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Branding | Jerry Fletcher's Secrets of Small Business Marketing
A few years ago (2009) Simon Sinek wrote a book called Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action,
He spoke about it in a TED talk which kind of went viral.
In that talk he did a great job of publicizing the idea but never got around to describing how to determine your why or that of others. In 2017 he got a around to publishing Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team.
A dentist in New Mexico. Gary Sanchez saw that talk and became fascinated by the concept, worked with Sinek to find his own WHY and for five years worked out a manual system to figure out other people’s WHYs, their way of approaching life.
The Why Discovery is what he called it. It was slow, taking hours for each discovery and required a certified coach to help determine how to apply the findings in your life, in your team and in your company.
Now it is the WHYos. After years of the manual approach Gary taught himself computer coding and wrote a program that has proven to be over 99% accurate and only takes minutes when you take it online. Get it FREE. just let me know.
Learn your WHY, your HOW and your WHAT in minutes. You’ll have:
· A better grasp of how you operate as an individual.
· A better connection in every relationship
· A discovery of the joy of being fully engaged
Understand your brand. Once you discover your WHYos you will have a firm grasp of your purpose and the perceptions that make you unique. The consistency you bring to your relationships will make you more memorable and more profitable.
That’s what credibility to Cash TM is all about.
And so it goes.
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. and a Certified WHYos Coach. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences so you can take your business up a notch…or two. Get the Newslog at his consulting site.
The key element in building a brand across multiple platforms is consistency.
You cannot change the words and pictures willy-nilly. It is particularly important to say things the same way as often as possible because we operate in a digital world and the search engines use words to find things. Your Linked in Profile and your website must deliver the same message .They can thanks to Pro Brandr.
Digital and Analog
Both play a role in building your brand. Words are initially most important because they are how people and organizations are differentiated both by digital search and when a referral source needs to convey your capabilities.
Graphics are the main analog elements. Photos, illustrations, art and logotypes all can play a part in making you memorable. Visual elements of your brand can have enormous impact.
But words and pictures have to play together in each presentation and across mediums to be effective.
One of the greatest industrial designers ever understood this. His approach still makes sense today:
“People gravitate to products that are bold, but instantly comprehensible. Loewy called his grand theory “Most Advanced Yet Acceptable”—maya. He said to sell something surprising, make it familiar; and to sell something familiar, make it surprising.”
Raymond Loewy, Industrial Designer
Bold but instantly Comprehensible
Loewy practiced from the 1930s to the 1970s and some of his designs live on and are familiar today:
Air Force One livery Coca-Cola bottle and fountain dispenser Greyhound Scenicruiser bus and logo JFK postage stamp Logos for Exxon, Shell, International Harvester, Nabisco, Quaker, and the U.S. Postal Service
His iconic designs for aircraft interiors, railroad locomotives and automobiles are why we enjoy marvelous changes in vehicles today.
Surprising but familiar The element of surprise gets people’s attention. The familiar allows understanding. This is not a new concept. When the automobile was first introduced it was called the “horseless carriage.” Positioning for a specific market versus competition is best exemplified by “The Uncola” for Seven-Up. Or for the adults in the house, Miller High Life as “The Champagne of Bottled Beers.”
Familiar but surprising
We live in a world that is constantly changing. There are examples of this approach in every product category. For example, an automobile called a hybrid which runs on both gasoline and electricity. Once that truly differentiated the vehicle but now you have a choice of brands. Or how about foods that have Zero Calories. Sugarless desserts.
We need to quickly and surely put things into the matrix between our ears in such a way that we can first understand the item and then quickly recall it.
Impact at speed
Remember that when folks first come upon any new page on the internet that you have just 3 seconds to get your brand across. You have at most 15 seconds to connect with words a potential referral source can use to tell someone about you. Your graphics must connect with that part of the prospects brain that responds to emotion and has no words.
Your web site can serve up a great deal of the information you put into your Linked In profile but in greater depth. Make sure your visuals and words build your credibility to cash. Need help? Check out ProBrandr.
