If you’re an entrepreneur who wants to attract high end clients, you MUST avoid this classic personal branding and messaging mistake:
Destructive messaging.
Here’s an example.
If an entrepreneur wants to position themselves at the top of their category, they may use a destructive message like this: “I’m seeing all these people you know claiming to be experts, they are not experts. They don’t know what they’re talking.” This kind of messaging is not only lazy, it actually really HURTS your brand because it begins to generate negative or fear-based emotions in your marketing that you NEVER want associated with your brand or your message in any way.
In this episode of Power Play, I discuss why focusing on your competition is dangerous for women entrepreneurs, how to cultivate and protect your brand AND the three kinds of client-focused messaging that you want to engage with INSTEAD.
How do YOU focus on your clients instead of the competition?
Episode Transcript
Do not make this classic branding and messaging mistake when it comes to attracting high end clients into your business.
So, I was meeting recently with a group of my private mentoring clients. These are women entrepreneurs who are generating anywhere from multiple six figures to seven figures and revenues in their business.
As usual, we were talking about the strategy of really focusing on high end. When you focus on high end clients, you’re able to charge more, you have fewer headaches, you have generally fewer clients. You don’t need as many clients to maximize the amount of money you’re making. So you have a simpler less overwhelming business.
It’s a really great strategy for many women entrepreneurs. And so we were talking about messaging and marketing to attract those high end clients, and somebody brought up some examples of marketing messages that she’d been seeing recently on social media where essentially the entrepreneur was positioning himself or herself, I’m not sure who it was, positioning himself or herself at the top of their category by denigrating other people.
There’s different subtle ways in which this can happen. So for instance, you might see an advertisement out there that is: ‘oh, I’m seeing all these people you know claiming to be experts, they are not experts. They don’t know what they’re talking…’ sort of versions of that.
I’m sure you’ve seen messaging like this, and I’m here to tell you: Do not ever engage in that kind of destructive communication and messaging, it will not set you apart as a preeminent adviser. And it will not elevate your brand. It will only denigrate your brand.
So not only is elevating your brand by denigrating or undermining other people in your industry, not only is that lazy but it actually really hurts you for a couple of different reasons, but one of the primary reasons is because it begins to generate negative or fear-based emotions in your marketing that you actually don’t want associated with your brand or your message in any way.
The other thing is that by doing so you are making the classic mistake as an entrepreneur of focusing on your competition when where you really want to be focused is on your client and on understanding that client and on understanding their problems and challenges and on creating solutions inside your business that alleviate those challenges and provide solutions that generate true ROI. This becomes constructive marketing and messaging that adds to society rather than takes away from society.
So as I’ve said before in previous training videos if you’ve ever seen anything that I’ve done before, there’s really three different levels of client focused messaging that you want to be engaging in so that you can educate them, lead them to a solution and also establish yourself as a trusted advisor and a trusted expert.
So the first level is really by understanding and focusing on the problem itself that they are that they are experiencing, because the key to establishing yourself in that premier position, that top position, is not to put other people down in your marketing but it is to demonstrate to your client that you understand their problems and also P.S. their aspirations and you can articulate those problems and aspirations better and more clearly and more pointedly than they can themselves.
When you do that you build connection and trust which is always the aim of any communication that we do with other people. So Level One is to be able to understand and articulate the problem that they’re experiencing better than they can.
So for instance, let’s say you are a financial advisor and you work with entrepreneur clients, and maybe the problem that that entrepreneur is experiencing is that she hasn’t been saving enough for retirement. That’s a problem, because now she’s getting into her mid 40s and she’s like: ‘oh my goodness, I’m not saving enough.’.
So, you would want to articulate and talk about and describe that problem and describe those habits better than she can. If you can do that you’re moving into preeminent positioning for her.
The second level is to begin to talk about the impact of that problem and to describe the impact of the problem your client has on their lives and their futures better than they can.
So again, let’s go back to our financial advisor example. Let’s say that you’re working with those entrepreneurs, that’s your target. They haven’t saved enough, that’s the problem you’ve already described that. Now let’s get into the impact.
The impact of that problem is that they don’t have a retirement nest egg. And that is the challenge. Their nest egg is not big enough. That’s Level 2 communication. Now you’re starting to take your communication even to a deeper more preeminent level. You’re describing that problem and the impact of that problem better than she can. Now you’ve really got her attention.
Level Three is where you get deep into her psychology, her feeling, her emotion. It’s like you’re sitting across the table from her or him having a heart to heart. And this is where you begin to clearly articulate the emotions that are caused by that problem that they have and by the impact of that problem.
So let’s say again you’re that financial adviser. You are targeting entrepreneur clients who haven’t actually got a big enough nest egg because they’ve been pumping their revenue back into their business to grow it.
That entrepreneur maybe feels a little ashamed about it. Maybe they feel a little embarrassed about it. Maybe they have a lot of fear and anxiety about the fact that they’re not going to have a wealthy older age. I’m not sure what emotions would be there, but that financial adviser probably does.
And so that is the level of focus and attention you want to have. And you can see, you have no time or energy to be worried about your competition when you are that laser focused on deeply understanding your client. And when you understand your client in that deep way, it forges a powerful connection and that’s where you begin to position yourself in the preeminent top-of-mind space.
You are the go to expert. You are the trusted adviser. You’re messaging is on point. You are able to attract higher end clients. You are able to command higher fees. And you were able to secure more referrals and repeat business. And that is the recipe for a lucrative, simplified business that you enjoy and that does not overwhelm you.
All right I hope you enjoyed that video. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. And if you did find the video valuable, I would so appreciate it if you would share it with someone you think would benefit. See you around.