add to your site, talk about and refer to, and post on your blog…isn’t that worth $500?
Colleagues reach out - In your network you might have some colleagues or even friends and family that own a business or work as manager in a business.
Reach out to them and ask for a testimonial or recommendation. Obviously, they haven't worked with your agency yet, so the recommendation can be about you. For example, “John is great to work with. He is a professional in the true sense of the word. He doesn't take shortcuts and always delivers results.”
As you can see, this is pretty vague, but it’s a real recommendation from a real professional and can go into your CV just like it can go on your website.
Tell stories - You create a section on your website called CASE STUDIES. Do a one-page case study, a campaign you appreciate in your niche. It can be a large company or small one. You Google “best campaigns in [NICHE]” and you're bound to find something close, or go to the Facebook ad library and do some digging.
You write and post the case studies on the website, for the benefit of visitors that can now learn how to create a successful campaign like company X you chose.
If someone mistakenly thinks you did that campaign, well…
It’s very important NOT to claim something that you didn’t do, but telling a story always creates an unseen bridge between the story and the storyteller. In this case, the storyteller is you.
Mindset
The last section in branding is your mindset and conduct, which, again, represent you.
Having the right mindset is critical.
You are building a business to make money, but you can’t have that mindset when connecting with potential customers.
Your mindset has to be about the value you can provide to your customers.
“When you talk with a potential customer, think how you can generate $100,000 for them. Your income will be an inevitable derivative of your customer’s success”
– Yanik Silver, The Evolved Business.
Yanik elaborated on providing value when we talked on my podcast.
Yanik Silver:
I remember I had written a goal to become a millionaire by age 30. I wrote, "I get rich by enriching others 10X to 100X in return for what people pay me," and so that idea of providing value is huge. Thinking about that, and not “how do we take as much as possible?” but “how do we provide enough value?” Then the byproduct is just automatically that you're successful, and it changes your framework. Even as an agency owner, if you're thinking about, "Okay, how do I provide 10X in value to my client?" That's a different thing too. I think your questions really create your answers. If I'm constantly thinking about, "How do I create 10X value?” your output is going to be completely different than if you’re thinking, "How do I sell this to clients?"
You have to feel like that, and if you can’t, are you serving the right clients? Maybe I can't be excited by whatever that client is selling. That's okay. That just means that you have to go back and think about what kind of clients, and that goes back to niching or categorizing, and even this four-letter word, “Who can I fall in love with?” It's almost silly, but it's true. Could you love your clients, and what does that look like? Because if you can't love your clients, then maybe you have the wrong clients. If you're just looking at them as, "This is my $50,000 paycheck. I'll get through it," it might be the wrong client.
Itamar Shafir:
Exactly. I agree with you that it starts initially with you and your mentality. How do you project that when you're thinking about yourself, and you're going through the motion of telling them about themselves? Are you thinking about yourself or are you thinking about them? As you said, your success would be a byproduct of the value you provide to your clients.
Lisa Larter, business strategist and digital marketing expert, helps her clients formulate marketing strategies that support their business goals and objectives. She expanded on that on my podcast.
Lisa Larter:
The founder of a psychology practice called because she needed help with marketing to grow her business. I wanted to know how the business worked. I was looking for what the Heath brothers would call the bright spots. So, I literally made her pull out a calendar and write down her sales for every single day of the year, so I could see what was happening in her business.
I noticed a trend. Every so often there was a day where the sales were over $2,500, but most other days they were way below that. I wanted to understand what happened on those high-revenue days. I learned that on those days they were doing testing, which is a higher-priced item that leads to therapy.
Generic marketing wouldn't have worked for her, but specialized marketing, marketing to schools for kids that need testing, marketing to parents who have kids they want to have tested, marketing to pediatricians’ offices that are looking for psychologists specialized in testing, and positioning them as the best-in-class testing service in their city, became a differentiator that allowed them to grow. By understanding what was happening, we developed a strategy that has essentially helped her quadruple her business, and have multiple offices, and multiple clinicians.
By focusing, and really peeling back the layers, and looking at the business, and understanding what is the driver of the business growth, then you can align the marketing. If I just went in, and put a pretty little Band Aid on it, and said, "Oh, you need Facebook, and you need Instagram, and you need Twitter ads, and all that," it wouldn't have worked because we wouldn't have known the right thing to do.
If you conduct yourself as mentioned above, your personal brand will shine and people/clients will be attracted to you, because you will be caring, provide value first, and solve their problems.
Conduct
You are always a PRO. You show up on time for meetings, you look sharp, you’re engaged and focus on the person you talk with. You ask questions and really listen to the answers, and when you talk it sounds like you’re a partner of the business owner you’re helping. You are a TRUSTED ADVISOR.