And so it goes.
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, a beBee ambassador, founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences so you can take your business up a notch…or two.
Just publishing on a host of social media platforms on a regular basis can make you more memorable.
Being consistent in one area of expertise can make you remarkable.
Delivering content in a unique way can make you outstanding.
Pick and Choose
You can’t be everywhere. You wouldn’t have time for the work that pays the bills. Your best bet is to find a way to use the same content across a range of social media. Working with my Virtual Assistant and some scheduling software we can post daily on Linked In, Twitter, FaceBook, Instagram and Pinterest.
The formats we use are video, quotes, questions and lists all of which direct people to my blog site. We chose to use similar formats plus PDF carousels posted manually for the introduction of ProBrandr that allows you to inject your brand into your Linked In profile in just one evening.
Being unique
Anyone can post in social media. The trick is to build up a following by displaying your expertise in a way that is different from everyone else. Here are three examples drawn from my work with elite consultants.
Leadership myths started out as a chapter in a book written by my client Jim Grew. When Jim was doing the usual round of radio, TV and podcast interviews to promote the book he noted that every interviewer and their audience was interested in the Myths, the short lessons on leadership.
We agreed to translate them into a series of weekly videos with a standard open and close with music. Jim looked straight into the camera and challenged viewers perceptions. Here is a link to Myth 149 When Jim semi-retired in January, 2022 there were north of 155 myths in the can.
Handwritten Economists Insights are the best way I can describe Bill Conerly’s regular reports to clients and prospects. Bill can handle well written approaches to the economy both overall and by sector as he is a regular contributor to Forbes.
He is best known for his abbreviated reports that feature short handwritten notes on the charts and graphs published by the US government. Take a look at his website to see examples scrolling up the home page.
At the Whiteboard In talking about an upcoming speech to be delivered virtually, my client, Frank McShane mentioned that he would prefer using a white board to illustrate his talk instead of using Power Point slides. His rationale was that he often used the technique in client presentations with great success.
His 30 minute presentation sparked a Q&A session nearly as long and almost a third of it was commentary on his choice of medium to make his points. We have built the standard open and close and selected the music for a video series called At the Whiteboard. View one of our tests here.
How are you going to be more memorable?
These are just three ways that consultants have found to go from Credibility to Cash. is there something in how you operate than can make you stand out from the crowd?
I can help you find it.
And so it goes.
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, a beBee ambassador, founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences so you can take your business up a notch…or two.
Recently, while developing my product called Brandr I realized that most folks don’t understand that Brand has three time components: Now, Later and Long term.
Now, the Short term
This is the part of branding known as brand Identity. It is made up of:
Name
Logotype elements
Graphics
Positioning Line
Although it contains visual and verbal elements It may also include other sensory triggers like a sound or a smell a color or a touch. Some examples:
The sound of a Coke being poured into a glass over ice.
The smell of Cinnabuns in a shopping mall
The green of Frog tape.
The way OXO kitchen gadgets fit the hand.
You can take all that in and build a memory in 3 to 5 seconds. Of course, that is literally all the time you have in today’s world. After that your target has moved on from your landing page or your self-introduction.
So much for Now
Later and long term are an entirely different story. Your brand is less about identity and more about the product or service. The way you and your company deal with customers or clients is key. It is less about what you do and more about how and why.
Brain Science
Our human brains naturally parse things into three categories:
What you do
How you do it
Why you do it.
The most important of these is why.
Why operates at the emotional level down in the oldest part of the brain where all decisions are made. That part of your mind is not verbally oriented and in fact does not understand words. It is attuned to feelings., That’s why when you can’t make a decision you will often say, “It just doesn’t feel right.”
This is where empathy resides and the basis for Trust. Logic doesn’t live here. To a great extent each of us have the ability to determine if our why matches up with, complements or is opposed to others. When we are compatible it leads to great teamwork, Trust and long-term acceptance.,
How is your process.
How is the way you get things done. If you are a coach active listening may be critical. Consultants need to know how to analyze problems in ways that point toward solutions. Experts need to demonstrate their knowledge in understandable ways.
Your how needs to combine both visual and verbal memory builders. One of my clients uses a white board to explain his knowledge of the complexities of Supply Chain in ways that make it understandable. Another is the repair person that dons booties over their shoes when they enter your home. Or the computer technician that makes sure your view of operations on the computer doesn’t change while explaining what she is doing step by step.
What do you do?
That question demands an answer in words and is the one we ask first in most cases. Words that paint a picture will serve you best. That’s because we are visually oriented. The letters in our languages are evolved from pictographs and carry some hidden visual meaning in most cases. That’s why we prefer stories to lists and videos to step by step directions
Credibility to Cash
Combining Visual and Verbal in the Now , Later and Long Term will allow you to build an enduring brand.
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, a beBee ambassador, a BeeKonnected ambasador,founder as well as founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences so you can take your business up a notch…or two.
You are going to have a brand whether you want one or not.
Some consultants say that you’re only as good as your last success.
That’s true as far as it goes.
Some believe your brand is about hiring a graphic designer to make you look good.
Not a bad idea but only as good as your brief to her/him.
Others hire branding consultants to find a way to tell their story.
Again, considerably useful but not the complete narrative.
Brand, is not what you want it to be. You can present your case. You can use graphics that set you apart. You can declaim your differences in words that flow gently or stridently. You can muster staff and close ranks. You can posture and pose.
But in the end your brand will be the combined perceptions of all who have been exposed to you.
There are three major phases to your branding:
Brand Identity
Your vision for your practice leads you to select a name. With that in hand you seek out a graphic designer to find typography and art that reflects what you want people to think of you.
You are striving to be memorable. Within 15 seconds of receiving your card or landing on the home page of your website the initial perception of you will be formed as will the language used to refer to you in subsequent conversations with other business people.
With a little luck you can become memorable Just don’t assume it will happen automatically or that the initial perception won’t change.
2. Back Story
You find that you need to build a web site and materials for sales and marketing of your services not to mention report formats and word heavy documentation of what you do. Case histories and client quotes can help tell your story.
Within the curve of your growth as a consultant you will need to establish what makes you and your organization unique. That is done by developing a consistent approach to all the elements that lead to trust. Extreme variation will make prospects question your honesty. Lack of imagination will push them to look for alternatives. Being true to your word will move you toward unforgettable but the major factor in that assessment will come from outcomes desired by clients.
3. Battle Hardened
You enjoy multiple engagements and find that you really can help businesses with the concerns and problems they are having.
Suddenly, you are viewed as indispensable. Clients turn to you for advice on every part of their business. Honesty about the extent of your capability and a willingness to find resources that can solve the problem put a shine on your brand.
And so it goes .
For a few of you that find a way to change the way your clients think your brand will go from Credibility to Cash to Legendary.
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, a beBee ambassador, founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences so you can take your business up a notch…or two.
Without change we would be out of a job. Change is perceived by clients as a problem and they go looking for someone to solve it with expertise or experience they don’t have. We wind up working with them for a single engagement or, over time, for either multiple, linked engagements or just providing services in a single expertise on an ongoing basis.
Most of my interactions with clients are in the latter category. I tend to stay with clients for a while. I’ve worked with a current client now for over 25 years, celebrated a ten-year anniversary with one and I’m coming up on 3 years with another.
I still do singular encounters when I believe I can be of real assistance within the client’s time frame. I’ve come to the conclusion that Contact Relationship Management is no longer an arena I want to work in. Why? Management doesn’t understand it and more importantly does not understand that tasking sales-people with upkeep is a losing proposition.
For the future
I’m shifting my emphasis so that I will offer these services:
Marketing Consulting for consultants and coaches (Solopreneurs, Partnerships and Ensembles short and long term)
Strategic Marketing Counsel for entrepreneurs and start-ups
Speaking on topics that make individuals and organizations more memorable and more profitable. (Keynotes, Breakouts and Trainings for associations and businesses)
NEW Products that offer quick and easy branding, positioning and sales development. Example: Consultant Brandr for Linked In which allows you to inject your brand into your Linked In Profile in just one evening.
NEW The Credibillity to Cash Junto (named for the group Ben Franklin formed– a continuing conversation about establishing and maintaining your six-figure practice—a mastermind group limited to just 8 consultants that want to take their business up a notch.
Proven Publishing
That means I will continue publishing information on what works and what doesn’t in Marketing in general and consulting in particular.
Blogs I intend to publish blogs both in the USA and internationally on a regular basis every two weeks at a minimum. The topic will continue to be Consultant Marketing and will cover subjects from Practice Management to promos, PR and Premiums. The emphasis will continue to be branding across all the media available and how to move from suspect to prospect to client.
The Newslog, newly named Credibility to Cash will continue on a weekly basis. The new version will have the same information in an article, a video and an audio as requested by the current recipients. The first quarter for 2022 is in production now
The annual Consultant Marketing Survey is now in the field. This year’s results report will be available by New Year’s day! Sorry, no results tabulated as yet so I can’t provide a single finding! And yes, we will do it again next year.
Speak your Way to Business Riches A step-by-step guide to Get Booked, Get Heard and Build Your Business is in first draft. Look for it as a print on demand book from Amazon about the end of the first quarter. (Junto members and Newslog subscribers may receive webinar invitations as well as chapters in PDFs prior to publication)
In all we do in the coming year, the emphasis will be on showing you how to move from Credibility to Cash.
And so it goes.
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, a beBee ambassador, founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences so you can take your business up a notch…or two Sign up for the unique audio/video/article Newslog here.
You decided to put your consulting career on the front burner. You decided that it is time to make that side hustle your full-time job.
Two considerations.
You need to think about two things that will make or break you. I’ll bet neither have managed to tap you on the shoulder so far. If you’re like most, you are too excited by the potential in front of you to consider these factors. Those important items that are eluding you are:
Team
Technology
Before you marshal your arguments, listen to my tale of woe.
Team
The crew you work with was probably assigned to you. Or, rather, you were assigned to it. As your career progressed you were moved from team to team. You may have decided to change companies but once again you were assigned to a team. With experience you were moved more and more into leadership but seldom if ever did you select the people on your team. At best you took on the responsibility of selecting individuals from within the organization to put into teams.
Now you are engaged in building a company. Any business coach or attorney will tell you that you need to have a business entity. No matter what form of business you decide on and no matter what title you assume, you, for the first time possibly, will be the one calling the shots. You will Have to think about teams differently.
Solos don’t have teams
That was my contention until a client pointed out that I had a group of suppliers that I worked with all the time. We were comfortable handling projects together, each of us doing what was needed, each connecting seamlessly to get things done, each a solid member of the unit that wasn’t formal but still functioned by any measure as a team.
Even then I still held that the best thinking came from individuals not teams. I cited all the geniuses of the arts and some of the discoveries in the sciences as “obvious examples”.
Not long after that I was trying to convince the man who has now been a client for a decade that moving from doing turnarounds as a CEO or COO to Leadership and Management Consulting was significantly different and that he did not have a team in place to handle the shift.
Teams can trump persuasion.
I pointed out that That when you have C-suit initials as your title, employees have to follow your orders. They may resist, citing long standing team approaches, but long term they must acquiesce. As a consultant you don’t have that power. You have to convince, persuade, cajole and sway them in any way you can to be effective. And the team you have in place whether they work for you full time or on a 1099 can and will impact your efficiency.
Nobody can do it all alone.
At least not the ones I’ve come across. That was a hard lesson. It took me over 20 years to figure it out. And I was still left with a hole in my knowledge of how to select, build and lead teams starting from scratch. Like a lot of people I searched for answers. I had worried my way through just about every assessment tool you can imagine starting as a beta tester on an early one back when I worked in Denver.
Technology wasn’t the answer.
There were a couple problems with the assessments:
The person you were evaluating had to take the assessment for you to get any kind of real fix on them.
The training requires that you use the labels assigned by the assessment on a daily continuing basis to use it to your greatest advantage.
I found very quickly that I had to become some sort of new millennium astrologer to begin to get any use out of all the time I’d put in studying the assessments. Unfortunately my Mars in retrograde got wrapped around the axle of the conflicting moons and I found myself fizzling out dodging detritus circling Saturn even if I had the code for a people connection.
Maybe their Why is the answer.
I learned of a new piece of Software the other day. It is called the WHYos and will introduce on November 15. I went to the WhyTechnology website to learn more. I tried the free trial and in a matter of minutes was rewarded with the assessment’s view of my Why.
“Why” is associated with Simon Sinek.
He wrote a book called Start with Why back in 2009. He may be better known for a TED talk which can be seen here. He made the world cognizant of what made some individuals and organizations stand out from others. Because of Simon Sinek, a dentist in Texas began searching for software that would allow him to optimize his why.
Dr. Gary Sanchez’s WHY is to find a better way and share it. HOW he does that is by making things clear and easy to understand. WHAT he brings is simple solutions to help people move forward. He and his Team have worked with hundreds of thousands of individuals, as well as thousands of companies from small yoga studios to Fortune 500 Companies helping them get clear, stand out and play bigger.
I didn’t know I was looking for that piece of software.
But I was.
I didn’t realize what a difference it could make.
Now I do. I tested it.
I was never quite sure what drew me to trying to find a better way in everything I do.
Now I understand.
Why.os is changing my life.
It will change my product launching December 15 called Linked In Brandr which guides you step-by-step to inject brand into your Linked In profile in just one evening. It will make it possible to base your brand on your why. The product was good before. Now it is great.
And so it goes.
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, a beBee ambassador, founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences so you can take your business up a notch…or two. Sign up for the unique audio/video/article Newslog here.
It was good to hear how the little golf product company he founded was doing. He has come a long way from when we met in his kitchen to put together the promotional material for the annual Golf Pro Trade show for the USA.
He had already committed to that show when we started working together. It was only one of the areas he needed advice in. Like most entrepreneurs, particularly inventors, he had no idea of what it takes to start a business from the ground up.
Marketing Consultant/Start up Consultant
I came onboard because he wanted a marketing consultant. Very quickly I turned into a start-up consultant. He had worked through and solved his production problems in way that turned out to be scalable. He was handling fulfillment personally pulling, assembling, packaging and shipping product on an as needed basis.
Sales was how he tested whether the product was something that would work in Golf Pro Shops. On-line marketing was being tested, but not in an organized way.
I squired him through getting a distributor sales organization, acquisition feelers from several companies and finally finding a pro to handle his on-line marketing.
These days he tells me he is negotiating a new distributor deal that includes fulfillment and has come to the conclusion that being able to dial advertising on Facebook up and down to manage sales is what he really wants.
Video is what sells is what he believes.
He asked me to respond to some of his ideas generated by comments on his ads and social media. His ideas (did I say he is an inventor?) tend to take comments about alternatives to the product seriously. None of the alternatives were shown side-by-side with his product in his ideas. Then he kept wanting to add things to the product like speaking digital readouts etc.
What does the product get the buyer?
I stopped him in the middle of how he could measure the degree of deflection between a direct line to the hole and how an individual putted the ball. My response was “So what?” Knowing the degree of deflection doesn’t mean diddly if I don’t know how to correct it. If I read the directions on the current product I’ll be able to see exactly how off I am without having any fancy digital sensors. I’ll be able to correct my putting and practice the perfect stroke. I’ll be able to take strokes off my game which is what I want.
The sound is the promise.
Somehow we found ourselves talking about why golfers would buy his product. It all comes down to sinking putts of any length. We were envisioning a dark screen like a golf course green in the twilight. He talked about a point of view video on the putter and ball as it is stroked, following the ball and then seeing it fall in the hole. I told him that vision was nice but it was no good without the sound effects. The putter clicks when it hits the ball. The distinct sound of a golf ball falling into the cup is unmistakable to a golfer.
The 3 second sale
I pointed out that when someone lands on your web page or clicks on your ad you’ve got no more than 3 seconds to get their attention, become memorable and build desire for your offer. Three seconds.
The speed of sound
You can recognize a sound in one half of one second (0.05 seconds). More importantly, for branding purposes, auditory reaction time is four times faster than visual reaction time. Hearing is the fastest of our five senses.
“Sound isincredibly powerful because of the speed at which you can capture your audience’s attention and ‘cement’ your brand in their mind.” — Gary Vaynerchuk.
I told Dave that the sound of the golf ball falling in the hole should be his singular audio brand component. Sound can sell his product. That sound is why a golfer will buy. That sound is the payoff for every golfer.
Imagine if you will
Video: Point of view (POV) Camera looking down on putter lined up on ball
Putter strokes ball.
Sound: Click of ball being putted (SFX)
Video: Fade through black to product at same angle as putt.
SFX: Ball dropping in hole
Video: POV product demo once with deflection once corrected
Cut to product logo
SFX Ball dropping in hole
Video: Super order link
Product logo
SFX Ball dropping in hole
All that can be done in less than 15 seconds.
And so it goes
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, a beBee ambassador, founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences so you can take your business up a notch…or two.
If you are a consultant it is a pretty good bet that you have a profile on Linked In.
How credible does that profile make you to your prospects? Here’s a simple way to evaluate that will take just minutes.
What to consider.
People, I’ve been told, do not give you a lot of time when they come across your information on any page on the internet. The last research I saw said you have 3 seconds to get their attention and brand yourself. Three seconds!
So you have to first stop them and once you’ve done that maintain their interest and provide the information they are looking for. Here’s the short list of considerations:
Stopping Power
Maintaining Interest
Answering their Questions
Let’s take those one at a time.
Stopping Power
If your Linked In profile looks like this you are in trouble:
We live in a visual world. If you want to stop people you need to take advantage of every bit of visual stopping power Linked In offers. The absolute minimum is a headshot. Consider also:
Using the first panel of your website home page as the background.
A photo in the background that shows you in action.
A photo in the background that shows product(s) you are associated with.
The addition of your company logo to that background
Your name in that background.
A positioning line in that background (like a headline)
Combinations of the above.
Maintaining interest
Why are they searching on Linked In? In all likelihood, someone gave them your name or they came across it looking for an expert in a specific industry or they have heard about a specific skillset you have. You have to speak to their concerns and interests in their terms in order to keep them in your profile.
Your name Start with your name. Use the name you are known by amongst colleagues and people that might refer you. Do not use an initial for your last name. Initials are okay, however, if you regularly use them. If folks call you DJ or JJ or BZ then use that moniker but include your last name.
Your title Since most consultants are independent professionals operating as solos (nearly 70% in our last survey) you can call yourself anything you like. But instead of massaging your ego consider what that prospect is looking for. Do you think they want one of the “normal” titles like President or CEO? Research shows that they want more of a positioning statement that fits with the expertise they are looking for. You have space to use a positioning line, a generic/industry descriptor for what you do and a normal title.
Here’s an example from one of my clients:
Answering Their Questions Whatever brought them to your Linked In profile in the first place will now come front and center. You stopped them with professional looking graphics. You intrigued them with a positioning line that will get them to read further.
There are different approaches prospects take from this point on. Some will read everything on your profile. Others will say, “That’s who I was looking for, How do I get in contact?” As consultants we know the men and women who have the clout to hire us don’t have a lot of time. So why do so many consultants make it so hard to contact them?
There is a reason the words Contact Us are in blue. Unless you’ve been kidnapped and held incommunicado for a decade you know that clicking on that phrase will get you a way to contact the profile owner.
Yes and no. In a random check of that capability I found that 90% of the profiles did not include a telephone number. Many of them had only the Linked In Profile listed. You need to make it as easy as possible to contact you. Prospects want to know how to connect NOW
Here is what Jim includes:
What you say on your profile is important but these three things will make you one of the few that stand out.
And so it goes.
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, a beBee ambassador, founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences so you can take your business up a notch…or two.
It was only the third time this year. My expectation from the run-up back and forth with various staff members was that this would be a well-managed professional event.
It was. The gal at registration recognized me. She was delightful. The tech in the room was completely efficient. His first question was, “Any change in the slide deck?” I said, “No.” He then efficiently got me into a lavaliere microphone, did a sound check handed me a slide clicker and declared me, “Good to go.”
That’s when things went off the rails.
I sat in on a couple sessions before mine. One was being done by an acquaintance. His topic was: How Brands Can Use NFTs To Engage Consumers And Generate Revenue. (an NFT is a Non-Fungible Token, a unique digital asset that utilizes Blockchain Technology)
Like the preceding session the introducer basically read the session topic, the presenters name and their company name from the printed agenda card. That was it.
You have to introduce yourself.
Each of the speakers I watched had to use the first 2 minutes of their 30 minutes on stage to introduce themselves. I was bemused by the way they crammed all sorts of data on a slide: Name, Title, Company Logo, Web address, E-mail, Social media they were involved with, where they were published and seemingly any kind of social proof they felt gave them existence.
The first line of “Sympathy for the Devil,” Rolling Stones (1968) kept running through my mind:
“Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m a man of wealth and taste. I’ve been around for a long, long year, stole many a man’s soul and faith.”
Whether you are a Stones fan or not you have to admit these lines are memorable.
An introduction sets the stage.
For some reason events primarily directed to digital professionals eliminate solid introductions and in doing so lose benefits to the speaker and the attendee.
A good introduction sets a positive tone, generates enthusiasm and interest. More importantly, sone properly it can make a clear case for why listening to the speaker is more beneficial than grabbing a cup of coffee. A memorable introduction engages the audience and convinces the audience to listen to the speaker.
A good introduction will accomplish three other objectives:
Focus the audience attention on the speaker transitioning them from their current actions or thoughts.
Enhance the credibility of the speaker personally or by citing social proofs.
Make a promise about the presentation that creates intrigue and a need to “hear it from the horse’s mouth.”
A self-introduction is never as powerful.
Yes, you can introduce yourself powerfully in networking situations. That is what 30-Second Marketing is all about. Or you might like this video.
The fact is, we trust others more than we trust an individual presenter to perform an introduction. Second party information is given more credibility. The human mind does not like hearing someone “Toot their own horn.” And so introducers are used at most speaking events. And in order to accomplish the objectives of a good introduction, most professionals write their own and, in some cases, rehearse the introducer persuading them to read it as written.
Here’s the self-introduction I resorted to:
I’m Jerry Fletcher.
I’m a Master of Consultant Marketing.
You know how people keep telling you that you have to be memorable but nobody tells you how to do it?
Well, what I do is work with individuals and organizations to develop unique trust-based strategies to build businesses, brands and lives of joy.
I’ve been doing it since1990 and stopped counting successful new product introductions at 207 and individual branding for consultants at 147 at last count.
Today I’m going to tell you how to go from Credibility to Cash in the New Normal.
The audience stayed for the entire session laughed at some stories and gave me a hand at the end. I’d like to think this digitally oriented, just give me the bullet points audience learned that no matter how they would like it not to be true, the analog human mind controls all acceptance, belief, trust and purchasing.
Like to see it?
I’ll be doing that speech virtually for IMC NorCal on October 5. Sign up here if you would like to see it.
And so it goes.
Jerry Fletcher is a sought-after International Speaker, a beBee ambassador, founder and CEO of Z-axis Marketing, Inc. See Jerry’s speaker demo reel.
His consulting practice, founded in 1990, is known for on and off-line Trust-based Consultant Marketing advice that builds businesses, brands and lives of joy.
Credibility to Cash TM is his latest way to share experiences to you take your business up a notch…or two.
